Love Life for every Married Couple - Pt 2

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Hello, this is Dr. Ed Weat. This is the second cassette of our counseling cassette album on Love Life for Every married couple. Whether you are happy or unhappy together, whether you are in love with each other or out of love, this album is for you because it is based on a foundational biblical principle which can benefit any marriage. Those of you with problem marriages will find that the council in these cassettes, if followed, can transform your whole relationship, while the rest of you will discover how to add more and more love to an already good marriage. It begins when you understand and act upon this biblical principle that it is God's will for every husband and wife to love each other with an absorbing physical, emotional, and spiritual attraction which will continue to grow throughout their lifetime together. Now, God intends for you and your mate to experience this love bond together with each other and not the substitutes who sometimes find their way into the vacuum of a troubled relationship. It should be clear to every listener that infidelity and divorce are paths which move away from God's plan and God's blessing. But I want to show you how to move toward the riches of divine blessing which God has for your marriage. You see, since it is God's will for you and your marriage partner to love each other with this absorbing, thrilling, and lifelong devotion. That means that it is entirely possible for the two of you to find and experience this love together. You're not chasing after fool's gold or crying for the moon when you desire this. Even though relatively few couples taste the love God designed for them, and few are still continuing that love, it does not have to be that way. You don't have to live together in boredom or separate in misery. Instead, you can take positive steps to build love into your marriage. There are five kinds of love which should be present and we want to discuss how each of these can be nurtured and developed within your relationship. By way of review on cassette one we briefly described these five ways of loving giving them their Greek names from the New Testament era. Epitheia representing the sexual desire of marriage. Aeros the romantic passionate love of man and woman. Stoay the comfortable family loyalty and natural affection. Fileo the close interacting of mates who delight in sharing everything with each other and agape, the self-giving love for one's partner based on total commitment and the knowledge of what is best for him or her. On the previous cassette, we began discussing sexual desire and how to build this physical love into your marriage. Because these cassettes are not intended as a series on sexual technique, I must give you general guidelines rather than specifics as we continue the discussion. First, some suggestions particularly directed to the husband. Concentrate on setting the stage for intimacy by giving your wife a romantic prelude to sex. You perhaps do not realize how much your wife desires this or what it means to her. Women must be aroused emotionally as well as physically. They enjoy the closeness and intimacy of sex. They enjoy gentle touching and total body caressing done in a meaningful, not a mechanical way. Also, concentrate on pleasing your wife rather than anxiously pushing her toward a sexual release. If she thinks you're pressuring her, she you begin to dread the possibility of failure rather than relaxing to enjoy her time with you. There's no need for you to ask your wife if she's had a good sexual release. Simply give her manual stimulation after every intercourse. And if she does not feel a need for this, she should lovingly let you know. Show her how much you enjoy giving her pleasure and complete satisfaction. Both of you should remember that there are two keys to developing the emotion of love in your sexual relationship. These are intimacy and response. That special feeling of closeness and intimacy. is something which the wife particularly longs for and the husband can provide this for her as he leads her through the pleasures of physical touching and as you learn the art of physical communication together. On the other hand, the husband's great desire is for response from his wife. And this is a beautiful gift which she can give to him. However, judging from my mail and my counseling appointments, some women just do not understand how important both physically and psychologically the sexual relationship is to their husband. They do not seem to realize that their avoidance of sex or their lack of response will affect their entire marriage in the most negative way. To the indifferent wife, I must give this caution. When there is no physical intimacy between you and your husband, whatever emotional and spiritual closeness you have will tend to fade as well. You may ask what I mean by response. When you respond, you simply give an answer by word or action to your husband's lovemaking. The response we're talking about can be gentle, simple, and loving. It may be enthusiastic. It need not be dramatic. But a positive response should be there. A lack of response means that you are ignoring one who in some way is reaching out to you. And there's no worse treatment to give to one who cares about you. Indifference is the enemy of love. So I counsel you to respond to your husband and to regard sex with him as an opportunity to build more love into your marriage. Now I want to talk to the two of you about one of the most troublesome problems in a sexual relationship. If this is your problem, please listen carefully. I counsel many couples who feel that their entire marriage is being destroyed because the wife almost never enjoys an orgasm. This fact takes on a destructive quality only when it has become a big issue to both marriage partners and a chain reaction of unhappy emotions occurs. The wife begins to feel like a failure because no matter how hard she tries, she cannot work up the right physical response. Of course, the harder she tries, the more the natural response eludes her. This lowers her self-image and her confidence in herself as a woman. She also senses her husband disapproval or disappointment and the sex act becomes more and more emotionally painful for her to participate in. So she begins to avoid sex. If her husband persists, she feels used and resentment enters the picture. If he tries to woo her with compliments and caresses, she cannot believe he is being sincere because of her low self-image. She may think he is being nice only for an ulterior motive. The husband's confidence in himself as a man is shaken first of all by the sense of failure and being unable to bring his wife to sexual relief. It is more deeply taken as she begins to dislike and avoid sex altogether and he feels that she is no longer interested in him. He wonders if she even loves him. Resentment enters on his side as he begins to feel that she is not trying to find a solution. The wife's rejection evokes what one man describes to me as a roller coaster effect. Hopefully, he does everything he knows to do to adjust to his wife, believing it is going to work, but rejection still comes. A downward plunge of anger and discouragement says why try anymore. Actually both are longing for love and the assurance of love from the other and both are inwardly convinced that they are not loved. Those of you in this situation should realize that this is always a couple problem which is built up over a period of time. So you cannot count on an immediate solution. Your belief that the situation is hopeless stands between you and the solution. Once the barriers of persistent discouragement, rejection, and sense of failure are gone, skilled sexual stimulus will produce sexual release as a natural result. So, you both need to turn away from concentration on those few seconds of sexual climax and learn to enjoy the whole experience of sexual love making with all its warmth and closeness. Orgasm may be the end of the experience, but your go goal should be to please each other, to satisfy the emotional need both of you have, which simply is to know that you're loved and accepted exactly as you are. Right now, you need to begin by moving toward each other through the uncomplicated avenue of physical touching. As your problem has developed, you moved apart. Come together by warm physical contact, by cuddling and snuggling and holding hands, just as you did when you were teenagers. Sit close to each other. every time you have the chance. Sleep close to each other. Take the focus off of the sex act altogether for a while and avoid too much discussion of your problem. At the same time, begin learning physical communication as described in our book, Intended for Pleasure. Husband, take positive steps to meet your partner's emotional needs. Your wife longs to be encouraged, built up, and praised. She wants to feel close to you emotionally. This come as you love her in the way the Bible describes. A husband can always meet his wife's deepest needs by loving her as Christ loved us. And as a wife begins to respond to that love, she is ready to respond sexually. Ingred Trobish compares the love of the husband to a warm cloak that shelters his wife. As long as she feels encircled and wrapped up in this cloak, she can relax in the warmth of his sheltering love, and she can give herself completely to her husband. And this safety. She can accept herself as a woman and value her femininity. The result of all