Enjoy (Daily Encouragement)
May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. – Proverbs 5:18
In the midst of the challenges and busyness of life and marriage, it can be easy to forget one of marriages primary purposes – enjoying your spouse! In Genesis 2, we see there was not a creature that was “fit for man” until a woman was created. Once that happened, Adam immediately breaks out into poetry in his excitement: “this AT LAST is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”, they became one and we naked and unashamed — fully enjoying one another (Genesis 2:22-25). Their are a lot of aspects of marriage, but in Proverbs we see one of the primary is to enjoy one another*:
As Friends – Wisdom will save you from also from the adulterous woman, from the wayward woman with her seductive words, who has left the partner of her youth and ignored the covenant she made before God. (Pr 2:16-17). The word “partner” means the closest of friends. Wisdom says your spouse should be your closest friend with the marks of constancy, sensitivity, speaking the truth in love, counseling one another, etc. present.
Intellectually – Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. They are a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck. (Pr. 1:8-9). There is a call to be “true colleagues and students together” in learning God’s wisdom from the Word of God. They should be intellectually curious together, fellow travelers in learning biblical truth and brainstorming how to align all areas of their lives with its wisdom.
Physically – May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer—may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love. (Pr. 5:18-19). In ancient societies the purpose of marriage was to gain security and status for your family. That meant that the husband often looked elsewhere for sexual pleasure. Yet the Bible says your spouse must also be your lover. The husband is to be intoxicated with his wife’s love…The physical union is a wonderful sign of the union of all the other aspects of your life.
What causes you to drift from enjoying your spouse? What rhythms and practices help you enjoy your spouse as friends, intellectually and physically?
*adapted from God’s Wisdom for Navigating Life by Tim Keller