Wake Up, Look Up

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hello everybody thanks for listening to

wake up lookup a podcast that we connect

events happening in real time to the

Gospel of Jesus Christ I'm Zach wrock

and in today's episode we're asking the

question will we grow old together

growing old together is a popular kind

of aspiration for married couples it's

one of the points of marriage right is

that you're committing your life to

someone uh who will grow alongside you

and be there for you in your weakest and

most fragile and final State there's

something inspirational and romantic

about a couple aging well together but

increasingly in our culture marriage is

kind of being thrown away uh people are

increasingly making the choice to

cohabitate or to live together and

without the Covenant commitment of

marriage that's seen as a little out of

date by the way we we see this in

overwhelming numbers with people kind of

under the age of 40 more and more uh

couples are choosing not to get married

and even if marriage is an eventual goal

they're seeing living together as a kind

of trial period for whether or not

marriage is a good idea but it is not

exclusive to the younger generation in

fact right now in America we are at a

record high with something around 1.1

million people between the ages of 65

and

74 cohabitating with their partner and

choosing not to marry them and what's

interesting about that is is that it is

causing a lot of problems you see

marriage is not just a spiritual

institution although it is most

fundamentally that I mean it came

according to Genesis 2 from God himself

it is God's idea it is God's design but

it is also a societal function when you

marry someone you are saying to the

society at large in a permanent fashion

this person is connected to me it opens

up a lot of possibilities like filing a

joint tax return or end of life

decisions or uh inheritance property

sharing Financial sharing information

disclosing there's a lot of like

practical things that come out of the

idea that you can say to and about

another person this is my committed

lifelong partner when you cohabitate you

are intentionally choosing not to say

that you are deciding you don't want to

give it that level of scrutiny the

problem is of course that the government

recognizes that and as a result refuses

to violate your privacy so as aging

couples who live together navigate end

of life decisions care decisions

financial decisions what they are in

increasingly finding is that uh actually

that doesn't work with their living

situation that assisted living

facilities or hospitals or financial

planners cannot give the latitude to a

person who's not your spouse because

after all you can't just go around

saying you're someone's special person

and that gets you access to their social

security number or to their bank

accounts for a whole host of pretty

obvious reasons but what's even more

interesting than the logistical problems

is that the Aging people who are

cohabitating are in fact saying they

don't care in fact the article that I

read in the New York Times had different

people saying the whole reason I'm not

married is I don't want to commit to

caring for this person when they cannot

care for themselves if I marry them I'm

obligated to that but if I don't marry

them I can simply move on and this is

bringing out something that I try to

tell younger couples and now older

couples who make the choice not to get

married but to cohabitate you're making

that choice for a reason you see God

tells us that marriage is a husband and

wife leaving their families and forming

a new family the Bible will say what God

has joined together let no man separate

it's the idea that there's a covenanted

commitment here which means then we can

begin to make decisions in plan assuming

that that other person will be there

assuming that they are committed that's

what God is telling us is that you

actually need that Assumption of

commitment because life is going to

throw you in some pretty difficult

circumstances but when couples make a

choice not to get married it's for a

reason either because they're keeping

their options open or because they're

not sure about you or because they don't

know if they want the responsibility and

everyone assumes that's okay because the

next 5 years the next 10 years the next

whatever is going to be disturbance free

I'll be healthy so it won't matter that

they don't want to take care of me I'll

make financially wise decisions so it

won't matter that they don't want to

share money with me I'm going to stay

attractive and be interesting so it

doesn't matter that they're not sure

they want to commit to me but what these

aging couples are finding out and

increasingly so are younger couples is

those reasons do matter I mean I've sat

in my office before with couples that

are refusing to get married and I'll

just ask question why aren't you getting

married yet and they'll say things like

I'm not sure if I trust her I'm not sure

if he's the best I can do and what I'll

say to them is don't you see that the

reason you shouldn't be committing to

each other the way you are is not

because you're breaking some biblical

rule but because the things you just

said about each other are pretty awful

and you need to work through those

before deciding if you want to commit to

each other this is yet another example

example that God's design is about

leading us to what's best God is not out

to limit us to keep us from happiness

God Is providing a safe environment in

which we can flourish so if you're

currently in a relationship whether

you're in your 60s or your 20s and

you're refusing to get married ask

yourself why why are you making that

choice have you dealt with that reason

and then ask yourself why am I finding

it so hard to trust God God not you

knows what's best for your relationship

hey thanks so much for watching this

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