An Elevator Is Not a Car, and Other Life Lessons
By Bruce Goff
I was tired. The elevator was in front of us. The car keys were in my hand.
And then I did it.
“Did you just try to open the elevator with the car remote?” my confused wife asked.
The doors stayed shut. Because it's a car remote—not a magical elevator opener. Clearly I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing.
But not paying attention in marriage isn't always funny.
The natural trajectory when coasting isn't toward marital bliss, it’s toward subtle destruction. Messing things up comes so naturally to me, I can do it with my eyes closed. With the wave of a snarky comment about that still full laundry basket, I can make my wife’s happiness vanish and our oneness with it.
You'd think I was some kind of magician.
I’m not though. I'm like everyone else. I've got sin at my core and it brings death to my marriage. That is, if my sin goes unchecked.
It's like what John Owen wrote, “Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.”
But I’m a fool if I think I can kill it on my own. That's like bringing a car remote to a gun fight … in an elevator.
My only hope is God killing my sin for me. And since my sin is at my core, I need what the Apostle Paul talks about in Galatians 2:20:
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
If God let me coast, I’d coast straight into hell. But the cross is miraculous, and it opened the door to new life.
The last thing my marriage or I need is to only point my own efforts (or a car remote) toward my sin. By God’s grace, I need to point my sin to the cross.
The Good Stuff: For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:10-11)
Action Points: Ask your spouse about any sin of yours that might have missed your attention. Point your sin to the cross, i.e., daily confess it and ask God to help you repent and trust Him. Memorize Romans 6:10-11.
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