Lavish Love
January 15, 2011 1 Comment
I entered into marriage the first time with the wrong goals. I wanted to be a good husband. I wanted to do what was right and please my wife and have a good marriage. A good marriage is the wrong goal.
I am going into a second marriage with a different goal. It is to love the way God loved us. The Bible says, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” 1 John 3:1 (NIV Emphasis added). And, in another place. “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.” Ephes. 1:7-8 (NIV Emphasis added). One more: “But I lavish my love upon thousands of those who love me and obey my commandments. Exodus 20:6 (Living Emphasis added). The key to a good marriage is to not try to have a good marriage. It is to seek to have an incredible marriage, to love with a lavish kind of love.
There are no good marriages. Marriages are either great or bad. We are either loving in a lavish kind of way, or we are not loving enough. If we are loving in a lavish kind of way, the marriage is getting better and better and it is moving past great to incredible to places you never imagined possible. Or, it is cycling down into boredom or worse.
If marriages are bad, they can be really bad. If you have not been there, you have no idea how bad a bad marriage can be. The pain of rejection. The fear of loss. In insecurity of not knowing how long this will last. The ache of distance. The loneliness of isolation. OK, let me spell it out for the guys: and very little sex!
I want to love the way God loved. God loved in a lavish, excessive kind of way. That is why he accepted the love of the woman who broke the alabaster jar and poured the perfume all over Jesus’ feet. It seemed lavish and excessive to everyone there. It seemed silly. It even felt wrong to love in a lavish way like that. But, to Jesus, it didn’t feel wrong at all. In fact, it didn’t even feel unusual. It felt normal. It felt like the kind of expressions of love that go on among the Father, Son and Holy Spirit all the time. We have to assume that they are constantly lavishing love on one another and Jesus was, for this reason, used to receiving this kind of lavish expression of love. It felt normal to him.
Jesus taught us to give in a lavish kind of way. And he promised that as we do, we will be given back in a lavish kind of way. “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Luke 6:38 (NIV)
We sell things by weight in this generation. That is why they put that warning on cereal boxes and bags of chips that says, “Some settling may have occurred.” What that means is, “If you open the box and it looks like it is less than half full, not to worry. Rest assured that it was measured to you be weight and you have received your full allotment. You got what you paid for. When it left the plant, the box was full. Some settling may have occurred. That is why it looks half empty.”
In Jesus’ day, they sold things by volume, not weight. When they sold a bushel of grain, they would fill the container up and that was that. Jesus is teaching us that God does not love like that. He doesn’t love just enough. He pressed down, shakes the basket to get as much as possible, then lets the excess fall in the long flowing robs of the lap. Then, he pours another cup full till if forms a cone on the top of the basket. Then he pats that down. Some more falls into the lap. You catch that. He shakes some more. You get the idea. That is how God loves.
Well, I am thinking, is there ever a stopping point? I mean, God can do that because he is God, but I have limited resources. I think if I love someone like that, or try to love someone like that, I will get tired, I can’t do it. I can’t be in a relationship that just wants more, more, more. I have to stop at some time. Enough is enough.
There is a stopping point. When the basket is full, you can stop. It just has to be full. How do you know when it is full? When the excess starts falling into your lap. We all want to be loved, and we all want to be loved excessively, lavishly, but, enough is enough.
Let me make this very practical for you.
∙ You don’t have to buy flowers every day. You just have to buy flowers until she says, “You know this is enough flower-buying. I have enough.”
∙ You don’t have to buy cards every day. You just have to buy cards until you sense from her that it is enough.
∙ You don’t have to make love every day. Unless he wants to. You just have to make love until he (or she, but usually he) says it is enough.
10 Ways to Lavish Love on a Woman
1. One long stem rose.
2. Greeting card.
3. E-greeting card.
4. Leave little notes around the house.
5. Just call to say “hi.”
6. Talk about her day. Ask how it made her feel.
7. Plan.
8. Small little gifts.
9. Small little touches/ hugs.
10. Text message: “My thoughts drift often to you!”
11. Say: “I love you.”The only way you know it is enough is when it starts spilling out on the floor. That is, it is enough, when they tell you it is enough. Until then, keep pouring it on. Love in a lavish kind of way. Be excessive, not measured. That is how God loves. That is how he calls us to love.
Great blog Josh- some of the best stuff you have written and it would make a great book. This is going to sound sexist- because it is. But I think that women working outside the home resulted in greater negative consequences for marriage, generally speaking, than any other identifiable social phenomenon. Now there are absolutely no margins in families and in marriages, and this has resulted in the total exhaustion of husbands and wives. Who cares about sex when you are constantly worn out? I think that the majority of marriages are very empty, because the majority of Americans are empty, and a lot of that is due to no margins. Constant stress brings spiritual and emotional bankruptcy. The economic and taxation policies of the US government have, in many ways, driven both spouses into the workplace, but we have traded the birthright for a bowl of porridge. The result has been 1) horrific diet changes (living off of american fast food), 2) constant fatigue, 3) breakdown of family time, 4) lack of communication due to lack of time to communicate, 5) constant exposure of the wife to opposite-sex relationships for 40 hours a week in the workplace, which is more time than the wife spends with her husband. It is not shocking affairs will develop. I am not saying there were no affairs in the past, but it is possible to demonstrate by social science cause and effect or at least a connection of women working outside the home and the above-metnioned social problems. Ok- I have upset all the women forever. I still think there is much to this, and several social scientists have demonstrated it, but their research was dismissed out of hand by liberal researchers who hated what they were saying and thus engaged in ad hominem attacks instead of dealing with what they said.