Do you have a marriage with a view?
We’re not talking about a view out your window. It doesn’t matter if you see mountain vistas or sunrises over the ocean. All these are grand, but they don’t compare to the view of which we speak.
A healthy marriage must have this view in order to stay the course through hardship, through temptation, through sin and great disappointment. A healthy marriage must know that no matter what they are currently seeing there is hope for a better view.
Do you have a view of eternity?
There is a day coming when all our struggle with sin will cease for we will be home “in the place for which we were made,” as Randy Alcorn has said. Heaven is our home. Our best days here are but a foretaste of what is to come. We have a future and hope because we have a Heaven and Savior who is ever interceding on our behalf. He is orchestrating all the events of our lives in order to bring us safely home to Him.
It may seem He is distant, but He has promised He is closer than we know.
Do you believe it? Do you need a fresh reminder of His nearness and His dearness? Then let this post serve as a reminder of the Truth. It is a Truth that passes all understanding, which means you don’t have to understand it in order for it to be true.
Our God is great. He is glorious. And one day He will return for His bride whom is preparing for that glorious day where she will meet Him without spot or wrinkle. Now that will be a wedding to remember, and oh what a view!
Charles Spurgeon from his Morning and Evening devotion book for July 12th said:
‘My soul has tasted of the grapes,
And now it longs to go
Where my dear Lord His vineyard keeps
And all the clusters grow.
”Upon the true and living vine,
My famish’d soul would feast,
And banquet on the fruit divine,
An everlasting guest.’”
This is the vineyard we are longing to see, and the only reason our vineyard here has any fruit to offer those who come by for refreshment in their own vineyard.
How is the view from your marriage? Can you see eternity?
_________________________________________
Don’t forget our Summer Lovin’ Photo Contest taking place now through Labor Day. For details click here.
_________________________________________
This is post #13 in the Ultimate Blog Challenge to post everyday in July.
The Romantic Vineyard 
Thanks for your post Debi, always inspiring. Yes, I have a view for eternity for both my marriage and my family. I recently realized that the bible encourages us to always look at the bigger picture, the eternal rewards. My favorite scripture is Matt 6:25-34, which shows us to always expect the best from God despite our situations. I have the same view when there are minor ripples in my marriage.
May I ask, have you monetized your blog? Or do you find it inappropriate for a Christian blog? What do you do for a living.
LikeLike
Hey Walter,
It’s nice to hear from you again. Thank you for being a regular reader and commenter here. We love having feedback and getting to know those who are stopping by.
We love the Sermon on the Mount, and esp. this portion of it. As to monetizing our blog–we have talked about ways to make a living with The Romantic Vineyard, but this hasn’t been our goal really. We started because we were giving marriage counseling at our church and realized there was a need to feed the positive side of marriage in an effort to help marriages grow healthy and strong before the problems got so huge serious trouble was unavoidable. We realized all marriages face trouble, for this is where God matures us, but some of our struggle can be avoided by making wise choices and seeking input from other godly marriages to learn how to do things in a biblical, God-honoring way.
That said, we have been surprised at how God has used our blog, and we are oh, so grateful. I am a writer and have been devoting most of my time here and on a soon-to-be released novel based on the life of my grandmother. Tom is a Business Development Manager with a company who provides national parts distribution and service to commercial kitchens everywhere. But our passion is and always has been to help marriages grow.
We don’t find it wrong to monetize a Christian blog if this is something God is calling someone to do full-time.
LikeLike
Thanks for your response Debi. I got to know of this great blog from my lovely wife who has been your follower for the longest time. I always love leaving feedback on great posts.
Thanks for your response on what you do for a living. I pray that God blesses all that you do. I pray that your novel will do well and that God will continue using you powerfully to reach out to some of us across the seas in different parts of the world.
About monetizing a Christian blog, I am thinking of creating one soon and have been gathering a lot of inspiration from you. As you have seen from my scripture above, I believe that seeking the Kingdom first should be my first goal. Having been a disciple of Christ, a blogger and a writer for some time, I think it is high time I used my talent for a blog dedicated to Christianity.
I thank God for you and your husband for being continuous deep motivators to my wife and I. We have an awesome, awesome marriage.
LikeLike
Walter,
You are too kind. Thank you for your encouragement. And we say go for the Christ-focused blog. The more voices out the declaring the Truth, the better. Do you live in Kenya? Just curious based on your e-mail address.
Tell your wife thank you for being a regular on The Romantic Vineyard too. We absolutely love the community God is building here.
Debi
LikeLike
Debi,
I give God all the glory for what he does in our life and who he allows us to meet.
Yes, I am Kenyan and live in Kenya. You must be talking about my blog which I use as my website for commenting http://freelancerkenya.wordpress.com/. I use that blog to mentor other upcoming Kenyan writers. It is doing so well.
My wife deeply appreciates and says that she is a very big fan of your blog. She mostly shares your posts and emails them to friends.
I’ll keep you posted once I set up my Christian blog.
LikeLike
I love the way you write and the truths you bring to your reader so easily. The view from my marriage is pretty good right now and eternity can come at any time!
LikeLike
Thank you so much for sharing your view with us. 🙂
LikeLike
You are always an encouragement… I appreciate it.
LikeLike