Proverbs Day 5

Proverbs 5 ~

Never Take Love for Granted


15-16: Do you know the saying, "Drink from your own rain barrel, 
   draw water from your own spring-fed well"?
It's true. Otherwise, you may one day come home 
   and find your barrel empty and your well polluted. 

17-20: Your spring water is for you and you only, 
   not to be passed around among strangers.
Bless your fresh-flowing fountain! 
   Enjoy the wife you married as a young man!
Lovely as an angel, beautiful as a rose— 
   don't ever quit taking delight in her body. 
   Never take her love for granted!
Why would you trade enduring intimacies for cheap thrills with a whore? 
   for dalliance with a promiscuous stranger?

(The Message)

The Message, once again, does a beautiful job of describing the beauty of what you have at home and how much better it is than anything you could find "out there."

Did you see the words I highlighted? Bless, enjoy, delight...

It is God's desire that we bless one another continually. To bless someone means to encourage, support and serve. It also means to pray for and speak blessings over them. It means to protect them and guard them from evil. If you are faithful to do these things, you will reap a closer relationship and mutual love and respect.

God wants us to enjoy each other, too. I believe God is fun-loving with a sense of humor. If he wasn't, we wouldn't have that in our human experience. Your spouse should be your very best friend. You should be free to be yourself authentically with your mate and likewise, your mate should feel safe to be himself with you as well. Be very careful with sarcastic humor, though. Sarcasm is really a disguise for a cut-down. Never let humor be at your spouse's expense.

I just want to interject here that if things are tense in your marriage, then I would suggest the Love Dare to help motivate you to bring about change. It may feel all one-sided at first, and it will be because you're initiating it and he might not know what you're up to. But you will be amazed how that as you change your approach, he will change his response. Treat your spouse as if he already is where he needs to be and you will see him gravitate there without you having to say anything about it.

And, of course, you need to make a point to delight in each other intimately. Flirt! There's nothing a man loves more than to be flirted with and treated like they are desirable to you. Make sure you're making time for regular "dates" out to dinner, walks on the beach, whatever it is that speaks romance to you as a couple. In this busy, invasive, fast-paced life, you need to be able to feel you have an escape with each other and can shut out the rest of the world to just focus on each other. It's so important for building that closeness that will keep your bond strong when hard times come along. Because the hard times will come and you want to make sure your foundation is strong.

Have you been taking love for granted? We all do at times. Ask God to show you how to make it fresh and new again. Ask Him to move your heart to speak blessings over your spouse and to give you just the right thing to say that he might need to hear when he's feeling down.

Bless, enjoy and delight! Sow these things and you will reap a bountiful harvest.