this will be the ability to entrust herself to her husband and the sexual relationship as the bird entrusts itself to the air when it flies or the fish to the water when it swims. We husbands may not be able to fully appreciate these deep longings which influence our wives. But if we love them with this sheltering love as described in Ephesians 5:28 and 29, we will see results. Our wives are but a reflection of the love or lack of love which we have provided. This is a biblical principle which we do well to remember. You must also move toward each other spiritually. The spiritual dimension of marriage should never be ignored. Sharing in warm personal Bible study and prayer together will help prepare the way for sexual fulfillment as a natural result of the spiritual union which has occur. occurring daily. Then you will find that your sexual union can bring you still closer to God. So that you will often want to pray together after making love. Love begets love in all directions. I recommend that you focus your Bible study on scriptures dealing with marriage. A rather complete list of these can be found in the index of intended for pleasure. Or if you aren't sure how to begin, one way is to listen together to Bible teaching on cassette. Bible believers cassettes incorporated of spring Bill, Arkansas, a free loan library offers more than a thousand different messages on the subjects of dating, marriage, and the Christian home. You see, it is very, very important for you to understand the biblical design for marriage. For unless you begin to follow this design, which is God's own plan, you will find it very difficult to maintain romantic love or even stability in your marriage. There's still another value in studying what the Bible has to say about marriage. For as we understand biblical marriage. We will begin to better understand the relationship between Jesus Christ and his people, the church. So, your study will not only improve your marriage, but will enhance your own personal spiritual growth and will increase your love for the Lord Jesus Christ. We've devoted some time to explaining how to build love into your marriage through the avenue of sex by establishing a physical intimacy which will be good and satisfying. Please remember that this sense of closeness always develops best in the atmosphere of security and stability. Within this setting, you can give each other the chance to be beautiful and varied and unpredictable, open and vulnerable and receptive. Try it. If you're afraid to try it because you're afraid you'll be hurt, all I can say is that the risk of pain is always the price of life. As we continue our discussion of ways to develop the five kinds of love in your marriage, you will see how closely interlocking they are. The avenue of sexual desire is primarily physical, yet involves the emotional and spiritual as well. The next kind of love we're going to examine is aeros love, which is a dynamic combination of the emotional, the physical, the intuitive, and the imaginative processes blending together into that unique and powerful experience we call falling in love. It's the key words for epime. idea, physical desire or intimacy and response. The key word for aeros is romance. How in the world do you deliberately build this kind of love into your marriage? Basically, there are two ways. One, by utilizing the god-given gift of imaginative thought for yourself. And two, by providing the right emotional climate for your mate. Those of you who already have good things working in your marriage will find it comparatively easy to add this aspect of love to your relationship. Those of you who are having problems will think at first that it is an impossible task, but it will not be if you've already dealt with your negative attitudes as described in the first cassette. I was interested in a film advertisement which appeared recently. The headline posed the question, "What do you do when everything between the two of you seems wrong?" The answer given was fall in love. Well, that's not as far-fetched as it may sound and Christristen Carol's double day book from the brink of divorce includes a number of actual case histories of couples whose marriages were hanging by a thread and in each of these cases the couple ended up falling in love. Counselor Jay Adams tells of the many couples who come into his office reporting that the situation is hopeless because they don't love each other anymore. His answer is, I'm sorry to hear that. I guess you'll have to learn how to love each other. He says that Six or eight weeks later, they're likely to go out of there hand in hand having the feeling as well as a love if they really mean business. You see, aeros love is learned emotionally. It can be learned and so that brings it into the realm of possibility even though it may seem to be mysteriously compounded of moon beams and magic. Aeros love always involves physiological reactions such as quickened breathing and a fast beating heart. It is one of the most dramatic experiences a human being can have. But yet it can be learned if the right emotional climate is provided and if the mental imaginative processes are properly applied. For those of you working under great difficulties, I counsel you never to try to force your emotions, but to begin simply by choosing to be willing to fall in love with your mate. That is the first step. Before I give you other guidelines, lines to follow in building this kind of love. I want to emphasize that we are discussing aeros in the context of Christian marriage. Aeros love is an important but very human part of marriage and we must remember that human love and human feelings alone are never enough. It is when your aeros love is grounded in God's love that you have a tremendous lasting love relationship. At that point, romantic love takes on great dignity and meaning in the eternal scheme of things. It has become far more than whipped cream on the shortcake of marriage. To realize this, we have only to consider the Song of Solomon, the book of the Bible devoted to showing God's people the true nature of romantic love and marriage from his viewpoint and at the same time giving us a model to follow in our own marriages. We will see on the second side of this cassette as we consider the Song of Solomon in more detail that some of the Hebrew words for love used in the Song of Solomon are essentially the equivalent of the Greek term aeros. Through my study of scripture as well as my observations as a counselor and my own experience in marriage, God has shown me that there is a vital wonderful romantic love based on reality designed by God for husband and wife and that this is necessary in order to complete the marriage relationship and thus to give the full picture of Christ and his relationship with his bride, the church. Certainly, our love for Christ contain emotional aspects that are in some ways similar to our greatest earthly love. Theologians have observed that the vivid personal experience of falling in love is an exact correlation and parallel of Christianity. So as you seek to build aeros love in your marriage, you can be sure that you are following the biblical pattern. As a physician, I have seen that the emotions of romantic love literally give people a different outlook on life and an actual sense of well-being. Romantic love is good medicine for fears and anxiety. and a low self-image. Psychologists have pointed out that real love has an organizing and constructive effect on the personality. It brings out the best in us, giving us the will to improve ourselves and a reach for a greater maturity and responsibility. Real romantic love enables us to function at our highest level. As an indication of what aeros love can mean in motivation, consider Jacob from the book of Genesis, who worked a total of 14 hard years for a disagreeable father-in-law in order to gain Rachel as his bride. The Bible says that those years seemed but a few days to him because of his love for her. Quite honestly, if you're not in love with your marriage partner in this way, you're missing out. No matter how sincere your commitment to that person may be, even contentment can be dull and dread in comparison with the fullness God intended. Here is how to build aeros love into your marriage. In essence, aeros love is a pleasurable learned response to the way your partner looks and feels, to the things your partner says and does, to the emotional experiences you share together. As you consistently think on these favorable things, the response to them becomes ever more strongly imprinted in your mind. You are learning the emotion of love through your thought processes. Women's Bible teacher Shirley Rice tells her students that she would like to inspire in them the same eager anticipation for growth in their love life with their husbands that they have toward their growth in Christ. Then she shows them how to use their thought life, the faculties of memory and imagination to build love in their relationship. She says, and I quote, "Are you in love with your husband? Not do you love him? I know you do. He's been around a long time and you're used to him. He's the father of your children. But are you in love with. How long has it been since your heart really squeezed when you look look at him through another woman's eyes? He still looks pretty good, doesn't he? Why is it you have forgotten the things that attracted you to him at first? This is an attitude we drift into. We take our men for granted. We complain bitterly about this