A boy from the south side of Chicago meets a girl from the Ozarks of Arkansas, and they live happily ever after. That is my life story.
As my wife and I approached our wedding day a week after our college graduation, we had a lot of love. We didn't have any money to match, so we prayed for our own little wedding miracle. We were also heading into full-time Christian ministry, and there was not going to be much income from it. So we prayed that God would lead people in buying gifts for our wedding that would provide what we needed to set up housekeeping. We didn't need a lot, but we couldn't even afford the basics.
We prayed that there wouldn't be much duplication in the gifts. Well, there was hardly any. It was amazing. We received one of each of the things we needed, except we got four teakettles. Don't ask me to explain that. You could do a gospel quartet with them. As we opened the presents, it looked as if God Himself had shopped for our wedding gifts. We got everything we needed because one wedding Guest made all the difference.
John 2 of the Bible says, "On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to him, 'They have no more wine.' ... Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, 'Fill the jars with water'; so they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, 'Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.'" They probably thought, "I don't think he's interested in water." But "they did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. ... This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed in Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory."
Notice what brought Jesus to Cana that day...a marriage. Notice, too, that He did His first miracle at a wedding. Maybe your marriage could use a miracle right now. That day in Cana there was a change that no man or woman could make. Nobody can change water into wine, but Jesus did. There was a need that no man or woman could ever meet, but Jesus did.
Maybe right now, some change is urgently needed in your home. There is a need that must be met if your relationship is going to be what it needs to be. Maybe it's time for a marriage miracle. Right now there's strain, distance, resentment, and frustration. Maybe there are thoughts of bitterness, and giving up.
Have you gotten on your knees together yet? Have you prayed to the Lord—pouring out your mess, your pain, and your dark feelings? Have you cried out together for Jesus' healing in your marriage? The less you feel like doing it, the more you need to make that a priority.
If your partner will not pray with you, don't let that stop you. This passage says Jesus had been invited to this wedding...to this marriage. Why don't you invite Him into your marriage? Close the door to leaving or quitting. Ask God to show you the hope factors that you can build on. You have looked at the hopeless factors enough. Can you pray this? "Lord, we can't make it work, but we beg You to do what we can't do in this marriage."
Two thousand years ago, in the midst of a marriage, Jesus met an impossible need with His supernatural intervention. Today, the scene is set again with you and the one you have promised your life to.