“And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment…” is the beginning of a prayer found in the 9th verse of the first chapter of Philippians.
Paul is praying for the early church in Philippi. When I first discovered this prayer years ago, I knew I wanted this to be foundational for every prayer I uttered for April and me. More than anything else—health, wealth, safety, lasagna—I wanted our love to be the sustaining force of our lives and marriage.
As I saw it, if our love abounded more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, it would carry us through those times when we didn’t have health, wealth or safety. When bad lasagna hit, we could deal with it.
It sounds like I’m speaking of the romantic love between April and me. Certainly that aspect of our love has been filled with chills, spills and thrills. Suffice it to say Paul isn’t speaking of romantic love or ‘eros.’
Paul uses another Greek word to describe this kind of love. It’s the word ‘agapao,’ which simply means ‘selfless love.’ He’s exhorting the church members of Philippi to allow their selfless love for each other to grow more and more.
Can you imagine participating in a marriage in which both husband and wife are thoroughly engaged in being entirely selfless with each other?
Sounds like a pipe dream, right? You’re thinking a married couple has as much chance of reaching that utopia as they do reaching the top of Mount Everest without an argument about stopping for directions.
April and I fight, argue, get angry or become disappointed with each other. In other words, we’re like every other couple who shops at Walmart, eats pizza regularly and forgets anniversaries.
Yet, our marriage has reached heights Mount Everest can only wish for. Keep in mind—the bar was set very low when we started our journey together. But the blessing of a stronger marriage happened for us because God and I worked together. However, all I did was be persistent in the asking. Praying was my only input. That’s important to understand.
God did the heavy lifting. Imagine two movers emptying a house. God would be the fellow carrying the grand piano to the truck. I would be the guy carrying the sheet music to “Three Blind Mice.”
For His own good reasons, God answered my adoption of Paul’s prayer. When I survey mine and April’s back trail, I’m amazed at what I see. The beginning was two youngsters in their early twenties who became husband and wife without any idea of how to do that successfully. We were like two peas in a pod who had no idea what a pea or a pod was.
Our history of a married couple fits perfectly into the model Jesus describes in His ‘easy yoke’ discourse. Even before we were married, April and I had come to Him as He directs in verse 28 of Matthew 11. We were two people who unequivocally had placed our trust in Him.
But we hadn’t yet taken His yoke upon us and learned from Him as He instructs in verse 12. The result for April and me in the early years of our marriage was ‘weariness and heavy-burdened.’ (verse 28) We ran the horrible risk of creating a marriage in which we both simply existed, in which we created coping mechanisms in order to survive marriage struggles.
Those struggles arose mainly because we were both self-centered. Let’s return to the prayer of Philippians 1: “may your love abound still more and more…”. God answered that prayer by transforming our hearts to become more and more selfless.
Selflessness is key to the concept of the ‘easy yoke’ Jesus promises in verse 30: “For my yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Neither April nor I would return to the hard yoke of a self-centered marriage. Why would we when we can bask in the easy yoke of a selfless marriage?