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Have you seen the movie Jerry McGuire?
It’s not a fabulous movie, but it is an interesting tale of failure, betrayal, brokenness, humility, integrity, loyalty, courage, love and redemption. Jerry is a great example of a poser. A puffer fish extraordinaire. He is also an example of someone who walks through brokenness and comes out the other end a humbler and better man.
A fairly prevalent theme on many fronts throughout the movie is “redemption”, including a very moving scene when Jerry returns to his wife after she had suggested they separate because of his seeming lack of for her. He comes back early from a road trip to profess his love and his need for her. He then utters a very simple line that has become a popular belief within North American culture as an indication of a fabulous relationship:
“You complete me.”
This romantic turn of phrase seems profound, powerful and a sign of true love, but it’s not true. Not only is it not true, but it is a dangerous belief. Your wife doesn’t complete you – Jesus does.
Does your wife add another dimension of life and the heart of God that you may not have experienced without knowing her? Sure. Are you joined together with your wife as one – no longer two? Yes.
However, you and I are only made complete in Jesus. We are made whole in Jesus alone.
It was first said by Blaise Pascal in 1670 that, “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person, and it can never be filled by any created thing. It can only be filled by God, made known through Jesus Christ.”
If we buy into the Hollywood lie, “my wife completes me”, then we will look to her for life. We will look to her to meet our needs. This is not a good basis for a relationship. We end up bringing our needs to our wife and take from her instead of giving to her. We will look to get instead of give. She will inevitably let us down, resentments will begin to grow, divisions will appear, relationship will suffer and if not dealt with, marriages will break apart.
That deep place of need we all have, that relentless inner longing for life and love, can only be filled by Jesus. Can your wife express aspects of the life and love of God to you? Definitely. Is there much you can receive from your wife? Absolutely. Are you overwhelmingly grateful for who your wife is and how she gives to you? Hopefully. But you cannot look to her to meet your needs, you must go to Jesus. Will Jesus work through your wife to touch your heart? Yes, but your expectation must be in Jesus.
We have been called to love our wives in the same way that Christ loved the church and laid down His life for her. We are called to love our wives with a love marked by giving and not getting. If we will consciously shift our hearts to look to Jesus to meet our needs, and love our wives by giving selflessly, then we can simply receive whatever love our wives have for us and not measure their responses by some deeply felt expectation that inevitably they will not meet.
Look to Jesus to meet your needs. Allow Him to complete you, and out of His love working in you and through you lay your life down for your wife. Lay down your expectations of her to love you the way your expect her to. Lay down your expectations of her to be the wife you were hoping for. Surrender your expectations to Jesus and look to Him to work in you, then through you in a way that enables you to love your wife selflessly.
If you are able to live and love selflessly you will realize you wife’s love in a way that previously you couldn’t. Release her from the expectation that she somehow needs to complete you. Love her with a love marked by giving, not by getting – and the only way you can do that is through Jesus.
Jesus completes you, not your wife. He is your source of life.
Ephesians 5:25 (The Message)
“Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church-a love marked by giving, not getting.”
John 14:6
“I am the Way the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Philippians 4:19
“And my God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”
John 4:13
“Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.'”