"Naked Personalities"
Theme of the week: Be Your Wife's Best Friend
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
 1 of 1
Key Bible Verse: Let your conversation be gracious and attractive. (Colossians 4:6) Dig Deeper: Proverbs 15:4, 16:24, 18:13
One book on friendship insightfully notes that there are three levels of conversation—facts, opinions, and feelings. Most of the conversations we have are about facts—our sports team won, or gas has gotten expensive. As a relationship with someone becomes more intimate, conversations shift from facts to personal opinions. We talk about our opinions on such things as theology and politics. When a relationship becomes most intimate we begin to share our feelings. We become vulnerable with someone, telling them not just what we do (facts), what we believe (opinions), but how we are (feelings). As C. S. Lewis said, "Eros will have naked bodies; friendship, naked personalities."
Husbands, to be a good friend to your wife, learn to have deeper and more intimate conversations. Open up, telling your wife how you're doing and asking her how she is doing. Listen without being distracted by technology or a task (put your cell phone away), but instead focus on her, looking her in the eye for extended periods of time. Draw her out emotionally, and allow her to draw you out emotionally. Keep your advice to a minimum and learn to listen, empathize, comfort, encourage.
—Mark and Grace Driscoll in Real Marriage
My Response: In order to have better and deeper conversations with my wife, I need to …
Thought to Apply: The most important marriage skill is listening to your partner in a way that [she] can't possibly doubt that you love [her].—Diane Sollee (marriage and family therapist)
Adapted from Real Marriage (Thomas Nelson, 2012) by permission. All rights reserved by the copyright holder and/or the publisher. May not be reproduced.
Copyright © 2012 by Christianity Today/Men of Integrity magazine. Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity. 1 of 1
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Dear God, help me to treat my wife as my very best friend; by your grace, may we work together to build and strengthen our friendship.
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