Humans can be overly emotional, unpredictably perplexing, grouchy, and irritable as well as irrational and confusing at times. God’s Word declares that if a husband mistreats his wife and/or does not show her the understanding, respect, and consideration as his co-heir of God’s merciful gift of eternal life, that the answers to his prayers will actually be hindered (1 Peter 3:7).
A good marriage is one where both spouses schedule their mate as their priority, second only to God in their plans, interests, goals, and consideration. This includes our church work and pursuits as well as our hobbies and activities apart from our family. This thoughtfulness gives proof to our loved ones of our profession of love.
Marriage partners dwell with their spouse with understanding and attention (1 Peter 3:7). Acceptance of one another and a peaceful and secure home environment gives the couple an assurance of security and love. We also feel love in our mate’s voice inflection, tenderness in their facial expressions, caring caresses, physical affection, and time well spent in each other’s company.
We often love others as we desire to be loved. We think the recipient of our loving expressions should be thrilled and blessed by our overt actions. However, if our mate’s, child’s, or grandchild’s love language is not the same as ours, then they will not be impressed by our declarations of affection toward them.
Some people enjoy gifts and others prefer physical touch, quality time, acts of service, and/or words of affirmation. Wise are those who make the effort to understand our mate’s love language and train our self to give them these expressions often. Loving them “in our own way” is never fulfilling to them, and makes them feel unloved, neglected, and rejected.
- http://www.5lovelanguages.com
Prayer:
Father God, remind us that You created marriage (Genesis 2:22). We dishonor You when we allow Satan to destroy the love You place in our hearts for one another. In today’s easy divorce society, we are not expected to work through the hard times and communicate with one another about what we really need and how we really feel. Remind us to lay our life down for each other as Christ did for us. Teach us to nurture our romantic urges and to express them to our mate often.
This is not a stilted requirement, but a spontaneous expression of our love and devotion when it is least expected. Remind us that giving our loved ones the blessings of continual expressions of our love and attention throughout the day assures them of our affection and devotion to them alone. This keeps the devil at bay and provides us with a solid foundation for a fulfilling and joyful relationship. Teach us to serve one another with our whole heart and to make one another our priority in our life, second only to You.
Thoughts for the Day:
Many couples have a date night, which is admirable and something to look forward to; however, a wise spouse does not limit our time together to once a week. Spending little increments of time together throughout the day bears huge benefits for both of us. Some examples are a shared lunch, family playtime after a dinner eaten together, a gift for no reason at all, a compliment for a job well done, a 15-minute snuggle, a walk in the park, a repair of that leaky faucet, a note tucked away in an obvious nook, a bike ride to a favorite place, taking her car to get it serviced, spending a few hours together walking on the beach, a quick phone call at lunchtime, etc. The possibilities are actually limitless.
