the proper feelings and reactions in my life. I remember a conversation I had wth my wife during our court ing days. She volunteered her life making me happy. That sounded good to me! Imagine anybody want ing to spend her life making me happy? I told her I'd be willing to do the same for her. But actually, we had both lied to each other. The whole thing collapsed the first week we were home from our honeymoon. Some of the fellows I ran with be fore I was married had planned a ski trip for the next week-end. I very happily told my wife the plans I’d made with them. After all, this was her first chance to make me happy. Do you know what was her reaction ? “Oh, no you aren’t. You’re married now!” It really dawned on me what I had gotten into. One of the impor tant things about marriage is that it made me conscious of how self- centered I was. While I may have meant what I told my wife in that I would devote my life to making her happy, I discovered stronger drives in me. I was determined to get what I wanted. And my wife wanted the same for herself. It was only natural. The first couple years of our mar riage were pretty stormy. We fool ishly spent all our time trying to out- maneuver each other. How foolish when we should have been building a life together that would be mutual ly agreeable and binding. I thought maybe parenthood would help. Per haps this would unlock all those good qualities which had to be in me. Along came a baby which I envi sioned would be nice, warm and cud dly-soft. In s te ad I discovered it smelled and had a reversible stom ach. Sometimes it yelled all night. Some nights, when I couldn’t force my wife to walk the floor with the child, I had to. It made me very mad. Parenthood didn’t transform me, and certainly didn’t do much for my character. This is how I came to real ize that I needed a Saviour. Only God
P art F our T here is a wonderful reminder for us in II Corinthians 4 :7 that tells us “we have this treasure (salva tion) in earthen vessels that the ex cellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” The Spirit of God indwelling us is a treasure. Remem ber that at one period of his life, Paul was an evil man and a mur derer. He vented his hatred on Chris tians seeking to eradicate them. What happened to this man? Was it some sort of social reform he had experienced to change his objectives in life? No, he had been completely transformed through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is why what he received from the Lord was re ferred to as a treasure. This doesn’t mean wealth in a monetary sense. Make no mistake. Contentment and money don’t go together. You can’t buy happiness and satisfaction. Recently I bought a brand new Oldsmobile which is a beautiful car. The car annoys me, however, be cause the windows rattle and the car creaks. I told one of my friends about this, and he listened quite sympa thetically. It seems he has a 1970 Cadillac which refused to start a few mornings ago. When he called the dealer they responded, “We’ve got so much work around here we can’t possibly come up for your car. Get a tow truck service or a wrecker to haul it in.” How frustrating after all the money he’d spent! We did a lit tle crying on each other’s shoulders. I was in a new $60,000 home re cently. The furniture was perfect and the location was tremendous. The thing that bothered my hostess, how ever, was that one of the windows stuck. She spent all her time telling me about that nagging aggravation. Wealth doesn’t do much for one’s character. It simply reveals it, not causes it. At one time I thought maybe mar riage was what I needed. I wanted to find someone who could stimulate 12
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