ourselves because we hate to be taken for granted, but we do this to them. Men are sentimental more so than women. We weep and express ourselves audible. Because they don't do it openly does not mean they're not emotional. Your husband needs to be told that you love him, that he is attractive to you. By the grace of God, I want you to start changing your thought pattern tomorrow. Morning. Get your eyes off the toaster or the baby bottles long enough to look at him. Don't you see the way his coat fits his shoulders? Look at his hand. Do you remember when just a look at his strong hands made your heart live? Well, look at and remember then loose your tongue and tell him you love him. Will you ask the Lord to give you a sentimental romantic physical in love kind of love for your husband? He will do this. His love in us can change the actual physical quality of our love for our husband. That's the end of the quote. It has been said that our imagination is the strongest natural power which we possess. That the imagination is to the emotions what illustrations are to a book. It is as if we have a movie screen in our mind and we have the ability to throw pictures on the screen whatever kinds of pictures we choose. We can visualize thrilling beautiful situations with our mate we want to select a moment of romantic feeling with your partner from the past, present or hope for our future. As you begin to think about that feeling, your imagination goes to work with visual pictures. Your imagination builds up your thoughts and the thoughts intensify your feelings. This is how it works. Imagination is a gift from God to be used for good to accomplish his will. So Bill aeros love in your marriage by thinking about your mate, concentrating on positive experiences and pleasures from the past. And then daydreaming, anticipating pleasures in the future that involve your mate. Frequency and intensity of these positive, warm, erotic, tender thoughts about your mate will determine your success in building. Of course, this means that you'll have to give up outside attachments or even daydream about someone else whom you may have been using as a substitute odd romantic affection. Many people who are not in love with their marriage partner begin dreaming about someone else even it goes no further in attempt to fill the emotional vacuum. If you've done this, forsake it now. Focus your thoughts on you marry. In a recent book on how to fall out of love, a psychologist counsels her patients to practice silent ridicule, microscopically concentrating on the flaws of the other party, even picturing that person in absurd, ridiculous ways until all respect for that one is gone. This should show you how important it is, if you want to fall in love, to give up criticism of your mate and begin appreciating your mate instead. In order to maintain your respect for that one, Never allow another person to tear your mate down in your sight. One of Abigail Van Beern's Ten Commandments for Wives says, "Permit no one to tell thee that thou art having a hard time, neither thy mother, thy sister, nor thy neighbor. For the judge will not hold her guilty who letth another disparage her husband. Instead, practice saying good things about your partner to other people. Think about how much your mate means to you, and how much you need him or her. Then use your creativity to add romance to your marriage by planning weekend trips for the two of you, or shorter times together which you can turn into to events or even just moments that become special together. Do all you can to avoid boredom and hoham routine between the two of you. Even though your life of necessity consists of routine, think of your relationship as a continuing love affair and look at every tender, generous, romantic word or act which you bestow upon your husband or wife as an investment in pleasurable memories and emotional experiences which will grow, multiply into romantic love each other. This is all part of providing the right emotional climate for aeros. There are two other things you can do in providing the right stimuli for the response of romantic love. The first is physical touching and lots of it. I'm not referring to sex now, but to the kind of physical closeness that draws very young people together into romantic infatuation. This is how these young people fall in love so quickly and so intensely and married couples with dull relationship can learn a great deal from them about building the emotion of love. It is important if both of you are trying to build love in your marriage that as your mate reaches out to you in touching that you respond to this touching by moving closer or by responding loving touch or gentle hug. There's nothing so emotionally demotivating as to reach over to your lover and receive no response or even worse to feel that you're receiving a negative response. The second thing is eye contact. Psychologists have found through controlled experiment that people who are deeply in love with each other according to their questionnaire responses do indeed engage in a great deal more eye contact than other couple. As the old song goes, I only have eyes for you. And it's true of lovers. Eye contact shows us importance early in life. Infants eyes begin focusing somewhere around 2 to 4 weeks of age. From then on, a baby is always searching for another set of eyes to lock on to. This becomes necessary to the child. His emotions are actually fed by eye contact. We never outgrow this need as adults and when a loved one avoids eye contact with us because of disinterest or anger, it can be devastating. So practice warm, affectionate, meaningful eye contact with your partner and see how enjoyable if your eyes signal romantic interest and arousal your partner likely to be a spiraling. Everyone knows that aeros Love is visually oriented and so it is extremely important both husband and wife be as attractive and well-groomed as possible. In summary, you cannot demand that someone else fall in love with or expect it as a matter of court, not even from your husband, but you can set up the conditions whereby your partner will find it easy. Always be mindful of the kind of emotional response you're establishing in your partner's thought patterns by what you do and say and how you look. Remember to send out signals which are pleasant, pleasurable rather than painful or distasteful. For in a sense, you are teaching your partner to respond to you all of the time either positively or negatively. This is yet another reason why you must not seem judgmental of your mate. Not if you want to spark aeros love. The third kind of love which should be present in your marriage is stoay love. This Greek word which originally meant love within a family may be defined simply as natural affection. Applying this to your marriage, you can see that to treat your own partner without this kind, loyal affection is unnatural because you belong together. Stogay love is a low-key thing, ordinary, downto-earth affection, but it tends to color all the other loves of marriage. Just as a kitchen may be the plainest, least glamorous room in the house and yet becomes the cozy heart of the home. Warm, happy moments are spent there together. In building stogay love in your marriage, there are at least three elements to consider. First of all, stoay love springs out of a basic sense of belonging, which means that whatever else you and your partner should be unified against the world, a private club of members who stand together. It comes about by establishing the viewpoint of oneness early in your marriage and refusing to see yourselves separately from each other. This is perhaps similar to the solidarity brothers and sisters often exhibit even as little children when they may fight in private but will always defend each other from outsiders. If you've not had a sense of oneness in your marriage up to this time, then begin now to nurture this and your relationship. Meditate on Genesis 2:24, which tells husband and wife to cleave to one another in an inseparable relationship, sticking like glue, the Hebrew says, and becoming as one. Never again allow your oneness to be broken by outside pressures or by those who would intrude, split, and divide. It is still true that a house divided against itself is in real trouble. The second aspect of stogay love is a loyalty which provides support for your partner under all circumstances. Your partner should be able to feel sure that he or she will receive support and encouragement and comfort from you when ever needed. As Proverbs 31 describes it, an excellent wife who can find for her worth is far above jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain, for she will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. The same should be said of the excellent husband. Your wife's heart should be able to trust in you as the person who will always be there when needed because you are her husband. Third, stoay love involves comfortable familiarity between two people who do not always need to be talking or making love. Because they know each other so well and care about each other, they can enjoy just being together in the same room, following their own occupations, perhaps sharing an occasional smile or stirring the fire in silence. This kind of comfortable relationship requires a great deal of time spent together, time spent without quarrels and recriminations, so that you feel safe and at ease with each other. At the same time, familiar should not breed discourtesy. The kindness we show to our partners