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A Wedding Story

First of all, let me say greetings to all of you out there. I have been MIA for an unreasonably long time. No excuses. My apologies. Enough of that. I have something to say...

There is a program on TLC called A Wedding Story. It follows couples as they get ready for their much-anticipated wedding. You get the individual backgrounds on the bride and groom. They tell you how they met and how the proposal happened. And we, the viewing audience of insatiable voyeurs, watch as they prepare to saw their vows.

What I find interesting is the difference between how the brides prepare themselves and how the grooms prepare. Months before the wedding, the brides hire personal trainers and go on strict diets. They have appointments for dress fittings and cake tastings, etc. On the day of the wedding, there is a series of beauty treatments including, hair styling, mani/pedis, waxing, eyebrow arching makeup applications and on and on and on and on. Interspersed through the scenes of the bride's flurry of activity, we usually see shots of the groom playing golf with his friends and having a good time right up until it's time for him to put on his rented tuxedo and walk down the aisle.

I think it is hilarious how much more time and work and planning goes into the bride's preparation versus the groom's.

Then it hit me. Isn't the Church the Bride of Christ?

YES. (See Revelations 19:7-9)

So then, if we are the Bride of the ultimate Bridegroom, what are we doing to get ourselves ready for our "Wedding Day"? What is our wedding story?

In truth, we met our Bridegroom on the day that we were born. We've known Him our entire lives. Or at least He's known us. And He loved us so fiercely that when He proposed, He actually shed His blood as a sign of His willingness to sacrifice Himself for us. And as Christians, we said yes. We accepted His offer.

Therefore, we ought to be in wedding day preparation mode. Everything we do should be purposely designed to be ready for that day when we are presented by our Father to our Bridegroom. We ought to be preparing by getting to know our Bridegroom through spending time with Him and learning about Him through His word. And we ought to be getting ourselves ready by making sure our garment is spotless and free from even the tiniest spot or wrinkle of sin.

Therein lies the inconvenience of it all. The continual preparation. It is tedious at times. And terribly inconvenient. The truth is many of us (myself included) forget about our wedding day because we don't have a set date. It seems intangible; so we think we have time. But time is running out.

Our wedding day is closer than we may want to believe. May none of us be caught unawares.

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