It has happened since the beginning. It used to come up less frequently. Maybe at dinner with some family, a friend’s wedding, a random night out. Now, it seems to happen more and more. Thursday afternoon while watching TV or walking the dogs in the morning. It is becoming more and more common for me to come to this realization:

My wife is a lot cooler than I am.

She is cooler in many ways. Some of the ways rear their heads more often than others, but in a massive and all-encompassing way, she is by far out of my league.

This humbling thought process results in a few different things. Sometimes, it makes me truly feel blessed to be around her, to have even the opportunity to be seen eating fast food with her. Sometimes, it makes me wonder what it is about me that she likes…that she loves…to the point that I worry I may screw it up at some point. Sometimes, it makes me become introspective, looking into the moments of my life spent with her, and making sure that I am using them to give her the love that she so truly deserves for sticking it out with a guy like me.

But one thing that I try never, EVER to do is take her for granted. Any man truly living out a good love story will tell you that forsaking any part of it is the quickest way for it to sour. Coming into a place where this most amazing of relationships is seen as routine or the norm softens the edges of something that should forever remain sharpened and penetrating.

A marriage lived out as the fullest expression of love can only hope to survive in its power if both people involved realize its true potency.

Rewind a bit. Replace all the times I wrote the word “wife” with “God”. Replace all the common pronouns with formal ones. Do this because our relationship with any person in this life, even a spouse, can only ever hope to capture a glimmer of the degree to which love is expressed in our relationship with the Father.

So why are we so quick to forsake our relationship with Him?

If we spend such huge amounts of time making sure to milk the most of every moment with those we say we love, why is it alright for us to put God onto a shelf save for once a week…when we profess to want nothing more than a relationship with Him?

God is out of our league. Far, far, far out of our league. His fingers have crafted creation and His heart has bled for humanity. If we are not responding to that with our greatest devotion and worship, then we are melting the power God wants to have into our lives into a mold we have made out of seeing Him as routine.