You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. — Deuteronomy 5:21
What is the secret of contentment in marriage?
I think my answer will surprise you.
We need to receive love from outside the marriage.
No, I’m not advocating an affair. Not at all!
Instead, I am suggesting that working on our marriages is the wrong place to start if we want to be happily married. Rather, we need to work on opening our hearts to the Lord.
I am married to a good woman. My wife is godly. She is patient. (She needs to be, living with me!) She is wise. (Every good idea I ever came up with was something Kim told me to do six months earlier.) She is a wonderful mother to our four children. She understands and cares about what is important. She’s unpretentious. I could go on, but you get the idea.
My wife is sort of like Mary Poppins: practically perfect in every way.
But my wife does not have the power to prevent me from having an affair. Even if she were 100% perfect, she still couldn’t stop me from desiring and pursuing someone else.
This is where God comes in. A man who chases another woman is looking for a solution that only God can provide.
If you are married, I don’t know what your spouse is like. He or she might be great, and then again, there might be a great need for improvement. But your spouse cannot fulfill the great longings of your soul. And neither can anyone else. That’s why adultery doesn’t work. But Jesus does.
Work on your marriage — by all means, yes! But don’t start or stop there. Open every hurt to the Lord. He will soothe. He will comfort. He will protect. And as His love is poured out in our hearts, we realize that we never really wanted the other woman (or man) — it was Jesus we wanted all along.
Be encouraged!
Dwight
Dwight Clough is the author of four Christian books and is an active member of Lake City Church in Madison. This devotional is also available via email and you may review the archives back to 2002. To contact Dwight or Kim, use their contact form. You may also support their ministry.