Friends With Benefits... No strings attached!

“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).

She is a woman of experience. When you look straight in her eyes you can tell that she has been through a lot. The kind of person you wish you would sit down with, on a rocking chair, in front of a fireplace, sip on hot chocolate on a cold winter, and listen to all the stories about her crazy and fun young days. Her 65+-year-old body, wrinkles, and lazy eyes do not trig you to do anything else but hug her. Her husband, you might say, must love her to death. I looked at a picture of her and her husband that hangs from the wall in the living room, and thought, “Man, I would give anything to have a long-lasting happy marriage like. They must be married for decades.”

But very few things in life in fact are what they seem to be. “We have been married for about 11 years”, she said. “He lives in his house, and I live here. He has his own car, and I have mine. He cooks for himself, and I cook for my own. He hates to do laundry and iron his clothes, so I do for him… but I charge him. The thing is, Sergio, that it’s so annoying to have a person with you all the time. You know?” For a second I completely understood and was in agreement with her –Seriously, some people are just annoying. But during the following second I thought, “He is your HUSBAND for crying out loud!”

“So, are you guys fighting?” I asked. “No”, she replied calmly and with a smile. “Ever since we got married we have lived like this. We see each other once or twice a week. On the weekend we see each other at church, have lunch together, and in the evening we go out on a date. At night we usually come back to my apt, do what we have to do like any other married couple. I was paralyzed for a few seconds, probably with my mouth wide-open, cause my mind was thinking something that I would consider impossible for them to perform at their age, but then again I didn’t want her to give me the details so I kept quiet.

She continued saying, “Perhaps watch a movie afterwards, and at the end of the night he takes off back to his house. That’s usually our routine.” Wait a second, I thought, this sounds familiar. Yes! “Friends with benefits!” I said loudly in my head. “No strings attached!” The difference between them and these other couples are a couple of signatures on a legal note. “It’s better this way, Sergio. I don’t have to deal with his crap, he doesn’t have to deal with mine (I don’t know if she was speaking metaphorically or literally, but I, once again, kept quiet); and we are both very happy with the situation.

I couldn’t help thinking how sometimes our relationship of God is so similar to the relationship this couple have. We see Him, we meet Him, we like Him, we “fall in love” with Him, so we get married with Him through baptism, but don’t even go to a honeymoon with Him. When I asked my friend if they at least went to a honeymoon with her husband she asked, “What is that?”

After the wedding, we went our separate ways. God went back to heaven, and we went back to our house. But even though we don’t spent time during the weekdays, we make sure we spend a WHOLE day with him on the weekend. Instead of Him coming to our house, we go to His. We sing to Him, we smile at Him, we listen to His word, and we even share a meal together. In the afternoon we might take a nap, but in the evening we go out on a date, perhaps to a nice place where we can see the sunset. We smile at Him, give Him a big hug, say our goodbyes, and say, “It has been an awesome date today. See ya next week!”

He gives you a hug back, and whispers, “I… Love…. You… So much…”

Perhaps angels witness, once a gain, a tear rolling down His cheek…

So… What king of marriage do you have with God? What kind of relationship do you have with Jesus? How much do you really love your Creator? How often do you spend time with Him?

The five foolish bridesmaids that couldn’t get into the marriage feast did not enter for one and one reason only: The bridegroom did NOT know them (Matthew 25:12).

Do you want to be friends with benefits with God? No strings attached?