5. Learn and Grow Together
Healthy marriages are characterized by a mutual desire for spousal growth. We don’t love our spouse by accepting them “as they are” so much as we point them to become more like Jesus. A key way you love your wife, then, is by prioritizing opportunities to learn and grow with her. Read a book or listen to a lecture together. Go to a conference or discuss Sunday’s sermon.
Husbands, God calls us to lead our wives into spiritual flourishing. Labor to find creative ways to grow and learn together to that end.
6. Be Intoxicated in Her Love
Proverbs 5:19 is one of my favorite verses on marriage: “Be intoxicated always in her love.” The word translated “be intoxicated” is used elsewhere in the Old Testament for a man staggering down the street in drunkenness (Isa. 28:7). The point is for a man to be crazy in love with his wife. Ray Ortlund says of this verse:
This counsel is not trivial. It is the serious wisdom of God, because, as we shall see later in the Bible, marriage points ultimately to the love of Christ and our joy in him. And the striking thing about this wisdom here in Proverbs, coming from ancient times as it does, is that marriages back then could be arranged for economic or political reasons. But the Bible sweeps all of that aside and calls husbands and wives to be head-over-heels in love with each other.
How can you be “head over heels” in love with your wife? Here are a few suggestions:
- Remind her why you’re in love with her. Write her a card and list specific reasons why you treasure her.
- Affirm her before others. Esteem your wife in the presence of others by directing their attention to visible graces in her life.
- Surprise her with acts of kindness. Take the kids and send her out with friends for the night. Show up to her workplace with flowers. Leave her a card before you leave for work.
- Encourage her with how you see God at work in her life. Take her on a date and tell her, slowly and specifically, how you see growing in her faith. Is she becoming more patient, wise, kind, bold, holy? Tell her and watch her faith fan into flame.
Scripture says husbands should be so in love with their wives that the watching world thinks they’re drunk on love. May it be so of us.
This article about how to love your wife originally appeared here.