should be even greater than courtesy shown to anyone else because our kindness is based on close personal understanding. Although the affection of stoay love seems as simple and uncomplicated as the comfort of an old shoe, it takes time and consistent behavior to build this love in your marriage. The key word is as basic as reliability. Proving to your partner that you can be dependent upon to be loyal, supportive, and kind, and that you can be dependent upon. When we come to the fourth love of marriage, we're dealing with a word, a verb rather than a noun, which appears frequently in the New Testament. Fileo is the word. It is used, for instance, to describe the love Jesus had for John. The love that God has for us because we love his son, and the love women are to learn to have for their husbands. They Basically, fileo is the love one feels for a cherished friend of either sex. In marriage, it is important for the two lovers also to become best friends through the development of fileo love. But of all the loves we have mentioned, fileo is most dependent upon mutual response. Let's consider three of the words which are involved in fileo. Comradeship, companionship, communication. Each of these words begin with calm, the Latin word for together. Comradeship literally means together in the same chamber or room. Companionship literally means taking bread together. Communication literally means possessing together. In other words, to build fileo love into your relationship that two of you are going to have to have a great deal of togetherness and the kind of togetherness that counts where there is genuine interaction and mutual understanding and enjoyment. The key word in nurturing fileo love is sharing. The sharing of time, interests, thoughts, goals, and ideals. The amount of time shared is not as important as the quality of time you spend with each other. Whatever time there is, let it be meaningful. Here's how you can begin to add this ingredient to your marriage. Find some things you can do together side by side. It might be refinishing old furniture or playing golf or taking Spanish lessons or getting involved in the baseball season or joining a camera club or whatever interests you. The point is that you need to develop some absorbing interests in common. There are more important things that you can begin to do together as well. For couples expecting a child to attend prepared child birth classes and participate in the delivery as a team can be a wonderfully uniting experience. As Christians, you may choose some service for the Lord that the two of you can really become involved in a nighttime home Bible study perhaps. or a ministry in your church which you can work on together. If you're presently expending your energies on projects which take you in opposite directions, a change might be in order. Most couples who have been happily married for some years have developed common interests, common goals, and common ideals. This does not occur overnight, but you can begin working on it immediately. You may have to make some initial sacrifices in order to find common interests. One husband in Colorado enjoyed hiking the mountain trails. His wife preferred to write poetry. But when she began to enter into his way of relaxing, she not only enjoyed it, but she wrote some of her best poetry about those Colorado mountains and the times they spent together in the high country. In good marriages, the partners don't sit around waiting for love to develop. They bring it about. They learn to like each other as well. And that is an important element in fileo love. Another thing you can do is to learn to communicate with each other. Many books have been written on the subject and you may wish to study some of these if you run into problems in communicating. The most frequently seen problem is between a wife who feels a deep need to share her inmost thoughts and a husband who is uncomfortable doing so and cannot appreciate the value of it. As a general rule, women are proficient at talking about how they feel and men are not. But this can be overcome with practice. They learn to confide in each other and begin to see how rewarding and fulfilling it can be. Wives in particular should be aware of five ground rules or their husbands may give up before the communication really begins. Number one, never repeat to anyone else the things your husband shares with you privately. Two, give your husband your total enthusiastic attention and listen with interest while he becomes used to expressing himself. It may not be so easy for him at first. Three, do not interrupt him or jump to conclusions about what he is saying. Four, acknowledge that you understand even if you disagree and repeat his thoughts and feelings back to him so that he is sure that you understand. Five, when you're sharing your thoughts, be careful never to sound as if you're heaping blame on him. When either of you goes on the defensive, your communication goes too, and your time together is marred. Husbands should realize that silence and indifference to how their wife feels and refusal to discuss things together can destroy a marriage. It is said that adultery slays its thousands and silence its 10,000s. There's one main ground rule for the husband and that is to give your wife focused attention. Dr. Ross Campbell has defined focused attention as giving another person our full undivided attention in such a way that he feels without doubt that he is completely loved, that he is valuable enough in his own right to warrant our appreciation and regard. This is just what your wife needs in order to know that she is important to you. Here are some ways to implement this in your marriage. One, spend time together alone. Two, give your wife eye contact. Really look at her and move close to her for the precious moments you have together. Three, plan for opportunities to focus your attention on her without interruption. Four, arrange longer periods for this so that both of you can warm up. Let your defenses down. Begin to feel free to share your thoughts aloud. And five, pay attention to your wife when other people are around. This will mean more to her than you can ever know. Fileo love is a tender love of mutual affection and cherishing which grows throughout your years together until you become invaluable to each other. Cherish ing never happens quickly. Through the operation of fileo love, two separate selves merge and mesh together in marriage. But at the same time, you both receive the assurance that you are unique and precious individuals. Your self-image will be so enhanced as a result that you will be that much more lovable and free to love in return. It is a neverending circle of love that you and your partner have stepped into. What about those of you You who are alone in your desire to save your marriage and restore love to it. When there's no response from your partner, how can you go on giving fileo love? The answer is that you must turn to agape love, God's gift love to see you through the streams of that love never run dry. Agape makes fileo possible even when there is no response. Agape gives sto a depth he could never possess other. wise. Agape gives aeros lasting power and lifts sexual lovemaking to heights of unselfishness. Agape can do all this because it does not depend on emotions. Nor does it depend on your partner. In fact, it is not going too far to say that agape love is the magic ingredient that will save your marriage when all else fails. To understand this unique quality of love, we must go to the New Testament and find the model given to us there. We discover that agape love is the kind of love God had for us when he sent his son Jesus to be our savior. God so loved the world that he gave. John 3:16 says, "So to begin with, agape love is an action love, a giving love." What did God give? He gave his most precious gift, his only son, so that we might not perish but have ever lasting life. So we see that agape love gives the very best to the beloved. Romans 5'8 adds to our understanding by reminding us that God showed us his agape love for us in the fact that Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. In other words, God loved us and did the very best thing possible for us at a time when we were totally unloly and undeserving. So now we discover that agape love is unconditional. We will express it toward our marriage partner whether it is deserved or not because this is the very nature of God's kind of love. Remember that if you have eternal life because you have trusted Jesus Christ as your savior, then right now you have the divine resources for expressing agape love toward your mate. But how do you begin to draw upon these resources? Agape love is originated and expressed through your will. your power of choice. So you begin to love in this way by choosing to, not by feeling. Just as you chose earlier to forgive and to put away negative attitudes toward your partner, now you choose to love with agape love. The free will which God has given us is a wonderful faculty. With our minds we think, with our emotions we feel, but with our will we want and choose. And our volition our will Our power of choice becomes the most influential component of our entire person. Our will acts for our total person and the rest of our being falls into line with what we have chosen. So with an act of the will you choose to maintain a positive attitude of love and this attitude always leads to action in expressing agape love. It is unconditional love and it endures because