The Priority of Nourishing and Cherishing Your Wife

Husbands, this is for you. Tom Peters, the Author of, In Search of Excellence, and other best sellers on business success writes this:

"We are frequently asked if it is possible to 'have it all' - a full and satisfying personal life and a full and satisfying, hard working professional one. Our answer is: No. The price of excellence is time, energy, attention and focus, at the very same time that energy, attention, and focus could have gone toward enjoying your daughter's soccer game. Excellence is a high cost item."

Let me assure you, he is right. You can't have it all. Where he is wrong is in where he puts the priority. His advise is that you must make the sacrifice of your family to achieve excellence at work. But that is WRONG! If you don't spend the needed time with your wife and children, you will lose them They will drift away from you and eventually leave - leaving you alone and a lonely man.

But aren't your wife and children more important than any business success? Aren't they? Certainly the bible upholds hard work and doing your best. And you are commanded to work to support your family. But never to the extreme of sacrificing what is really most important - and that is your wife and your children. If you have provided for their needs in food, clothing, and a house to live in; also make sure your provide for their even greater need - the need of your time and attention. They don't need the biggest house and the newest car, but they do need you.

When it comes to your marriage, you will never know your wife, her deepest thoughts and needs, unless you devote the time and energy to study her. It takes time! And she will never reveal her heart to you unless she knows she can trust you - unless she knows you won't take her secrets, her feelings, and her scars and use them against her.

Again Christ is the example. In Hebrews 4:16, we are invited: "Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need." We can be totally open and honest before God knowing that we will always receive mercy. We will always receive grace. God will always be ready to help in our time of need. After all, He knows everything there is to know about us, and He loves us anyway. He will always be tender toward us providing just what we need.

We must be that way with our wives - always gracious and merciful, always ready to provide for her needs. Does that describe you, husband?