Proverbs 5:19 a lovely deer, a graceful doe. let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated in her love.

It’s all about intimacy, if you are not married then you probably are looking forwards to the levels of intimacy available between a husband and a wife, if you are married then you already know how precious and sacred this is.

You know it is worth fighting for, and that it needs to be worked for intentionally. Oh yes, of course in the early days of dating and dreaming we believe we will float on clouds of love for the rest of our lives, with no effort required on our part. And that is a beautiful thought and at times marriage is like that.

For Wendy and I, we recognised that in the busyness of life, we needed to be intentional if we were to care for our marriage and honour our commitments.

Sixty-seven per cent of all disagreements in a marriage are not fully resolvable to the satisfaction of both people, in other words, someone has to give some ground up.

We consider the weight of the differences for each of us as we grow together.

For Wendy growing up, birthdays were massive, her mum made sure that every birthday was celebrated, fully, even if they had little money. For me growing up, birthdays went largely unnoticed. So for Wendy and I, with our families and our children, we had two different world views on birthdays, born from our families of origin.

Once I understood how important this was for Wendy as it was connected to so many happy childhood memories, and so was willing to give ground in this area so we could maintain our intimacy and build our friendship. Can you imagine the damage to our marriage of me insisting we don’t celebrate birthdays because I never really had?

I became a richer man by allowing myself to be open to change and to embrace some of Wendy’s values.

I know this may seem like a silly example, but I wanted to really build towards one thought. If Jesus and God show their highest love for us through selfless sacrifice, and we are his bride to be (the church), then our earthly love for each other was never meant to be built on self-satisfaction. That is a faulty model.

The Proverb above is a true reflection of what marriage can be and for many is, and this is built on a foundation of intimate communication, total trust, self-sacrifice and, of course, loud laughter.

 

KNOWLEDGE

Sex is after all God’s idea, God designed woman and man to be attractive to each other, and God established marriage as the temporal pure commitment for a man and woman to enjoy and to experience the fullest enjoyment of life that is possible.

Marriage is a model of Christ [the groom] and the Church [the bride] that has made the betrothal, Christ is coming back to be united with his bride for eternity and will take us [the bride] to be with him in the rooms he has prepared at his Father’s house. [John 14:2].

This is a proverb of commitment in my mind – calling to us to be totally transfixed with each other. For those of us married, we are encouraged to be completely committed to our wife/husband – to purposely develop a deep friendship, that has us becoming and staying best friends, and to embrace to the fullest extent the physical aspects of the love that God has given us to enjoy.

I think there is a hint here at the relationship we are to have with God – that sense of being “all in”, no room for any other, no gap, no edge, no place for misunderstanding.

There is a whole-heartedness being displayed between the husband and his wife. He has eyes only for her and is consumed with offering his love to her.

God’s promise to us is [Jer 29:13] “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart”.

What is your relationship like today with your husband or wife – are you both delighted with each other, intoxicated with love, best friends every moment of every day? What is your relationship like today with Jesus, are you captivated by his beauty, given over to seeking him with all you have, willing to lay down every self-desire to know him better?

 

UNDERSTANDING

Let’s pick one word from this verse to look closer at and see if that can help us gain a deeper insight into how God would love us to live?

The word for “intoxicated” in Hebrew is pronounced as “sagah” and this word appears 21 times in the Old Testament. In the ESV this word is translated into the English words, unintentional; mistake; intoxicated; deceiver; erred; wander; astray; misleads; and, reel. Yikes!

In our verse, the selection of “intoxicated” is intentional and brings the idea of being almost in a daze of love.

WISDOM – where do you spend your love?

STRENGTHS THOUGHT: Relator is trustworthy, seeks out time alone together, goes deeper, stays longer, and wants more. Relator does not hide its’ feelings. Relator builds others up.

Allan’s Unauthorised Version – [the friendship, affection, and attraction are like a grove of palm trees, full of grace and kindness. The seat of her love, her bosom, continually saturates you, and drenches you, as you are intoxicated continually, with no interruptions, in covenant friendship, and desire for each other, confirmed by loyalty.]

PRAYER: Father, thank you for today. Help me to position myself in this verse and to stay there all my days. Thank you.

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