[Wisdom of Solomon] the Wedding Day and NightSample

Keep The Fire Going

Have you ever seen a couple on their honeymoon? There are smiles, giddiness, laughter, and just so much joy. These two lovebirds made the covenant, and you see their delight in each other. But what usually happens many years later? The joy, laughter, smiles, and giddiness sometimes disappear. Why is this?

One reason is that our responsibilities in life steal our romance. For both men and women, work and home are difficult. Nobody has the energy to be spontaneous or to write poems anymore. The energy to do anything romantic disappears. Our desire should never be to let that happen. If you want your romance and intimacy to be better in your marriage, here’s what you work on: you don’t work on intimacy. You work on tenderness.

When tenderness is the goal, a husband receives respect, and a wife is shown love. Intimacy and romance grow. They will come because your aim is more than just physical pleasure. Intimacy and romance come with intentionality. If you lived in a log cabin, you would make sure to cut down more than enough trees now to have plenty of wood to throw logs on the fire later, in the winter. In the same way, we must see the intimacy and romance in our marriage as a fire that needs logs to continue burning. Solomon and his wife had plenty of logs to throw on the fire because they protected this garden of love, care, and intimacy. You see, there is work to be done on both sides, not to get back to a fleeting honeymoon stage but to being in a stage where you truly know one another.

You know the tender spots and you avoid them. You know which places to shield and which places to encourage. We must not allow responsibility to rob our spouses of the love and sacrifice they deserve. We do this because when we look at our relationship with God, we see He is always throwing logs on the fire. But this time, His intentional care for us is called grace. In our weakness, His grace is enough. When we were dead in our sins, His grace made us alive. His grace never left us when we felt like we could not go on. He constantly throws grace upon grace on our hearts to keep us going.

Is the romance dead in your marriage? Do you feel like all is lost? Seek the Lord so that He can show you where to show grace, where to get the logs needed, and where to be tender toward one another. Then trust that He will draw near to you when you draw near to Him.