I have seen the postcard of Peggy’s Cove. The lighthouse looks enormous, the sea is glass, and there is not a soul in the picture. Then you arrive and find a lighthouse, some rock, and a parking lot full of people. The photographer did his job well. He simply did not photograph the whole thing. We do the same with marriage. We collect snapshots from our parents, our friends, and a hundred posts online, and we build a brochure in our minds. Then we marry a real person, and reality is smaller than the picture.

Naaman brought a brochure to Elisha’s door. He had it all arranged in his head. The prophet would come out. There would be a ceremony. A hand waved over the place. Instead a servant came to the door and told him to wash in a muddy river, and Naaman went away in a rage. Notice his own words, behold, I thought. Those three words are worth listening for. When you hear yourself say them about your husband or your wife, you have found an expectation you never spoke out loud. And when the anger rises, you have found it a second time. Anger rarely means your spouse failed you. It usually means you were expecting something you never said out loud.

Here is what our flesh wants. We want the expectation met. We want the spouse changed. Scripture points somewhere else. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5). He had every right to be served, and He came to serve. He carried no hidden agenda, no if I do this for them, they will do that for me. The way out of disappointment is not a better brochure. It is a lower place. In lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves (Philippians 2:3).

So love becomes a choice, made again this morning and again tonight. Charity suffereth long. Charity seeketh not her own. That is not a dead way to live. Service makes room for the deepest affection you will ever know, because it stops demanding and starts giving. Marriage was never a ready made photograph. It is a picture you paint together, and it turns out better than any brochure, because it is real, and because it is painted with grace.