In the last several days, I read a couple other things which I thought were worth passing on:

Date night: Not the key to a healthy marriage

This article, Don’t put your hope in date night, highlights how folks may rely too much on (or advocate too much for) date night as the key for a healthy marriage. It isn’t the key, though some may find it helpful. This resonates for us, as from time to time we’ve almost felt guilty that we don’t find date nights very helpful or very practical, at least not on a very regular basis.

Valentine’s Day: A redeeming side?

In general I’m not a huge fan of Valentine’s Day. I see it as a fake holiday largely created by greeting card companies, flower companies etc. in order to sell things. (Fortunately, my wife agrees with me, or that’d be a major source of conflict.) However, Albert Mohler had an interesting discussion of the positive aspects of it the other day (scroll to “Part III”), including this aspect:

So the love that our society is celebrating on Valentine’s Day may be, it certainly is, a very imperfect love. It may be, and of course it is, a very inadequate love. Sometimes a very superficial and surface level love. It is often an unfaithful love, but at the same time it points to a yearning in the human heart for a love that doesn’t fail, for a love that is faithful, for a love that does endure, for a love that isn’t merely superficial, but is ultimately and eternally real.

Mohler points out that this longing for a love which never ends points to the love of God for us as expressed in Christ:

If love never ends, what kind of love is that? And if it doesn’t end, why does it not end? And the answer has to be that love never ends because the love that never ends is the love of God who is eternal. He has no beginning. He has no end. And the love that never ends, never ends because it is God’s love that never ends, because God’s love is not merely something He does. As the Bible makes clear, God’s love is who he is.

Christians understand that that love does not come from nowhere. Its source in the one true God. Its beginning is in the intra-Trinitarian love of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit for each other. It then is in the love of God for the creation that He has made. It is in the love of God for fallen sinners through Jesus Christ, His Son whom He loves.

Repentance – some thoughts and tests

Desiring God has a good brief article on repentance which addresses marks of godly sorrow. It’s worth a read. I find, and I try to teach my kids, that whenever someone corrects us or points out something we’ve done wrong, a variety of wrong desires and impulses naturally rise within us. We want to question their motives, point out how they do the same or worse, etc. All of these are ways of deflecting the criticism or not taking it to heart, but the Proverbs speak of this abundantly – such reactions are the mark of a “fool”, one who despises correction and wisdom. This article touches some of the same notes – will we receive correction and take it to heart, and truly repent? Definitely worth a read.