The ongoing challenge to align our perception of marriage to the reality of life and truth.

As a team of marriage counselors, one of the biggest challenges we constantly face is helping couples accept that their current perspective is out of alignment with reality.  My favorite analogy is the fighter jet pilot who has just completed several barrel loops and twists through low visibility and suddenly has to make a decision: will he trust his feelings, emotions, and instincts that have him absolutely convinced that he is flying right-side up, or will he trust his instrument panel that clearly show he is flying upside down?[1]

Of course this is not unique to Christians, and all of humanity is challenged by this chasm that exists between perception and reality. Physical blindness is a dramatic representation of this plight and Isaac Lidsky has an articulate description in his Ted Talk including a child’s understanding that fish can swim backwards. Indeed, our feelings and emotions carry significant weight in how we perceive our world, and especially our marriage. At any given time, we default to rating the quality and strength of our relationship on the latest interaction with our spouse.

This battle between emotions and reality is universal. God has recognized this ongoing dilemma, and He gives us a full and accurate instrument panel for navigation. Here are a few of the gauges:

  • A compass of eternal perspective that begs us to extrapolate ourselves out of the current and project our orientation to the eternal.
  • A full fuel gauge of unchanging, never-ending stream of unconditional love, grace, and mercy flowing from One who laid His life down for us.
  • An altimeter in the form of His Word that measures our ascent from the kingdom of self up to the Kingdom of God.
  • A speedometer through the Holy Spirit that helps slow life down to better pursue patience, kindness, faithfulness, and self-control.
  • An odometer of Christian community to help measure the growth in sanctification that happens gradually through consistently practicing spiritual disciplines.

Left to our own devices, our upside-down perspective leads to death.  But praise be to God who rescues and redeems us from the low-visibility flight path our emotions assure us are right.

How will you more fully trust God’s Word this week over your own senses?

[1] I’ve come across this analogy several places, but I believe the first time I heard it was from Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy.