The Pot Luck, The Rose, And The Weed

A “pot luck” meal is usually a joyous occasion। Friends and family come together and everyone brings a dish. The thing that makes a pot luck so great is that everyone tends to bring their best dishes. You bring your best dish because you want people to enjoy it. You want people to be pleased. You want people to go home talking about how good your dish was. Everyone brings something to the table and everyone shares. No one leaves hungry. No one leaves unsatisfied. Everyone comes with the intention of feeding everyone else. So, everyone eats. Just think, if everyone only came to eat for themselves, then no one would be fed. Everyone would leave hungry.

Most people tend to come into marriage this way। They come in hungry only looking to see what’s good for them to eat. When they think about marriage, they only think about what they want their spouse to bring to the table. They think about what would “make me happy.” “What would please me?” “I want a husband who…” “I want a wife that…” “If my husband would only…” “If my wife would just…” Obviously, if you are only thinking about having your own appetite satisfied, then ultimately, no one will be truly fed. When ever I ask young couples what they want out of marriage, they always tell me what they expect their spouses to do. I always ask them what they expect to bring to the table. What do they plan to serve their spouses? You want a happy marriage? What are you going to do to make it that way? Pot luck principal: If everybody brings something to the table, then everybody eats. You have to go into marriage expecting to feed the other person.

As in a pot luck meal, everybody can’t cook as well as others. It takes time to learn how to prepare a proper meal. It also takes a desire to learn how to cook. Sometimes, you will be the only one doing the cooking. Sometimes your spouse will. That’s life. But, it all balances out over time. The thing is, just as in a pot luck meal, marriage is about giving your best. Bring something to the table.

A rose is a beautiful flower. It looks good to the eye. It feels good to the touch. It smells good to the nostrils. But, a rose is fragile. If you don’t water it just enough, it withers. If it doesn’t get enough sunshine, it withers. If the soil is not just right, it withers. It takes a lot of time and energy to keep a beautiful rose garden. But, in the end, the result is worth it. The same can be said for a beautiful marriage. The time and energy put into it is worth the results.

Another view of this pampering of the rose is found in comparing its fragile nature to a weed। A weed doesn’t need watering or just the right amount of sunshine or even the proper soil. It keeps growing no matter what you do to it or what you don’t do for it. You can dig it up…It comes back. You can poison it…It comes back. You can step on it…It comes back. A weed doesn’t give up. It refuses to die. Sometimes I think we need more “weed” marriages and fewer rose marriages. In most marriages today, like the rose, we are ready to give up at the slightest provocation. One of the silliest reasons is the “We have grown apart” excuse. Be like a weed, fight for your relationship!!! Weeds don’t give up. Like a rose, a marriage is fragile, beautiful and precious. Like a weed, it also has to be tough and unyielding to defeat.

A rose is beautiful. If you reach out to the top of it, you touch a beautiful, fragrant flower…A joy to the touch, the eye and the smell. But, if you reach just a little lower, you grab a hand full of thorns. That’s the way it is in marriages. If you reach for the highest point in each other, you touch the beauty. But, if you reach lower, again, you grab a hand full of thorns. The only way to reach the highest point in your spouse is to give the highest point in yourself. As Jesus said, “It is better to give than to receive.” But, again He said, “Give and you shall receive.”