it is grounded in God's own love. Remember that Agape love consistently gives good gifts to the beloved. There is no better gift to give your mate than unconditional love. Psychologists point out that there is no substitute for the incomparable emotional well-being which comes from feeling completely and unconditionally loved and accepted. You see, the expression of this agape love brings out the very best feelings and the one you're loving. When you give agape, your partner will begin to feel loved. And when your mate knows your love is an unconditional gift, freely given and continually given, he or she will be much more apt to feel good about himself, comfortable with himself, and as a result, able to love in return. By giving your mate acceptance through agape love, you will find it immeasurably easier to work out your problems together. At times when we are most vulnerable to stress, most unattractive, and unlovable. Our need is the very greatest for love and affection from another person. Only unconditional agape love can give us what we need. But acceptance is still not worth very much unless it is based on permanent commitment. To feel that you are accepted today but may be rejected tomorrow is of little value. Agape love means permanent commitment to your mate. And this becomes the unshakable foundation of your marriage. As you enter into the expression of agape love, of as we have described it. You will experience a feeling of joy that cannot be found in any other way. And you will have a tranquility of heart because now you're not reacting like a rubber ball to everything that happens, good or bad. You're now acting consistently with a giving love which flows right from the heart of God into your heart and on into the life of your marriage partner. In our final discussion on the other side of this cassette, I will give you a positive prescription for a superb marriage. Thank you. We're continuing our discussion of agape love and what it can mean to your marriage. To review, agape is an unconditional commitment which you make with your will, not your emotions, to love a person who is imperfect like yourself by giving the very best to that person on a consistent permanent basis. Please understand that it's not enough just to wish the other person well. Some people take this easy way out. A comfortable shortcut to obeying God's call to love one another. But agape love is much more than this. A good attitude free of bad feelings is important. Of course, but agape love involves more than this by far. Agape means action, not just attitude. Agape always expresses itself through giving. Do you remember the keys to building the other loves of marriage? Epimeia, physical desires keys are intimacy and response. Aeros key is romance. Stogay's key is reliability. Falo's key is sharing. A 's key is giving but a very special quality of giving. Agape's giving is based on knowledge in order to be meaning. So whenever you think of agape love, be reminded of giving and knowledge. The two keys which open the door to this dimension of loving. What do we mean by knowledge? Well, in order to love your mate with agape love which always gives the best, you will have to know what your partner needs from you. The best way is God's way. And so the answer can be found in the Bible where clear definite guidelines are given by our creator who made us male and female. He knows how we can best relate to each other and he has not hidden these facts from us. Through simple Bible study, a man discovers that the best thing he can do for his wife is to become the kind of husband described in the fifth chapter of Ephesians. A woman learns that the best thing she can do for her husband is to become the kind of wife described in the third chapter of First Peter. I regret and I cannot go into more detail here, but this subject alone could fill a cassette series. Let me say very briefly that the husband who studies the scriptures, the New Testament, and the Song of Solomon in particular will find that God has designed him to be a protective, competent leader who will take care of his wife and a tender, kind, and courteous lover who initiates love for her. This is what his wife needs from him. The wife who studies these scriptures will find that God has designed her to be a responder to her husband's love, one prepared to help, who can gracefully adapt to her husband's calling in life, who possesses the beauty of a gentle, quiet spirit as she respects and affirms her husband and who continues to delight him all through his life. This is what he needs from her. This basic design which God has established in his loving wisdom for husband and wife reflects their inmost natures and cannot be altered by those who would try. It lies too deep within the plan of God, dating from the dawn of creation. And no matter what cultural changes people attempt to bring about in the name of unisex, the fact remains that God created us male and female with distinctive privileges and responsibilities. Men and women are different. Thank God. and thus we can enrich each other and bring the full measure of joy into our marriage. We've been talking about the scriptural knowledge that is needed in order to know how to love your mate meaningfully. But another kind of knowledge is required as well and that is a personal knowledge of the unique individual you are married to. An intelligent, intimate, perceptive knowledge of your mate's highly specialized needs so that you can meet them with agape love. This is what it means when husbands are told in the third chapter of First Peter to who dwell with their wives according to knowledge. You are to be totally relaxed and at home with your wife. Because you understand her so well. And because you understand her, you will know what she desires and needs, how to meet those needs for her, what will make her feel love, and how to do the very best for her. The wife is to study her husband in the same way. To discover what makes him feel love, and to find out what he desires and needs, and how she can best meet his need. This is the creative project. of a lifetime for both husband and wife. Remember that agape is always an appropriate love, not given to suit your own hang-ups, but to ensure and enhance your partner's well-being. One of the thrills of marriage is knowing that you are providing what your beloved wants and need. Now, a final word about this unconditional love which has such power to heal and help your marriage relationship. It knows no limits, none at all. No matter how much you may dislike your mate's behavior, unconditional love keeps on flowing. following. Unconditional love means that a husband can go out looking for his wife even when she has run away from him to become a prostitute. He can find her in the gutter, litter, and take her home to love her and restore her to health and a place of honor. Does that sound too drastic, too improbable? A husband named Hosea loved his wife with this kind of unconditional love because of God's command. And their story had a happy ending as he and his wife were finally reunited in love. You can read it in the Old Testament, but it still happens today and people can still love this way. It's obvious that agape love clashes head on with our old learned habits of loving. I think it's important right now for you to pause and consider what has been your basic approach to the expression of love. Try to answer these questions honestly. Has your treatment of other people been based on their behavior? Has your partner's performance determined the degree of love you showed? Have you always felt that love should only be given as a reward for good behavior. Have you felt that your partner had to change before you could love him or her more? Do you really think that you can improve your partner's behavior by withholding love? Finally, have you been acting or reacting most of the time? Howard Hendrickx tells of the woman he counseledled who had this testimony. She said, "At first I prayed, Lord, you love my husband and I'll change him, but nothing happened. Then she said, "I came to the place where I cried out, God, I love him, and you change him." And God changed both of us. Whatever mistakes you've made in the past, you can choose right now to love your partner unconditionally with agape love. If even one of you makes this decision, it will bring about a dramatic improvement in your relationship. And when both of you are pouring out agape love, your home will become a bit of heaven on earth. Now, please get a pencil and a piece of paper so that you can take down my four-part positive prescription for a superb marriage. We have said that love means giving to your mate. And if you want the best marriage possible, you will give your mate the best. So, I'd like for you to write out the word best vertically on your page in large letters, one underneath the other, so that you can see the prescription as I give it to you. B E S T. Now use your B to write the word blessing. Underneath this, use your E to write the word edifying. Beside the S, write sharing. And beside the T, write touching. Blessing. edifying, sharing, and touching. This is the four-point program for an increasingly wonderful love life. Perhaps you have never considered blessing as a practical element to introduce into your marriage. But the principle of blessing is a biblical one, and the Christian is commanded to practice it, especially in response to insult. Learning this important technique of response will carry you through many many difficult