HomeI wanted to take a moment and do a sanity check. I don’t want anyone to take what I am saying the wrong way or to infer something that I am not meaning here.
In no way do I want to exalt the methods I have learned for loving my wife over the last 14 years this August. Nor do I want to imply that I have any of this down, nor have I figured it out on my own. And what I suggest, may or may work for you in your relationship or situation. Most of what I am trying to express this week and in these posts are principles and things that I have learned in both walking with God and in being married and loving my wife. From day to day, week to week and month to month and year to year, I am learning new things about my wife, about how to love her and how to continue loving her and how to honor and glorify God in doing that. And I mess up a lot along the way, even in this last week I have made mistakes and said or done things I wish that I hadn’t. But bit by bit I learn things and bit by bit I discover things. Some things are new, that I did not know before, other things are things that I should have learned long ago, but wasn’t paying attention.
So, up til now, I have pretty much offered tasks to do. Make arrangements, clean this, launder that, write this, etc. All those are good things. Sometimes though, we really get into the doing of things, thinking that is all there is, tasks and performance. We are guys aren’t we? That is how we are programmed. Purposeful doing, and sometimes you even drop the purposeful and just do things because that is what you do.
Sometimes you can fall into a rut at work or at home. Just the mundane routine of day to day living, get up, go to work, survive, come home, interact with family, go to bed and do it all again tomorrow. You have conversations and you have relationships, but you just are going through the motions, you are doing with out purpose.
Well, I believe at that point you need to provide some purpose if you can’t seem to identify any. Do you want to exist this way for 20 more years? Do you want to miss things that are right in front of you. Are you going to wake up and the kids will be going to college, the house empty and a stranger is sleeping next to you, or sitting across from you at breakfast or dinner?
You my friend, if you are still reading this series, have been given a great gift by God. And this gift is unlike any other gift you have been given. It was made specifically for you, to compliment you, to in a way, complete you in regards to your lack. God has given you this gift for a lifetime, and you have no idea how long that might be. So, you need to make the most of it and not take this great gift for granted.
Do you know your wife? We all got to know our wives when we were dating or courting or wooing or pursuing her. We wanted to know her and for her to know us and somehow convince her that we were worthy to marry and spend their lives with. Plans and dreams and thoughts and words and promises. Some made, some fulfilled, some forgotten, some on the shelf.
You have continued to change since then and so has she. Unless of course, you are newly married, but you can still listen in, because right now you are changing as you learn to live together. For those that have gotten through figuring out how to live together, we need to continue learning and knowing each other that we might also stay together. Because you have continued to change and she has continued to change, and because God has made marriage and people this way, you have a continuous classroom of learning and loving and grace extending and grace receiving. We often don’t look at it like this, but it’s true. There are always new and crazy situations and problems to deal with. No, they may not be different than those others have, but to you, it is new or different or challenging or painful or wonderful, and it is new and you have to move through it.
So, after all that, what is the tip? Here it is… To Study your wife.
To never think that you have your wife figured out. To continuously study her, to consider her desires, her dreams, her wants, her needs. To know and learn what she likes, what she dislikes and to not just gather the knowledge, but use it in your day to day life, what you do for dates, what you get her for gifts, where you send her on her own without the children. What you do for her with your time. Use this knowledge to express love to her, for her. Show her that you care by knowing her. Maybe you think you know your wife. But are working to know more? Are you putting down the paper, the remote, the game pad, the car magazine, the sports feed, putting down your desires in order to learn about her own?
This is convicting to me. I need to do this. God has given us a great and wonderful gift, companion, lover, friend, shame on us for not seeking to fully know His gift.
In any relationship, much of our devotion is judged on time. In marriage, if we are not spending time with out wives, our hearts will be revealed. Likewise, if we are not spending time with God, our heart is revealed. Our heart reveals where our true passions lie.
Pray that God would give you a passion and pursuit to know Him and seek Him, and that He would give you a sincere and natural desire and hunger to know and love your wife, not just today, but for all the years to come, that she would continuously be new and exciting and enticing to you. That is a a dim shadow of what it is to be caught up by the grace and beauty of God as we will be for all eternity.
Study and pursue your God. Study and pursue your wife.
It will change you. it will change her. My you glorify God in it.
til later, Lord Willing, tom