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Proverbs 31:10-31 describes a truly legendary wife. She seems mythical, practically impossible. But a few years ago, I sat down with this chapter of Proverbs hoping for inspiration for a homemade anniversary card for my wife on our 36^th anniversary, I somewhat surprisingly (though not totally) found a match for Sharlene with every single quality listed in the passage. I wrote that card and excitedly presented it to her over a romantic dinner in a Montana steakhouse restaurant. (We’d spent the day in Yellowstone National Park.)

Without going into all the details – because there are many – the summarizing characteristics of that wife (and mine) are:

• Independent. It may be surprising to some that the Bible would hold in such high regard a wife as independent, the stereotype of Biblical wives often being dependent on their husbands. 

This shows us that God doesn’t desire husbands to be controlling or micromanaging of their wives. He made men and women with minds to think with on their own and sometimes being a Godly husband means getting out of his wife’s way. 

Getting out of her way doesn’t mean he stays on the couch, lazily depending on her to carry the load of provision for the family. No, he’s found, instead, at the city gate, which means he’s a respected member and leader of the community. 

So Godly husband and virtuous wife live a respectable life, honoring God, others and one another.

• Entrepreneurial. It may also be surprising that a woman in Biblical culture would be a leader in the business community. This lady isn’t passively waiting for her husband to provide. She’s known and respected at the market and is relied upon by her customers to provide valuable resources. 

She isn’t shielded by an overprotective husband from the risks of lurking scammers looking to take advantage of the vulnerable and naïve because she’s trusted to be shrewd and strong, not easy prey for stalkers. This woman is vigilant and keenly aware, not ruled by fear.

• Industrious. This wife is no slacker; she burns the midnight oil but isn’t found lying in the bed in the late morning hours. Her family needs her to produce and she delivers. She’s considered a blessing, not only to her husband and community, but also to her children. 

Her kids are well clothed, well fed, well trained and well loved. 

I take the opportunity afforded in this space to wish my wife, Sharlene, my Proverbs thirty-one wife, a happy 39^th anniversary! You are every kind of blessing Solomon wrote about in this classic chapter in Scripture! I thank God for you! What a blessing you are!

This year we go to Memphis, where we’ll see Graceland, the Civil Rights Museum and other sites. We’ve been fasting and praying, but it’s time to eat! So, we’re going to celebrate our marriage and the life God has given us! The fast is over! We’re coming home fat like Elvis, baby!

This month we celebrate 250 years of freedom as a nation. 

Anytime there’s freedom, there’s three questions:

1. Freedom from what?
2. Freedom to what?
3. Freedom to what degree?

I want to look at celebrating three freedoms (national, spiritual & marital) each answering the three questions above.

From What? Our national freedom is really about our independence. We’ve been free from the rule of England since 1776, actually, independent from the rule of any nation, enjoying our own sovereignty, for all this time. 

Spiritually, Jesus gained our freedom the moment He died on His cross. Right up until that moment – and even after for many, His state-mates, the Jews, didn’t understand from what He had set them free. They looked around and saw their oppressors, the Romans, still in power over them, collecting taxes, enforcing Roman law and lording over them with intimidation and unfair treatment. Not until first century Jews, modern day people across the globe, and every human everywhere in all the centuries in between realize from where our bondage came (sin) can we know from what we’re free. We’re free from sin and all its consequences.

Maritally, we’re free from the threats present in non-married life. Marriage provides a bed that holds our freedom from sexual immorality. It provides a partner whose friendship and counsel free us from the folly of foolish decisions and mistakes awaiting those who veer off track when making decisions. 

To What? This is where our nation’s freedom story gets pretty hypocritical. Every person being born with the freedom to pursue happiness was the stated ideal, but as the ink was drying on the Declaration of Independence, Africans continued to be traded, bought and sold, their freedom being stifled in every sense. We’ve made progress in correcting that evil but it will always be a blight on our history. So, while “citizens” were free to pursue their version of happiness, not every American was.

The freedom afforded us in Christ is, fortunately, the opposite of the American story. Jesus said that the poor in spirit (those seeing their spiritual bondage and being willing to cry out to God for freedom from it), those lowliest among all humans, are the very ones who are now free to enjoy all the benefits of God’s kingdom. What are those benefits? Eternal life, being reconciled to God, being the vessel of God’s Holy Spirit, having love, joy, peace…, having God’s special favor. 

