There are a dozen good reasons to learn how to cherish your spouse and to raise the bar in your marriage from just love to love and cherish (just like those pesky vows many of us uttered). One I haven’t written about as much, or even included in my book, is how developing the skills to cherish your spouse by default helps you more closely resemble the character of Christ. I wish I would have thought to put this in the book, but this is one of those reflections/insights that come after you’ve lived with a concept for a while. I hope you enjoy it.
Cherishing your spouse is a great school of character. Everything that is required to cherish a spouse is something that Christian spiritual formation points to and flows from.
For instance, when I surrender to the call to cherish my wife, I surrender to the call to grow in gentleness and graciousness, without which it is impossible to cherish a woman (or a man). You’re not harsh or impatient with someone you cherish. In cherishing I become ever more like the Messiah who won’t break the bruised reed or snuff out the smoldering wick (Isaiah 42:3-4), and who described himself as gentle (Matthew 11:29).
When I surrender to the call to actively cherish my wife, I surrender to the call to forgive quickly and absolutely. Jesus spoke so much about forgiveness (Matthew 6:12ff; 18:21ff; Luke 6:37; John 20:33) that, in a holy way, you could say he was almost obsessed with it. Most of us hate to forgive (though we are desperate to be forgiven), so we need to go to the spiritual gym to exercise this natural weakness away. Cherishing is the cardio machine of choice to help us forgive and to keep forgiving. When we pursue a cherishing marriage, we commit to practicing an art that was so very close to our Savior’s heart.
Continue reading on Substack HERE.