Pastors, remember your wedding day.
Surely you’ve officiated plenty of weddings, but do you remember your own wedding day? And I’m not asking if you remember what kind of flowers decorated the ceremony. (Roses! We had roses. Someone please tell my wife that I knew that random fact.) And I’m not asking if you remember all the food and the fellowship. Or the order of service in the ceremony.
What you ought to remember is this: the most important thing that happened on your wedding day. You made a covenant. You made a covenant promise before God, your wife and witnesses that you would, by God’s grace, love your wife until death do you part. Feelings of love come and go. Your marriage can’t be fueled by feelings. It can only be sustained when you elevate your covenant to God and each other over your feelings and emotions.
Remember the unbreakable promise you made. As far as I know, you made no covenant or vow when you took over your pastoral position, but you did when you wed your wife. Don’t neglect her. Remember your wedding day.
Pastors, embrace the church together with your wife.
Just like the other members of your congregation, you need to have people in your life who know what’s going on in your marriage. Walk in the light. Don’t fake it with the church and don’t encourage your wife to “just get it together” in public.
Be honest about your struggles. Open your hearts up to the people around you. Allow your wife to be a healthy church member and not a woman who is placed on a pedestal for all to stare at. Allow your wife to have healthy friendships in the church without the fear that she’ll expose you for being an imperfect husband and pastor. Together with your wife, enjoy being a part of the church you shepherd.
In summary: Love the Lord with everything you’ve got. Love your wife. And together with your wife, love the Bride of Christ.
