Tag: romance

Now That’s REALLY Staying Together!

Neal Pollard

You may had heard once about the couple archaeologists dug up in an excavation in Rome, Italy. They found the bones of a couple who would have possibly lived before Noah, but how they found them was most unique. The skeletons were found in embrace, suggesting especially to the sentimental the profoundest expression of love and togetherness possible (source here).

Who knows what it truly means, who they were, and if they were even husband and wife? Yet, I would like to think that they were a couple so close and whose lives were so intertwined that their repose in death was symbolic of how they were to each other throughout life. We certainly need good role models, wherever we can “dig them up.”

Society does not do so much to encourage married people staying together. In fact, infidelity and fornication are idolized character traits. Those who stick together through thick and thin are portrayed as foolish or at least boring. Yet, God laid out a blueprint for the whole that includes a bond much stronger than an embrace for couples staying together (cf. Gen. 2:18-24; Mat. 19:3-9; 1 Pet. 3:1-7; etc.). The Lord’s church needs men and women who are committed to staying together, to building healthy, happy and close marriages. Societies, to long endure, need such values embraced and encouraged. You, if you are married, need to rededicate yourself to your spouse each day, finding ways to stick close and reasons to stay together.

How To Improve Your Love Life

Neal Pollard

  • Even when provoked, endure without complaining.
  • Give your spouse a gift (not necessarily monetary) as an act of kindness.
  • Avoid intensely negative feelings toward your spouse’s success and jealousy over them.
  • Avoid an exaggerated conception of yourself or an inflated ego.
  • Avoid behaving in a way that shames, disgraces, or embarrasses your mate.
  • Don’t be selfish and self-centered.
  • Don’t be easily stirred to anger and irritated toward your mate.
  • Don’t keep score.
  • Don’t derive delight and happiness from the sinful in your marriage.
  • Delight in the things that God promotes and delights in.
  • Put up with annoyances and difficulties in your marriage.
  • Have faith in your mate.
  • Think positively about and anticipate the future with your spouse.
  • Dedicate yourself to standing by your mate’s side, for better or worse, in sickness and health, etc.

No, that does not sound like what the world’s “love doctors” will tell you, but it’s a short summary of the 14 characteristics of love that Paul gives as part of the inspired definition of that word (1 Cor. 13:4-7). The love he writes about is that highest form of love, exclusive, totally committed, totally trusting, uplifting, edifying, unselfish, connected to faith and hope.

When we pore over those qualities and see how God defines it, it leaves us fully aware of the fact that each of us, in our relationships, has so much room for growth and improvement in the “love life” of our marriages. My prayer for each of us who is married that, not just on days like today but every day, we will focus on how we can improve the love we demonstrate in our marriages.

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