What does love look like?




I remember being a young wife & reading lots of books about how to be a good wife. I grew up spoiled in some ways & didn’t know how to cook or clean or iron (I still don’t iron well. Thank God for steamers!) 


I’m 42 now & have been married for 21 years. I was 20 when I got married. 


Titus 2:4-5 says, “that they (older women) admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.”


One book I read was not a christian book and it was called The Proper Care & Feeding of Husbands. She basically said husbands need food & intimacy.


I was telling the young ladies in bible study that the devil is so sly he tries to get couples to commit fornication before marriage & then he tries to get married women not to have sex with their husbands or for the spouse to have an extramarital affair or the use of pornography. 


God designed one man & one woman to get married & fulfill each other til death do us part. Marriage can be beautiful the way God designed it but we have to do it His Way, not our way. 

 

Why don’t we hear older women teaching young women how to love & care for their husbands anymore? Because it offends them? Because Gods Word sounds outdated to them? The Bible is still true & when put into practice it works. 


I can think of 2 women who were married to lost sinful men & of course they weren’t happy but they obeyed the Bible & loved their husband & prayed for Him & hung out with him until one good glad day the Holy Ghost got ahold of those 2 men and one got saved & one got filled with the Holy Spirit & they quit doing the sinful things they used to do!! 


"Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives". 1 Peter 3:1-2


Purity & reverence. Are the husbands seeing that? 


I pray you don’t have to go through something hard like that because you will marry a good christian man that you have been praying for and keeping yourself pure for. I know stories like that too. 


What does love look like? Love is patient. (1 Cor. 13) Patient enough to wait until marriage to have sex or to live together. 


Love is kind. (1 Cor. 13) It does not pressure you to do things with your body or your boundaries that you don’t want to. 


Love does not envy. (1 Cor 13) Be content with your spouse. Most spouses have 80% what you like and 20 % what drives you crazy. Don’t leave your spouse for that 20% when another person also has a percentage that you won’t like either. Divorce damages children and the parent may not ever realize it, but the counselor they have to go see in their 30s will see the damage. (If you are being abused you need to call 911 & get some help I am not talking about abusive situations). 


Love does not boast. (1 Cor 13) I read a man’s post where he felt led to look up the lyrics to Bad Bunny’s Super bowl halftime spanish song. It’s too vulgar to quote here but part of it was trying to get with as many women as he could and to flaunt your wealth. We are called to live in humility & holiness. 


Love keeps no record of wrongs. Little foxes spoil the vine. 

“Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom.” Song of Solomon 2:15 


Forgive those small offenses that can create larger issues. 


What is love?  As we continue looking to the Bible for what love is in 1 Corinthians 13 it says, “ Love does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”


Love does not dishonor others. 


Love is not self seeking. 


Love is not easily angered. 


It keeps no record of wrongs. 


Love does not delight in evil. 


Love rejoices with the truth. 


Love protects. 


Love trusts. 


Love hopes.


Love perseveres.  (Don’t quit on your marriage.) Every marriage has moments they want to quit. Just don’t. Love can grow again if you work at it. What you plant & water will eventually grow. Are you planting seeds of bitterness and contempt in your marriage or of love and good deeds? You will reap what you sow, just ask a gardener. 


Happy Valentine’s Day. Love is more than chocolate & roses. It’s hard work. But it’s worth it. 


~Brandi Beck Smith

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