Transcript
It's the “one way” that captures my attention on this. Let me explain. My first thought is the nature of love is love never stops it just one way. Love is generative. It's creative. Once you get into it, you can think of dozens of ways, dozens of them. So given that sometimes one way can be challenging, what we're saying is this is not going to be a natural exercise. This is going to be spiritual. That makes this question great. It's spiritual. That means we need the Spirit. We are going to approach this with some desperation and being called to do something that is a little bit beyond us. So that's a great question.
Let's begin this way. This is predictable, but it's really important. Let's fill our hearts with the knowledge of the love of Jesus Christ. If there's anything we know that God wants to give us, that great prayer in Ephesians 3, he wants us to know and be certain that we are loved, and he loves us in hundreds of different ways. He loves us in the way he is gentle with us. He loves us in the way that he is with us, in the way that he speaks to us, in the way that he speaks so many words, and on and on and on. The first thing we're going to do is let our hearts be filled with the love of Christ. We love out of having been loved. And we can take a day for that. We can take a week for that, or we take a year for that. Ask other people. Ask everybody you can. Ask them to give them their version of the love of Jesus Christ. Grow in it.
Next, get creative. Write down some ideas. A category, a kind of category of ideas that you might come to would be this (these are ones that I've certainly heard and tried to do): Have a date night with your wife. Bring flowers on Friday. I'm being too personal here. These are indeed things people have asked me to do and I haven't done them well. Go for a walk with your spouse. Hold hands with your spouse. Tell her you love her.
These however are adornments on the more important matters, and there are more important matters. What gives this a way is that anybody could potentially do the ideas that I just mentioned. Date nights, flowers, walk, holding somebody's hand, telling her you love her. You do not need Jesus to do that. What we want are, What are the ways to love for which you need Jesus? So now let's go to the things that are best.
For example, confessing your sin to your spouse. Have you ever tried that? I suspect most spouses would find that as a prominent and moving expression of love. Then set out to be the one who confesses first and the one who confesses most. Ask her to pray for you in one specific way in which you feel needy, such as you want to know the love of Christ, because if you know it, you will love her well. Ask her to pray for you. Pray with her together. Read Scripture with her. Tell her what you are learning from Scripture. Prepare to speak with her about the things that are on your heart, the things that were good, the things were blessings from that day, the things that were hard from that day. Knowing and being known is part of the way of love. Have five questions prepared to ask her that draw her out in order to know her just a bit better.
You understand the category we're speaking of. This is a spiritual activity. We pray that the Spirit would help us. What the Spirit will give us are those things that uniquely are given to us from Jesus Christ, and those are the things that we want to specialize in. And I knew I was going to get this question, so I thought about it and I asked my wife. And she said I was a little bit surprised, and she always does surprise me when I ask, What are ways that I can love you better? What she said was this: I felt a bit alone recently. She's been struggling with a bit of a physical problem, and she has felt like she struggled with it a little bit alone. I feel like, she said, that you've just been a bit distant. And so what do I do? I say thank you. I am off on it. I am praying on this, and you can pray these very things because what you're saying is exactly what I hope to do. Great question. Thank you for this.