moments, especially if you have a troubled marriage with sharp words flying back and forth. Before you continue with this cassette, this is so important. I suggest that you stop now and read the third chapter of First Peter, concentrating on verses 8-2 and the 12th chapter of Romans 14- 21. The word blessing ulogia in the New Testament is based on two Greek words. The word eu u means well and the word logos means a word. So you can see already that the first aspect of blessing your partner in marriage is to speak well of him or her and to respond with good words although your partner's speech may have been harsh or critical or even insulting. This is the first way you bless your marriage through your tongue which consistently speaks good not evil. to your partner. The wife described in Proverbs 31 is praised because she opens her mouth in wisdom and the law of kindness is on her tongue. The Lord Jesus gave all men an example because when he was reviled, he did not revile in return. And when he suffered, he uttered no threats, but kept entrusting himself to his father in heaven. James warns us about the inconsistency of sending forth both blessing and cursing from our mouth, as if we were a fountain. pouring out a mixture of fresh and bitter water. And Peter tells us that if we love life and want to see good days, we will refrain our tongue from speaking evil in any form. So remember, you can actually bless your marriage through the words you speak to your marriage partner. And we should add, you also bless by learning when to be silent. The second aspect of blessing in scripture consists of bestowing practical benefits upon or simply doing kind things for another person. In this case, your partner. When is the last time you did something kind for your mate just to please him or her? Not as a duty, but as a free gift of blessing. This is a part of biblical blessing and it should be a daily part of your marriage. The third aspect of blessing is showing thankfulness and appreciation. Whatever you can find to appreciating your partner. Make it known. Thank your partner and thank God too. The fourth act of blessing is calling God's favor down in prayer. How much are you praying for your partner and on what basis? So things will be easier for you or is it prayer for your partner's good and blessing apart from benefits to you? To sum up, you bless your partner and your marriage in these four ways. Through your good and loving words spoken to him. about him through your practical behavior which shows loving kindness toward him and a hundred different actions through conveying your attitude of thankfulness and appreciation and finally through your prayer to God on his behalf. Good words, kind actions, thankfulness, and intercessory prayer for your partner. Let me assure you that this will work wonders in your marriage. The truth is that the Lord protects and honors the husband or wife who applies biblical principles all the time. You have been promised good days as a result of giving blessing. The Lord has promised to protect you and hear your prayers and in blessing you take yourself out of the way. So the Lord is free to work in the life of the partner who may be rendering evil. Even a good marriage will be greatly enhanced when you both become aware of the principles involved in blessing and begin to skillfully apply them. The second word on your list underneath blessing should be edifying. This biblical term often used in the New Testament refers to the building up of individuals. Although Christians can be edified spiritually by preaching and teaching, I do not recommend this means of edifying your marriage partner. When I suggested to one wife that she began to edify her husband, she said very startled, "You mean I'm supposed to preach to him?" I quickly reassured her that preaching was not at all what I had in mind, that by edifying, I meant building her husband up in every aspect of his personality, of cheering him on in every area of his life, and of increasing his sense of self-worth, with the result that his capacity to love and give would be increased as well. Elizabeth Barrett Browning expressed the principle of edifying in a few succinct words when she wrote to her husband, "Make now love larger to enlarge my worth. When we're talking about edifying, we're talking about an expanded love expressed in positive ways which enlarges the self-worth of the beloved. You see, this is something great which you can give to your marriage partner. Perhaps we can appreciate the psychological meaning of edifying by considering the root meaning of the word itself. The English word edify goes back to an old Latin word ae des. which originally meant a hearth or fireplace. A fireplace has emotional connotations for most of us. It represents cozy warmth and loving togetherness and perhaps a special tranquility. Of course, the hearth was the center of activity in ancient times, the only place of warmth and light in the home, the place where the daily bread was prepared. Certainly, it was the place where people were drawn together, comforted, and sustained in the midst of the harsh alities of life. In today's marriage, the process of edifying holds the same place of importance in the emotional sense. And we find as we study the passages in the New Testament which speak of edifying that three golden strands were interwoven with edifying, those of personal encouragement, inner strengthening, and harmonious peace between individuals. For instance, we read, "Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace and things with which one may edify another. Let every one of us please his neighbor for his good to edification. Wherefore comfort yourselves together and edify one another. The word translated comfort in that verse means to call to one side for strengthening and encouragement. The subject of edifying is summed up in 1 Corinthians 8:1 where it is written that love builds up. You see this is another action of love which you can employ to strengthen your marriage and Appropriate giving love which builds up the beloved is the power that will produce a responding love in your partner. How do you build up your mate? A careful study of New Testament principles and the example of the Song of Solomon indicates that husbands and wives each have their own special ways of edifying. In brief, the husband edifies his wife by praising her and the wife edifies her husband by her response to him. Husbands are told in the fifth chapter of Ephesians to nourish and cherish their wives. An important part of this is the giving of verbal praise and encouragement. A wife's sense of her own beauty depends greatly upon what her man thinks of her. She needs to be nourished emotionally with praise and never diminished by criticism, especially in the areas where she feels most insecure and vulnerable. She needs to be cherished in public. And the test of this is how her husband treats her socially. You can be sure that a genuinely beautiful wife has been protected and cherished by a husband who has shown a sensitive response to her special needs. Remember, edification builds up, never tears down. So, love gives your partner freedom to make mistakes, knowing there will be no hurtful criticism. You can never change your partner for the better by criticizing or complaining. This will only widen the gulf between you. An edifying love gives your partner room to grow and develop as a person without fear of failure. Keep in mind God's two-way program for edifying. 1 Peter 4:8 says, "Love covers over a multitude of sins." And 1 Corinthians 8:1 says, "Love builds up." Some husbands who manage to refrain from criticism still have not learned the art of praise for their wives. It is said, "The best way to compliment your wife is frequently." On the other hand, As someone is observed, relationships die because of what you don't say. They simply dry up. Edifying begins in the thought life where Philippians 4:18 is put into practice. If there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things. Practice thinking about things you find attractive in your mate, every positive quality your partner possesses. And let the words of your lips be governed by this principle. Will what I say to my husband or wife build up or tear down? Then ask yourself, what can I say to my partner right now which will edify and build up, which will encourage and make peace? Biblically, the wife most edifies her husband by her response to him. In the full meaning of the language of the Greek New Testament, the wife is told to respect, admire, be in awe of defer to, revere, adore, esteem, praise, and deeply love her husband. This is presented as her full-time job, and the original language of the Bible infers that she will be personally benefited as she does it. In essence, God designed marriage so that a husband is dependent upon the affirmations of his wife, the appreciation she shows him for all that he gives her, and her demonstration of respect for his manhood. It is wounding when a husband criticizes his wife. It is equally wounding when she criticizes what her husband provides for her. Both husband and wife have a tremendous need for encouragement by word, by focused attention, by eye contact, and by loving touch to keep them alive as growing, competent individuals. Psychologists have called this healing attention. We call it edifying. The New Testament Greek word for edify reminds us of an important fact. It is odomet a combination of two words meaning a home demo meaning to build. You see while