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Key Bible Verse: If I could speak in any language … but didn't love others, I would only be making meaningless noise like a loud gong or clanging cymbal (1 Corinthians 13:1). Bonus Reading: 1 Samuel 1:1–8

Far too many marriages are legal but loveless or lifeless. There may be sexual faithfulness, but no personal intimacy; financial stability, but no emotional vulnerability; polite respect, but no passionate care. Lewis Smedes portrays one man who is known around town as "good old dependable Joe" for his moral character.

"He makes a major production of his commitment keeping. He expects his grateful family to praise him with 'Great Is Thy Faithfulness' at every breakfast. He constantly reminds Janine, his wife, of his selfless devotion to their marriage; it always gives him an advantage. He reminds her of how he's never given her reason to doubt his fidelity, though, God knows, he's had chances enough.

"He lets her know that he sticks around not because she's worth sticking to, but because he's such a loyal character. So when he struts his commitment-keeping stuff, he ends up leaving Janine feeling like an unwanted woman who is cleaved to only because her husband is too moral to leave her."

—Gary Inrig in Whole Marriages in a Broken WorldMonday,

Adapted from Whole Marriages in a Broken World (Discovery, 1996) by permission.

Prayer for the Week

Lord, give me fierce determination to protect my marriage—and tender love to makes it a joy.

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