Bo Giertz on Love and Marriage

Cross-posted here from Rev. Johann Caauwe's blog, A Shepherd's Story:

The fact that we can fall in love is a gift from God, but it has to be handled according to God’s will. The natural avenue to a marriage is through falling in love deeply and seriously.

Love is more than falling in love, however. Falling in love can be very powerful and overcome many obstacles. As long as it lasts all one can see is the good points of the one he loves. However, that’s not a tenable basis for marriage. Falling in love seeks its own objectives. It expects happiness by owning the object of its love. It naturally expects that happiness exists when you own each other. Then the problems come, however. The romance cools down. That’s when true love shows its worth. You see a lasting marriage isn’t built on infatuation but on love. God’s intention isn’t that you should be happy by getting something for nothing, by and through another person. God’s intention is that you experience happiness by making somebody else happy. Marriage contains the greatest mission in life: to be useful, a blessing, to be supportive and helpful to someone else, with whom God Himself united you to be able to fulfill just that mission. The idea is that we two, who now are one, should grow together in a devotion to each other that doesn’t seek its own objectives, but instead finds its happiness in being able to give and to share troubles, obligations, responsibilities, and decisions.

To Live with Christ: Daily Devotions by Bo Giertz, devotion for the Monday after the 20th Sunday after Trinity. CPH, 2008.