you're edifying and building each other up you're also building a home together. Your home can never be what it should be until you have developed a practice of edifying. Let it begin with you. Now the third part of my prescription for a superb marriage is sharing. This is something something we have already discussed in detail as a part of developing fileo love. So let me just re-emphasize several points. The more ways you can find to be in relationship with each other, the stronger your love will become. Sharing operates in all areas of life. Your time, your activities, your interests and chief concerns, your ideas and innermost thoughts, your spiritual walk, your family objectives and goals. Pursuits which take the two of you in opposite directions should be avoided. Although of course there will be spaces in your togetherness. Sharing demands giving of yourself, listening to your partner, and as you live together, developing a sensitive awareness of moments which offer possibilities for deepening the love between you. One writer has described it as going on a voyage of discovery together, discovering each other through the experiences of sharing. Yes, this too is a biblical principle. Husband and wife become one flesh. The book of Acts tells us that all the believers were one in heart and soul and at that time even had their possessions in common. If this could happen to a whole group of people, how much more is it possible to develop oneness between two people who want to build love in their marriage? The alternative to sharing in your marriage is an unhappy one. Listen to this letter published in Dear Aby's advice column. The wife wrote, "Do all marriages go stale after 25 years. Ours has. My husband and I don't seem to have much to talk to each other about anymore. We used to talk about our kids, but now that they're grown and gone, we're out of conversation. I have no major complaints, but the old excitement is gone. We watch a lot of television and read, and we do have friends, but when we're alone together, it's pretty dull. We even sleep in separate bedrooms now. Is there some way to recapture that old magic? And she signs her letter. The song has ended. Yes, you can begin even now to compose a new song through the practice of sharing along with the fourth part of my prescription for an improved marriage which is touching. Simple physical touching. Touching is the most natural act in the world and your need for it is more basic than your need for sex. In fact, the importance of touching in human life can hardly be overemphasized. Before you were born, even before your eyes and ears were functional, your were sensitive to touch. After you were born, touching was still your first line of communication. You learned about your world and the people in it through the way you were touched. And the cuddling and loving you received was essential to your normal development and even your physical well-being. God created us that way with hundreds of thousands of microscopic nerve endings in our skin designed to sense all kinds of touches. A tender touch tells us that we are cared for. It can calm our fears, soothe pain, bring us comfort or give us the satisfaction of emotional security. As adults, touching continues to be a primary means of communicating with those we love. Our need for it is normal and healthy, and we never outgrow that need, whether we're conscious of it or not. But if touching is so valuable and pleasurable, why is it necessary to advise couples to do more of it? The answer lies in the culture we've grown up in. Strangely, our western civilization is highly sexual but frowns on or ignores touching apart from sex. Particularly for men, the three acceptable kinds of touching in today's world are the superficial handshake, the aggressive contact sports and the sexual encounter. Experts have suggested that the extreme preoccupation with sex in our western culture is actually a search to satisfy our deep need for the warmth, reassurance, and intimacy of nonsexual touching. Men especially have been conditioned to turn to sex whenever they feel any need for loving closeness. As one doctor observed, the whole sexual experience is a lot of extra exertion when all you really want is a hug. It is ironic that young couples who have built an intense love relationship by handholding, kissing, hugging, and sitting close to each other before marriage often quit touching after marriage. The reason touch is now used only as a sexual signal to communicate the readiness to make love. At other times, husband and wife carefully stay apart, lest their affectionate gesture be misconstrued. Those of you who take my advice and restore physical touching to your marriage in all of its pleasant nonsexual forms will find that you may be having sex a little less often, but enjoying it much more. This is because snuggling and cuddling, sleeping close to each other, sharing affection through simple touch will meet many of the emotional needs which you thought sex would meet before. At the same time, this pattern of affectionate closeness and touching provides a delightful prelude to the entire sex relationship, preparing the way emotionally for wonderful times together. I must tell you quite frankly that even though you apply every other principle I have given you, it will be of little avail often and joyfully in nonsexual ways. Physical contact is absolutely essential in building the emotion of love. Many of the people who come to my office saying, "I love him, but I'm not in love with him," simply have no affectionate touching in their marriage. No hugs, no kisses, no sleeping close at night. And I realize that some of you have already reacted to what I'm saying with the attitude that you are different, that you do not need to be touched, and is not your nature to be affectionate. But you are the very person we want to address this section to, and with great emphasis, You see, you have been conditioned to be unaffection, perhaps because you never saw enough of it demonstrated in your own family. But you can learn to express your love through physical closeness over a period of time. You do not have to remain as you are. God will change you as you are obedient to him. And if you want to give your partner the best, you will give affectionate touching as a sign of your love. I do not counsel you to do this just to please your partner, but also to bring pleasure to yourself and In the long run, therapists today are working with individuals to help them learn to physically express their affection in nonsexual ways. This may produce uneasy feelings at first, even when the change is for the better. But positive feelings soon take over. Couples who know how to hug and kiss and cuddle up close or snuggle together before going to sleep say that this brings them comfort and a feeling of optimism and support and togetherness that is very wonderful. They receive the healthy affection which every human craves. They enjoy all the good feelings of tenderness and closeness and an intimacy that is far more than just sexual. These are the couples who remain in love with each other and these are the ones who have more and more romantic thrills to look forward to as the years go by. You may take it as a sobering warning that most of the time marital infidelity is not so much a search for sex as it is for emotional intimacy. The scriptures show that touching a woman kindle is a flame which should be natural within marriage. If you would like to kindle a flame in your own marriage, then begin to show your love through physical touching. People who want to build the emotion of love in their marriage can learn from the teenagers who almost accidentally fall in love because of their practice of physical closeness. And rid yourself of the myth that touching must always lead to sex. Touching is important all the time. Now, we're going to Turn briefly to the one book in the Bible which is exclusively devoted to courtship and marriage. I am referring to the Song of Solomon, the Song of Songs, which reveals in striking detail the pattern of married love as God designed it. It is here that we can find specific examples to guide us in carrying out the commandments of Ephesians 5. In the Song of Solomon, we have a practical model for the love life of husband and wife. If both of you study this book, you will discover how to obey God. in your marriage by being very much in love and very expressive with that love. Of course, this book also teaches us about our relationship with Jesus Christ. We know that marriage is meant to be a reflection on earth of the secure and yet dynamic love relationship between Christ and his church. The husband is to be to the wife what Christ is to the church. So, as we consider the husband of the Song of Songs and observe his treatment of his bride and the way she responds to him, we will indeed learn important truths about our savior's possession of us and his protective love for us as well as our growing response to him. But first of all, the Song of Songs is the true story of a marriage between the king of Israel and an unsophisticated country girl whom he met in the northern vineyards of his kingdom. We will refer to her as Schulam. Their relationship has been described by Solomon under the direction of the Holy spirit to show us how to build marriages which honor God and reflect heavenly truth in the relationship of husband and wife. It is not possible in the limited time we have here to do a study of the Song of Solomon. But as I give you