For the married couple who has their relationship centered on Christ, their freedom is great indeed. Despite the marriage clichés, like, the old ball and chain and tying the knot, marriage is like the Garden of Eden. In Eden there was one forbidden tree among many, many plants Adam and Eve were free to enjoy; yet they were drawn to the forbidden, and chose the forbidden over the freedom. Married couples are free to enjoy a unique relationship that unmarried people are not. The intimacy – intimate friendship, intimate partnership and romantic and sexual intimacy are benefits couples are wise to enjoy and not overlook by focusing on the forbidden things in their lives. 

To What Degree? The freedoms of our nation exist within the boundaries of our land borders, citizens’ rights and fellow citizens’ rights. I believe the U.S. is the most blessed nation in history, as evidenced by the degree to which we citizens are free; we’re free to elect our governmental leaders, become governmental leaders, ourselves, believe the way we choose, speak the way we choose and worship the way we choose. What other nation ever has held those freedoms for its citizens? 

Jesus said that if the Son sets us free we’ll be free indeed, meaning absolutely free, the best kind of free, free to the greatest possible degree. ‘Nuff said. There’s no better freedom than freedom in Christ.

When a couple gets married, they live out the choice they’ve made. Of all the people in the world, they’re spending the rest of their lives with the one they love most, want most and probably need most. That’s a crazy high level of freedom. 

So, 

Happy Independence Day! 

Enjoy All Your Freedom in Christ Jesus!

and

May You Know and Experience All the joys of Marital Freedom!

There’s so much knowledge to be gained today about any and every subject. We’re decades into the Information Age and “science” (which means knowledge) is generally held as the tell-all about a subject, the most important perspective to have on a subject.

Personal health is a subject that gets a lot of attention from science. When it comes to one’s personal health and fitness, there’s more science and information than a person can contain. There’s the understanding of how the human body works, what nutritional choices are best and why, how the ideal exercise life should look and how much sleep and rest we should get. 

There are all kinds of general recommendations out there, a bunch of one-size-fits-all guidelines.

While I think it’s good to gain as much scientifioc knowledge as we can about human health, to have a solid general knowledge on this subject, I believe there’s one single piece of knowledge or understanding that, especially if you understand the basics of health, stands above all other knowledge of human health, and that’s knowing your own body. 

Even though we’re all part of the human race, we’re each unique; in some way or another, we’re all outliers from the range of the average and the common. 

For example, there are two areas in which I’m an outlier: hydration and sleep. I’ve learned that I require less than the average person of either hydration or sleep. 

I’m sure there are those who think I’m mistaken, that my perspective is somehow off base. 

I understand that these are two very important health factors, hydration and sleep, but I base this opinion on these experiences: 

Hydration: I run about twenty miles a week (four five-mile runs). I’ve found that I don’t need all that much fluid before a run; I always have a smoothie afterwards, but just normal intake throughout the day is enough prior to. If I overhydrate, I end up having to stop during my run to urinate (which I hate having to do). 

I’ve run two half-marathons in the past few years, both in the early morning hours. Before each one, I drank three cups of coffee, just like I do every morning. That’s all the fluid intake I had and I was fine through whole run. I got a smoothie afterwards each time that helped me recover from the run, but I never felt anything close to dehydration.

Sleep: I get five hours each night (from 11:30p to 4:30a), and a one-hour nap in the late afternoon, totaling six hours of sleep per day. With this sleep schedule, I have plenty of energy, which comes mostly from the passion and vision I have for my personal goals. Admittedly, I do grab an extra nap on weekend days if my schedule allows. 

There’s a third piece of knowledge about myself: when it comes to nutrition, I tend to continue eating or not eating whatever I start eating or abstaining from, respectively. One donut can lead to a half-dozen, but fasting for eight hours strengthens me mentally to complete a fast of sixteen hours, information that’s very useful for an intermittent fasting plan. 

My point is that I know myself, my body and my mind, and that knowledge, added to a decent general knowledge of human health, is the most important thing I can understand to help me to be healthy. 

You’re probably wondering when I’m going prove true to my title, and apply all this to marriage, so here goes:

What’s most important to know about marriage is your spouse.

It certainly doesn’t hurt to know God, yourself and marriage principles around topics like communication, money management, conflict management, sex & romance and how to love unconditionally. But if I rank all the nuggets of knowledge, understanding and insight related to marriage, far above all the others is knowledge, understanding and insight about your spouse. You need to know their love language, what they love, what they despise and to what they’re indifferent. Where are their buttons and how do you not push them? What learning style are they? Are they an introvert or an extrovert? External or internal processor? A spender, a saver or a giver? A good listener? A logic-driven decision-maker or a more intuitive one? 

