?...thorns

Madison Prewett is a contestant on The Bachelor. For those of us who don’t know how the show works (myself included until I did research for this article), a single bachelor meets a pool of eligible women. He then eliminates candidates, culminating in a marriage proposal to his final selection. During the process, a one-on-one date with a candidate is a significant step forward for her. Thus, when Madison secured such a date with Peter Weber (this season’s bachelor) in last Monday’s show, she needed things to go well in order to stay in the competition. 

This is what she told him: “Faith is more than just this passed-down thing to me, it’s literally my whole life and all of who I am. I want, in a marriage, someone who also has that relationship with the Lord and loves that about me and wants to raise a family in that way.” 

Of course, ABC cut out her spiritual confession. 

In the network’s preview for the next episode, Prewett also says she is saving sex for marriage. “If he sleeps with anybody else, it’s gonna be hard for me to continue to move forward,” she added. 

Let’s hope Prewett keeps embracing her faith as the show continues.

Did Geoffrey Chaucer invent today’s holiday? 

Valentine’s Day, as everyone knows, is named for St. Valentine. Except we’re not sure which one. 

Valentine of Rome and Valentine of Terni were both early Christians who died for their faith.  However, according to legend, St. Valentine of Rome signed a letter “from your Valentine” to his jailer’s daughter, whom he had befriended and healed from blindness. Another legend says he defied the emperor’s orders and secretly married couples to spare husbands from war. 

In AD 496, Pope Gelasius marked February 14 as a celebration in honor of St. Valentine’s martyrdom. However, Geoffrey Chaucer may have invented the holiday we know today. In a poem he wrote around 1375, he linked a tradition of courtly love with the celebration of St. Valentine’s feast day—an association that didn’t exist until his poem received widespread attention. 

Who is most likely to have a “very happy” marriage? 

Despite the confusing history of St. Valentine’s Day, the connection between Christians who died for Christ and lovers who commit themselves to each other is an appropriate theme for today. 

In a postmodern culture that has redefined marriage and continues to embrace polygamy and polyamory, it takes more courage than ever before to defend what the Bible says about marriage. In a day when sex before marriage is accepted by 70 percent of society, it takes courage to wait until marriage. 

Scripture doesn’t change with our changing culture. 

We don’t really break God’s word—we break ourselves on it. 

The family and society are devastated in family as a resulting of the postmodern rejection of objective truth and biblical morality. Unsurprisingly, a recent study shows that Americans who have slept only with their spouses are the most likely to report being in a “very happy” marriage. Conversely, the lowest odds of marital happiness belong to women who have had six to ten sexual partners in their lives. 

It takes courage to stand for Jesus and live by his word. 

But such courage leads to his best in this life and the next. 

And his best is always best for us. 

“Not in my bow do I trust” 

As we celebrate romantic love today, let’s turn to the God who is love (1 John 4:8) for help in living and loving according to his will. 

I was reading Psalm 44 recently and was struck by the psalmist’s admission, which is just as true of our spiritual salvation as it was of Israel’s military salvation: “Not by their own sword did they win the land, nor did their own arm save them, but your right hand and your arm, and the light of your face, for you delighted in them” (v. 3). 

As a result, we should say with the psalmist, “Not in my bow do I trust, nor can my sword save me” (v. 6). And we should make public our love for the One who loves us: “In God we have boasted continually, and we will give thanks to your name forever” (v. 8). 

Even when it seems that God has forsaken us (vv. 9–25), he has not. We can pray, “Rise up; come to our help! Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love!” (v. 26). And he will.

“We love because he first loved us” If you’re married, today is a great day to ask your Father to help you love your spouse joyfully, sacrificially, and uniquely. Amy Carmichael was right: “You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving.” 

If you’re not married, today is a great day to ask your Father to help you choose personal purity. Charles Spurgeon testified: “To be free from the power of sin, to be made to love holiness, is true happiness.” 

And as our culture celebrates romantic love, 

let’s celebrate the One who gives us “every good and perfect gift” (James 1:17) and whose Spirit produces the fruit of love (Galatians 5:22) so that “we love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). 

Dr. Seuss wrote: “A life with love will have some thorns, but a life without love will have no roses.”

What roses has God given you?

-jim denison