Since I’m from Philly, of course that means I’m a Sixers, Eagles, Phillies and Flyers fan, by default. I never understood how you’re not a fan of your hometown sports team no matter how many times they let you down (like 5 NFC chip games under Reid but only 1 Super Bowl appearance) or how bad they suck….You still gotta be a fan.

So with all of that being said, I realized during last year’s game against the Lions just how bad the Philadelphia crowd was booing Vick. And it took me back to when we first signed Vick and a RACK of Philadelphians were ripping up their season tickets and saying they’d stop being Eagle fans since they signed Vick and everybody was boycotting the man. But then next season after McNabb left and Kolb got hurt and Vick came in and had his “redemption season” ALL of those people (and I do mean all) who were booing Vick a minute ago were all of a sudden cheering him on!

Not to mention, that season you couldn’t even buy a Vick jersey because every spot was sold out! But fast forward two years and we’re right back to the boos and the hatred. And why do we do that? Because as sports fans, our love and support is based off of what our team and it’s players are doing for us right now and I realized that’s what a lot of us do in our marriages.

If our wife/husband is doing the damn thing and making us happy, then we love ’em, support ’em, cheer ’em on and everything else. But the second (and I do mean second) they stop meeting our expectations, we’re done with them. We start talking trash about them to our friends, they’re the worst thing that happened since the plague, we’re asking God why did He curse us with this person, etc.

And that’s where we’re making our mistake because our wife/husband isn’t our favorite sports team or player, they’re our spouse and our help meet! And if you keep treating them like your favorite athlete, you’re setting them and your marriage up to fail. Why? Simply because your spouse is going to make mistakes. They’re gonna fumble the ball. They’re gonna make bad decisions. It’s inevitable and a lot of us (myself included) think (or have thought) that your spouse is going to be perfect…FOREVER and there’s absolutely NOTHING further from the truth! So we gotta start cutting our spouses some kinda slack.

It’s the exact same premise as a music fan. I’m a huge fan of The Roots but I can’t front, I didn’t love their last album “Undun” but guess what? I still brought it. Now most folk would call me crazy, like “why are you spending money on a CD you don’t even like?” And the answer is because I’m a “true fan” of the group, and even though this last album wasn’t like “Illadelph Halflife” or “Things Fall Apart” when you’re a “true fan” you support your squad through the great albums and the “so so albums.” Now, keep in mind this wasn’t always my philosophy on music. I used to be a fan based solely off how your current album was. Like Andre 3000 rhymed “you’re only as funky as your last cut” but once I started putting out music, I realized that if I made a beat or a song that wasn’t as great as my last one, I didn’t wanna lose fans. I didn’t want people to stop supporting me and I realized I couldn’t want people to continue to support me if I wasn’t supporting other artists. And in my marriage I had to realize that I can’t expect my wife to be perfect for the simple fact that I’m not perfect. So I can’t expect something from her that I can’t give myself.

God calls us to have “agape” love for our spouse. Agape love is defined as selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love and is the highest of the four types of love in the Bible. The other three loves are “eros which is the sensual love between a husband and wife. “Phila” is a brotherly love which is why my city is called the “City of Brotherly love” (look at me teaching over here! Don’t act like ya’ll knew that lol) and “Storage” which is the love between family members. So God wants us to have a SELFLESS, SACRIFICIAL and UNCONDITIONAL love for our spouses. And ya’ll do know unconditional simple put means “no matter what” right? So no matter if they’re winning games or losing games, you gotta love them and cheer them on. Whether they’ve made some mistakes or not, you still gotta love them and cheer them on.

Now most folk have agape love for their children, but not their spouse. Because with your kid, there’s literally nothing they can do to make you stop loving them.  But there’s over a million things our spouse can do to you to bring that love you give them to a screeching halt.

The moral of the story is: I don’t know if there’s a truer statement then “it’s a thin line between love and hate” but let’s get some some agape love in our marriages so we don’t have to keep crossing that line.