Love the Beauty of Your Wife

Lori and I have been married for 29 years, which means that in that time we have changed a lot. We got married. We grew older. We became parents with a house full with our boys. We celebrated our boys movement out of our home on to there own lives. We are now back to where we started with just the two of us. It is time to get on with the love we have for one another that started all those years ago. And it is up to me.

18Let your fountain be blessed,

and rejoice in the wife of your youth,

19a lovely deer, a graceful doe.

Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;

be intoxicated always in her love.”

— Proverbs 5:18-19 (ESV)

The woman I married is there still. She may have changed physically, but so have I. She is still as lovely today as she was all those years ago. I have to remember that God gave me her for the balance of our lifetime, not for just a short while. She is lovely and intoxicating and I will always love her as the woman God gave to me.

When you see your wife, see her as you did when you fell in love with her. She was grandiose then as she took your breath away and she is grandiose now as you continue trying to catch the breath she took away.

The passage I read this morning is titled in my ESV Bible; “Warning Against Adultery”. The quickest way to wander down the path of adultery is to seek out that which seems to have been lost. The beauty of your wife is what you seem to have lost. But, that beauty is not gone. It is there still, it is that we have to think to that which caused to fall in love in the first place. That woman never left. She may feel distant, but couldn’t that be due to our lack of seeing her as we did then.

Look back to when you fell in love with your wife. See the beauty in her face. See the beauty in her body. Love her again for who she is and was. She is still there in front of you just as she was then.

What is it that drew you to your wife? Are you somehow seeing that as gone? What if you were to look to when you fell in love with her and see her today for the beauty she has since that day?

“The Word of God Stands Forever”

The title of my writing this morning comes directly from my English Standard Version (ESV) Bible. Three verses in Isaiah to denote the eternity of the LORD.

6A voice says, “Cry!”

And I said, “What shall I cry?”

All flesh is grass,

and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.

7The grass withers, the flower fades

when the breath of the Lord blows on it;

surely the people are grass.

8The grass withers, the flower fades,

but the word of our God will stand forever.”

— Isaiah 40:6-8 (ESV)

No matter the beauty that comes from or that is you and me, the LORD will be more. What I see in the verses are beautiful meadows of soft green grass. There are flowers standing just above the grass to bring color and even more beauty to the eye. I imagine seeing cars stopped on the side of the road with moms, dads, and children in this field taking family photos together and enjoying the beauty and wonder that is being displayed.

Yet, this is only during a small window of time and then it is gone. Withered by the weather and the new season that has come. The green grass is now a shade of brown or withered away altogether. The flowers have lost their petals and turned to nothing. Gone from the eye to see and body to experience. It has move on to the next season and is just a memory caught in the mind or in the photos taken.

Although all of the beauty that is the meadow of grass and flowers is gone, there is one that is always there regardless of the season. There is one standing tall for all to experience. That is our LORD. His Word is always before us and guides the current and next season. Just as I am in His word this morning I am to be in His Word every morning. From God’s Word I will find the beauty that is constant and forever. His Word never fades and never turns. The Word of the LORD is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow and I can stand high on its strength and beauty.

Too often we find ourselves looking other places when what is found in our eyes fade away. We tend to focus on that beauty in our eyes and miss the beauty in our hearts. The beauty of God’s Word, never withers and fades and is always and forever standing tall in our heart.

Where are you turning your eyes? Are you looking to the grass and flowers expecting them to be there always? What if you were to turn to your heart instead to find the beauty in the Word of God, as it is there always and forever?