All these pieces are important to have if you’re to have this most important marriage knowledge. 

So whether you’re married or expect to one day be, please understand that most important to know about marriage is simple. It’s knowing your spouse.

Last week I wrote about the power of having a vision for your marriage. This week I want to offer a Part 2 of sorts, painting a portrait of what a good vision for marriage can look like. 

I’ll use the structure of last week’s blog to frame the portrait. 

1. Destiny. The destiny for a marriage vision isn’t like a place you’d arrive at on a trip, where you drop all guard, all responsibility and just relax and have fun. The destiny for a marriage is a state of being, a condition, a pattern of thought and behavior, a mentality and a philosophy. It includes agape-love more than anything else. 

Agape-love is the same as grace, the favor given without regard to desert or response. Make sure your vision for your marriage is heavier on agape-love than anything else. 

It’s the only thing that will sustain you through any and every storm. 

It’s the kind of love we receive from God in Christ, and the exact kind for which He designed marriage. 

2. Energy. Once you begin to grasp a marriage in which all is forgiven and favor is always offered, you’ll notice an increased passion for your spouse and your marriage. Your motivation to arrive at and live in this kind of marital state will increase perpetually until eventually you’re zinging in heart and mind with the excitement of this becoming your reality.

3. Safety. All along the way, you’ll value more and more greatly this destiny to which you’re headed, to the extent that nothing can pull you off track. Many of the faulty mentalities, harmful distractions and destructive temptations will become peripheral blurs as you move toward your destiny. 

There’s an artist on the streets in Paris who draws portraits of passersby. He’s a good artist but he draws the same mouth on all his subjects’ portrait, regardless of what their mouths look like. 

That’s kind of what I’ve done here. The portrait I’ve painted here is general; it’s good but it isn’t customized. 

Now customize your own marriage portrait. Your marriage includes two unique people, making the marriage itself even more unique than any individual person. So, seek God and collaborate with your spouse to customize your vision. Paint your own unique mouth. Conceive together your own vision for your marriage. 

You’ll do well to include what I offer, but don’t stop there. Continue on and make it undeniably your own. 

Proverbs 29:18 says that without vision people will perish. 

Vision, here, is a clear understanding of how things should be. Perish means to suffer in some way, not necessarily keeling over and dying, but can be serious compromise or lack in some part of one’s life. 

Vision provides three benefits:

1. Destiny. Destiny is the targeted outcome of a major aspect of our life. It’s been said that if you aim for nothing, you’ll probably hit it. Having a clear mental image of how we want things to turn out is more powerful to bring about that very outcome than many realize. 

2. Energy. I’ve seen in my own experience that when I have a clear mental image of a strongly desired outcome, especially when I have certainty that image is Godly, I’m energized greatly to achieve that outcome. The idea of getting to my destiny is the powerful fuel it takes to get me there.

3. Safety. One of the surprising benefits of having vision is that it provides the guardrails necessary to keep us on track and out of the trouble we’d experience without vision. 

Concerning marriage, the question is, what is our vision for our marriage? Once we’ve answered that question, the vision, itself, will provide the benefits I stated above. 

But here are a few pointers in ascertaining vision:

1. Seek God for it. The more specific meaning of the Proverbs 29:18 vision is God’s vision; it can’t be just any ole vision; it must ultimately come from God, and seeking Him for it guarantees that you’ll get the best possible one. Remember the awesome promise that if we seek, we will find. (Matthew 7:7) The secret is in the seeking, so don’t worry about whether it’ll come; it’s a guarantee.

2. Make it clear. Observe it, contemplate it and review it so much that the details are very clear to you. The more clearly you can see it, the more distinctly it will be etched into your mind. 

3. Write it down. Recording a vision statement solidifies it for you. You aren’t just getting it down on paper; your getting it into your heart, which is where it has to be if it’s going to do its thing.

Arriving at a vision for you marriage will take some time, thought, prayer and interspousal communication. But the work it takes to get it is a worthwhile investment that you’ll understand once your vision is realized.

Let’s define ark as a vessel that contains something sacred. The Ark of the Covenant housed the presence of God, Himself, He being the most sacred, He who makes sacred whatever He chooses to set apart to and for Himself. 

The ark in the flood of Noah’s day carried Noah and his family. This was the man God deemed good, the one through whom He would preserve mankind and whose family He would use to restart the future of humanity. God made Noah and his family sacred and instructed Noah to build a vessel that would carry all – human and animals – that He had set apart for the promulgation of life on earth. 