principles and conclusions drawn by the finest Bible scholars of recent times, I trust it will wet your appetite for more. And I recommend the book A Song for Lovers by S. Craig Glickman to guide you in your study. You will find that the figure language of the song is easier to understand than you had expected. And you will be thrilled to know that God honors and blesses real romantic love between husband and wife and that this love can be developed in your own marriage to the glory of God. Then I want you to see just how this husband loved his wife. Remember, she was a sheltered country girl, her skin deeply tanned from her work in the vineyards. Among the elegant, pampered, white-skinned ladies of the court, she felt inferior. unworthy to be Solomon's queen. But her husband very skillfully and lovingly built up her self-image. He did this first of all by praise. He sensitively praised her in the very areas where she felt most insecure. He voiced appreciation of her physical appearance and her lovely character and specifics, not vague generalities. He compared her with all other women so favorably that she could rest in the she pleased him as no other woman could. He told her, in fact, that she was flawed. perfect in his eyes, altogether lovely. He did not say this just when they were courting or on their wedding night. He continued to praise her and the maturity of their marriage. Husband, your wife needs to hear these things from your lips. Every wife needs to be praised for her beauty by her husband. It is this which will make her beautiful. But there are more lessons to learn from this husband. He not only praised Schulam, he totally refrained from criticizing her. Never was there a word of criticism, not even when perhaps she deserved it. His words to her were always positive, and they bore fruit in the kind of loving, responsive wife she became. His love and approval was not just a private matter. The king showed publicly his adoration and respect for his wife. In the royal banqueting house, his banner over her was love. In other words, it was obvious to everyone that Schulam was the most most important person is his kingdom to be honored, respected and protected in every way. He treated her like a queen and that is what she became in truth. At the same time, he privately loved her in such a way that she could finally give herself completely to him, withholding nothing of her trust, her thoughts, and her love. Husband, how do you treat your wife publicly? Do you open doors for her, seat her at the table, hold her coat for her. These small courtesies give honor to the wife as the more delicate vessel. After all, your wife cannot see your mental attitude toward her. You must show it by simple actions which display your love for her and your care and protective concern for her well-being. Is your banner over her love when other people are present? Do you often look at her, respond to her glances, Listen to her. Make her feel that she is the most important person in your kingdom. If you want a queen for a wife, publicly treat her as one. Of course, the marriage in the Song of Songs had problems as all marriages do. It is no sin and not unusual to have natural differences with your mate. The test of emotional and spiritual maturity is how you work these problems out. Let's take one example from the song. Schulman had difficulty in adjusting to Solomon's demanding schedule as chief of state. One night, perhaps when he had promised to come in early, he did not arrive until very late. At this point, she may have been offended. At least she was more concerned about her own comfort and schedule than about loving her husband, so she said she was not ready to see him, and she would not open her bedroom door to him. Observe how he handled the situation. Instead of making an issue out of it, he quietly withdrew for a few hours to let her to think it over. He left her alone. He gave her time to deal with her negative feelings. Please note that he did not rebuke her. Instead, he left a sign of his love for her at the door, a gift of rare perfume, because he had not reacted as an irate husband, but behaved as a lover. His wife quickly realized that she was in the wrong and must correct her mistake. As soon as he withdrew, she began to long for him and went out to look for him. When the two were together, Again, the husband reassured his wife with tender love words repeated from their wedding night. In other words, I love you just as much as ever. And wrapped up in his love, unspoken, was the instant forgiveness for her rejection of him. Certainly, it was necessary for Schulam to learn to adjust to her husband's occupation. The same is true for you wives who are listening. The New Testament scriptures tell the wife to adapt herself to her husband. Now, even though your husband is not a king, His calling should be as important to you as if he were a monarch. You should show a vital interest in his work, not just his paycheck. You should respect what your husband does for a living and should be able to admire the way in which he does it. Now, I want you to consider how this wife loved her husband. It was by her response. Brought up as a chased young woman, she was now free to delight in her husband's caresses, and she wholeheartedly, exquisitly responded to his love making. She thought much about her husband. Her thoughts were occupied with him even when they could not be together because of his duties. She respected his manly character and often expressed her admiration of him to others. When he complimented her, she responded with her own apt expressions of praise and left him in no doubt as to her feelings for him. She was thrilled by his touch at all times, eager for his embraces, and she let him know it. She enjoyed his company and planned delightful times for the two of them. She stored up delights for him, both new and old. To see how she blossomed in the security of his love, we can compare three statements she made. When she first fell in love with him, she said, "My beloved is mine and I am his." Her possession of him was uppermost in her mind. But later on in their relationship, she said, "I am my beloveds and my beloved is mine. Note, she reversed the order. Now his possession of her was more important. Finally, in the fullness of their love, she said, "I am my beloveds, and his desire is for me." By this time, she was so focused upon him that she had forgotten about possessing him. She had lost herself in the greatness of his love, and she gloried only in his desire for her. Husbands, I want you to ly listen to this request that Solomon made of Schulman. He said, "Let me see thy countenance. Let me hear thy voice, for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is lovely." Here was a man who loved to look into his wife's eyes, who loved to talk with her and to hear what she had to say to him. It is no wonder that she became completely secure in his love. And as a result of this openness and communication between them, their relationship grew and matured and became many faceted. expressing all the aspects of love which we have discussed earlier in this series. He was her brother, lover, teacher, friend, companion and husband and she was equally everything to him. Their conversation, their love making, their togetherness became ever deeper and richer in quality. It is interesting that at the end of the song, the husband's last words were, "Let me hear your voice. These were like the words he had first whispered to her when they were courting. Then he had compared her to a gentle dove hidden from him, whose voice he wanted to hear so that he could come to know the inmost person of her heart. But now he still longed with the same intensity to grow in the knowledge of his fascinating wife. And his wife repeated her longing to make love to him. You see, the romance of their marriage had increased with the years. At the same time, their physical love life had become better and better. nourishing their relationship. It was as Solomon advised in Proverbs 5:18-19, "Rejoice in the wife of your youth, as a loving hind and a graceful do, let her breast satisfy you at all times. Be exhilarated always with her love." There's so much more that I wish we had time to bring out from this wonderful and practical portion of God's word. As we close, I would like to repeat Schulam's words to her husband. The fires of true love of can never be quenched because the source of its flame is God himself. This is what we have tried to show in this series and these are the fires which I pray will be set ablaze in your own marriage. It is important for you to remember this fact. An intimate relationship will never spontaneously improve with time. A troubled relationship will never just get better on its own. It is up to you to build your house. house of love. The Bible makes the choice clear in the book of Proverbs. We're told that every wise woman builds her house, but the foolish tears it down with her own hands. A foolish man troubles his house and lives to bitterly regret it. But it need not be this way for you. By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established, and by knowledge the rooms are filled with all all precious and pleasant riches. Please let us know if we can be of further help to you in building the house of your marriage. This is Dr. Ed Wheat. Thank you.

Ephesians 5:28 Genesis 2:24 John 3:16 1 Corinthians 8:1 1 Peter 4:8 1 Corinthians 8:1 Philippians 4:18 Proverbs 5:18–19

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