And so it occurs to me – not only can I count on my wife to spice up our life with a good laugh once in a while, but maybe our dating engine simply has to be redefined. It still exists, but it’s not going to be started with the same set of keys that got it running 10 years ago. That doesn’t mean it’s not a reliable vehicle for shuttling us to all of life’s events in a manner befitting our faith. If I could find a way to regularly appear as outwardly joyful as I inwardly feel whenever I reflect on how blessed I am to have such a mate, I’d go a long way towards helping fulfill the purpose for this marriage, which Valerie and I long ago decided was to be better for the Lord than we are apart – to be a living metaphor of Christ’s love for His Church. That felt easier when we were dating. So with a cue from Tim McGraw, here are some of my ideas…

Loving Deeper

"Love does not seek its own…" (1 Corinthians 13:5)

I wonder at the irony here – have I already failed, even in the course of this column, to live up to this standard by telling embarrassing stories about my wife in front of my 17 readers? Is that really deeper love? Sure, because it’s for the greater good. Now, if I were to tell you about the time she… let’s just move on.

In Colossians 3:18-19, and again in Ephesians 5:24-25, we are quite simply told by Paul how this marriage thing is going to work. Unfortunately, I’ve heard the first half of those verse pairings – the "women submit" part – quoted and exercised far more often than the equally important "husbands love" portion. Remember how much easier those commands seemed back then? This was the most wonderful person in the world. They communicated well, never sought their own way; it would be so easy to submit to or actively display love for them. Then time, comfort, bad habits, and the daily grind got a hold of you both. Satan tossed clutter everywhere. Threw in some doubt. Sprayed super-green paint on your neighbor’s lawn and spouse. Marriage, it turned out, was complicated.

I’ll be the first to attest to that, although the Bible doesn’t really think so if you go by the fact that it’s not dripping with verses on how to navigate the maze. You leave, you cleave, then you love/submit. Those simple instructions don’t seem to get us very far down the path. In fact, they seem to take us happily up to the vows and leave us there.

Perhaps that’s the point. Perhaps there is no "trick" to loving deeper, you just need to get in touch with what it is you fell in love with this person for in the first place, and run with it. In Revelation 2:4, God holds against the church at Ephesus that they have left their first love. This speaks, of course, to their enthusiasm for new life in Christ. Whatever the reason, it appears clear that returning to one’s love, both for Christ and spouse, is possible. Meditating on and appreciating the circumstances that started the relationship are a good way of seeing how deep the apparently-shallow pool we’re standing in actually is.