Monday’s Ministry Encouragement: Written to encourage you, my friend in ministry, to be refreshed and renewed as we live for Christ and look toward the Bema.
Ministry Friend, what have you planned for Valentine’s Day for your wife? You’ve had a full weekend and Sunday. May I encourage you to consider the following?
1. If Monday is your normal day off, take off Tuesday instead. Pray and ask the Lord to give you some ideas of how you can celebrate and build up the love between you and your wife!
2. Plan a date during the day that is just for you and your wife. She needs time alone with you as you do with her. If you have children, your marriage came before them (obviously), so live out Ephesians 5! Get a babysitter if need be. You are going out to build a better home for your children. Also, set your phone aside; give each other your undivided attention.
3. Gifts are good, but time together is much better. (Btw, she won’t turn down the gift. Ha!)
4. Here’s some ideas for the day. Do them all or just pick out what works for you, even changing some of the ideas to fit your life.
- Breakfast in bed for your wife (Heart-shaped donut or French Toast with a kiss and her favorite coffee, served on fine china or good dishes.)
- Read the Word, share what God said to you and pray together.
- Drive to a nearby park for a stroll to talk and hug. Maybe fix lunch to enjoy while you are out.
- In place of the above, take a drive to a nearby small town. Walk the streets, shop, don’t be in a hurry, get lunch, share your Valentine’s Day cards, play a game at the table, laugh and have fun.
- Supper out . . . maybe dress up for the occasion. Go somewhere different. Try sushi. Get out of your rut if you are in one!
- If you can’t have supper out, once the kids are in bed, order up a pizza, serve it on china plates and have a romantic evening together.
How easy it is to live in ministry mode every day that you forget to enjoy your wife and thereby truly minister to her heart and her deepest needs as your wife.
15 Drink water from your own cistern,
flowing water from your own well.
16 Should your springs be scattered abroad,
streams of water in the streets?
17 Let them be for yourself alone,
and not for strangers with you.
18 Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
19 a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;
be intoxicated always in her love. (Proverbs 5:15-19)
From A Pastor's Heart 