calling and permission

I love going to weddings, especially for the people in my life who I know have spent more time planning for their marriage than for the wedding day.

All of the excitement. The unique expressions of their love and commitment to one another. The beauty and the fellowship with friends.

I also really love hearing what the pastor has to say during the commissioning. Usually I can't remember all the good nuggets of stuff (I always feel a little uncomfortable whipping out a handy dandy notebook to jot stuff down) but one thing that was said at the wedding I went to on Friday (congrats to Sarah and Micheal - hope you are having many happy honeymoon moments) really struck me.


The pastor told Sarah that her calling came from God but her permission to pursue it comes from her husband. Any feminist reading this is probably disgusted, heck if I had been in a slightly grouchy mood I wouldn't have liked it either but since I wasn't in such a mood I was able to appreciate the freedom in what was said. Yes we are accountable first and foremost to God but since God's word makes it pretty clear that spouses are meant to be one flesh it is illogical to think that he would lead the members of this one flesh in a way that tore them apart so in submitting the details of how we pursue our calling to each other we can help avoid doing good things that are destructive to our lives together.