In the next era of world history, God instructed Moses to build an ark, this one much smaller, small enough to be carried by a few men. This ark was the vessel purposed to house the presence of the very God who created Moses, the Israelites and all the earth, and who instructed Moses concerning the ark. 

Some 1,500 years later, God would make a seismic shift and established another ark. The Temple curtain behind which the ark was located would be ripped open, because the Ark of the Mosaic Covenant would give way to the New Covenant established by Jesus Christ when He uttered “It is finished!” and gave His life on the cross. The New Covenant ark would be established about seven weeks later when God gave His presence in spirit form to be carried in the hearts of believers in Jesus.

This is the age we now live in, the one in which we believers get to be the ark of God’s sacred presence, thus 1 Corinthians’ declaration that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. 

This blog is dedicated to marriage, so here are two points relative to married couples:

1. As a Christian couple, you and your spouse are dual arks, co-vessels of the Holy Spirit, and since you’re one flesh, you have the most intimate human relationship possible, and that oneness and that intimacy is made holy (sacred, Godly) by the Spirit who dwells within your hearts.

2. Just as the ark of the flood and the ark of the Covenant came with very specific instructions, so does Christian marriage. All the instructions can be summed up with agape-love.

Married couples, please add to your many roles and titles that you are co-arks of the Holy Spirit, and let’s carry Him together and carry Him together well.

I love the term helpmate. Dissect the word and you have help (to provide what’s needed, to satisfy a need) and mate (partner). 

Say the word in the marriage context and immediately for many comes the idea of the wife subserviently helping the husband accomplish his responsibilities. 

It’s true that Genesis designates the word to the woman God made to partner with the first man. But that’s really the middle English word chosen in translation. The Hebrew phrase there (ezer kenegdo) is another two part expression meaning respond to + strength, power or rescue. 

Does that sound subservient to you? Not to me. 

I understand it well because my helpmate is very strong and often comes to my rescue. 

But let’s flip this for a second and see if it fits the husband. I’ll pose a couple rhetorical questions. 

Husband, would like to be the powerful rescuer for your wife? 

What husband doesn’t want this role?

So we can see that:

1. Being a helpmate isn’t for an inferior one; if anything, it’s for the one stronger in some way.
2. Helping is more heroic than it is inferior. 

So, if helping is the calling of both husbands and wives, are we really helping our spouse or not?

A spouse can be a help, but they can also be a hindrance. Here are three checks to make sure you’re the former and not the latter:

1. Pay attention to your spouse’s need. Your intentions could be to help while you’re really hindering them. It’s important to help the way they need it, rather than the way you want to give it. Like speaking their love language instead of yours, learn to speak their help language. 

2. Help with humility. While helping may be heroic, let your spouse call you the hero while you assume a more lowly posture. Proverbs 27:2 is Let another praise you and not your own mouth.

3. Don’t take your spouse’s help for granted. Your spouse helps you so faithfully that you’ve come to expect it. Ok, fine. But always be expressively grateful for their help and imagine what your life would be like without it; that’ll help you keep the right attitude.

Are you a helpful spouse? Or are you a hindrance to your mate?

Whatever you were before reading this, I hope you can go forward as a true helpmate.

It’s a well known defense rule that you should understand your enemy. Knowing their strengths (what to watch out for), and their weaknesses (where the chinks in their armor might be) is of obvious importance. 

But there’s also an often overlooked not-so-small nuance, and it’s that you have to know who your enemy actually is and who it isn’t. 

When Jesus of Nazareth began to be known in Palestine, there were many different opinions about who He was. Some believed He was the Messiah and expected Him to conquer forever their enemy. Those who believed that were correct. The problem was that they didn’t know who their enemy was. Believing the Messiah’s purpose was to deliver Israel from the latest in their long line of national oppressors (the Roman Empire), many who had believed ultimately rejected Him when the Roman authority tried Him and Roman soldiers apparently subdued Him, beat Him and killed Him. 

The irony in all this is that God allowed the wrongly perceived enemy (Rome) to kill Jesus so that He could – in the process – defeat the real enemy: sin and Satan. Also ironic, what ultimately gave His believers life was brought about by His death. 

Many first century Jews didn’t know who their enemy was. Many married couples today also don’t know who their enemy is. It can easily become complicated, but to simplify it, your spouse is never your enemy and the only win in a marriage fight is when the spouses come into agreement. If one spouse wins over another, they both lose; their marriage is no better off and one or both of them got hurt. 

The Biblical basis for this is that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers and rulers of darkness in high places. (In other words, Satan is our real enemy, never our spouse.)

But the illustration my wife often uses to illustrate this is the scene in the Mr. and Mrs. Smith movie. Brad Pitt’s and Angelina Jolie’s characters are both double agent spies assigned to kill each other. They try that for a time until they realize they love each other and decide to fight together against the force that has pitted (pardon the pun) them against one another. 

In a scene in a sporting goods store, the army of ninjas coming to take the couple out (because they’ve rejected their mission to kill each other in favor of loving each other) tastes defeat themselves when Mr. and Mrs. Smith join forces and fight for each other rather than against each other, gaining victory over their real enemy while protecting their spouse, their love and their marriage. 

May we married couples be so wise. And it starts by knowing who the real enemy is and fighting together against him and no longer against each other. 

Married couples, KNOW YOUR ENEMY! And it isn’t each other. 

IF represents Influence / Fellowship. 

We used to teach our kids this before our empty nest era. 

Pay attention,” we would say, “to your friend relationships.” 

We challenged them to determine which way the influence needed to flow, to pour into them the good things you have for them, and to receive from them their positive influence. 

Fellowship has been defined as two fellows in a ship. Fellowship can actually involve more than two people. But the idea is that those in fellowship have much in common: goals and objectives, challenges and destination. 

Recognizing the IF factor in relationships is important; it can mean the difference in growth versus stagnation, success versus failure, peace versus anxiety, and even eternal destiny. 

The IF factor is strong in marriages, too. I can think of more than one couple who are divorced today because the IF factor became very unfavorable for them before they even realized it. 

Here are four guidelines to keep IF working for your marriage, not against it:

1. Be in relationship with people who share your belief in the importance of Biblical Scripture. God’s Word is true, powerful and necessary for real success in our lives. To be influenced away from that truth will steer you onto troublesome roads.
2. Don’t receive influence from friends with a non-Christian world view. It’s okay to disagree with or reject advice from a source that lacks faith in Jesus.
3. Prayerfully seek out couples who can benefit from your Christ-based influence. Pouring into others can be as fulfilling for the pourer as the receiver.
4. Recognize – even seek out – couples who share your worldview and invest in fellowship with them. Remember that fellowship is two-way influence.

The IF factor is huge for every type of relationship. Why not apply it to the most important human relationship, marriage?

Ok, first of all, this title is intentionally ambiguous. 

To say communication helps marriage would be a gross understatement. Communication is one of those completely pervasive factors in the marriage equation because it touches every aspect – money management, conflict management, parenting, sex and romance – every single part of marriage is impacted by communication. You can’t do anything effectively without communicating well. 

And then there are communication helps, helpful ideas for marriage, and I have three of them.

1. Communication can transfer ease, not just disease. The opposite of disease has been said to be ease (making life easier for someone in some way). We all know about communicable disease, like Covid, the flu, and other sickesses. What happens is that something harmful inside one person gets transferred to the inside of another person. And the transferring is communication.

Well, there can be helpful things (ideas, in this case) that one person (the spouse, in this case) can transfer, or communicate, to another (the other spouse). Spouses are helpmates to each other (Wait, some will object, it’s the wife that’s the helpmate, not the husband. To that I say, show me a good husband and I’ll show you a man helpful to his wife.) While it’s possible – even common – for spouses to communicate unhelpful ideas to one another, it’s possible – and very common in good marriages – to communicate helpful ideas. Affirmation, appreciation, kindness, affection, good examples and generous acts all communicate helpful ideas, sentiments, values and priorities. 

2. Communication is vital in warfare. A married couple is an army. They have a common enemy, a common objective and mission, and they serve the same commander-in-chief (God). If an army loses its ability to communicate, it will almost certainly be defeated. Keeping lines of communication open and sending an abundance of helpful information is vital to success. And the worst scenario is when the enemy accesses the lines of communication and secretly sends harmful messaging designed to deceive and defeat. Married couples must command the communication system and include God in it. That will keep the enemy out and help husband and wife become more intimately connected. 

3. Good Communication Takes Practice. We become better communicators only by practicing good communication. Remember this: practice makes permanent, not perfect. What we work at repetitiously will become who we are and what we do. So, if we want to become good communicators in marriage, we need to make it a disciplined focus. Talk about what you talk about, how you talk about it and what you communicate in ways other than talking. In other words, if you want to be good at communication in marriage, communicate about it. 

There are the three marriage communication helps. I hope you find them helpful.