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Apples of Gold
Radio Script for
“Don’t Disparage Marriage”
Hello, I’m
Well, the Seminoles didn’t quite pull it out Saturday, did they?
There were some bright spots, but they just couldn’t stop Virginia Tech and quarterback Tyrod Taylor.
Thus ends the college football season, and now comes every bowl game imaginable, including the Udrove Humanitarian Bowl, the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl, and the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl.
I don’t know if you watch football, but if you do, you’re going to see a lot of Geico commercials.
So have you seen the one with Abe and Mary Todd Lincoln? It looks like an ancient black and white movie, and it shows Mary Todd in a fluffy new dress that she’s not quite sure about. Abe wonders in and his wife springs on him the age-old question, “Does this dress make my backside look big?”
Well he didn’t get the nickname Honest Abe for nothing, and now he’s in a quandary. He can’t tell a lie, but what to do?
He holds his stovepipe hat apologetically in his hands, and he cocks his head to one side, as if looking for something he knows he’s not going to find.
She looks into his eyes for affirmation, but none is forthcoming. She gives him one more chance, then looks back for his final answer.
With distress on his face, but determined to be truthful, he holds up his hand, with his thumb and finger about an inch apart and says, “Perhaps a….” And before he can finish, she’s outta there. He starts to follow, but then stops, knowing he blew it.
As every husband knows, that’s a tough spot to be in. I think most women these days know better than to ask that particular question, but it could be a question about anything. It’s the kind of question that if you were bluntly honest, your answer would hurt your wife.
And it goes the other way, too. I’m certainly not saying it’s only a wife thing, but here’s the point. Don’t put down your spouse. Don’t say things that hurt them.
Ephesians five says that wives should respect their husbands and that husbands should love their wives. Wife, one way you show respect for your husband is by not putting him down. You don’t cut him down to his face, and you especially don’t cut him down behind his back to your friends or family.
Husband, one way you show love for your wife is by not cutting her down. You don’t do things like that to someone you love.
If you want your marriage to be a beautiful garden, then you have to keep the weeds out, and one of the ugliest marriage weeds is this thing of putting down your spouse.
Dr. Emerson Eggerichs has a new book entitled “Love and Respect for a Lifetime.” He writes, “What do you want for your marriage? Do you want some peace? Do you want to feel close to each other? Do you want to feel valued by each other? Do you want to experience marriage the way God intended? Then why not try some Love and Respect? It will change the way you talk to, think about, and treat each other. It will change your marriage!”
Now here is something I want to call your attention to. Beware of people who put down their own spouse, because it can rub off on you. If you have friends that do this, call it to their attention. See if you can get them to stop, because if they don’t, and you continue to hang around with them, you might see it show up in your own marriage, because we tend to take on the behaviors of the people we spend with.
And here’s another weed to watch for, people who disparage marriage. We’ve all heard jokes where the punch line is something negative about marriage. I could tell one right here as an example, but then you would laugh, you’d say “ain’t that the truth?” and see how that works? Little anti-marriage sentiments can creep in even through jokes.
Do you hang around people who disparage marriage? It may even be people at work or books you read or magazines or TV shows. The more negative input you receive about marriage, the more likely you are to view it negatively yourself.
But marriage is a sacred institution. It was created by God Himself in the beginning. I would be very hesitant to put down something that God created.
The Bible rarely uses the phrase “at the beginning,” but Jesus used it in Matthew 19 when teaching about marriage. He said that, at the beginning, God made them male and female and said, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” Jesus concluded in Matthew 19:6, “So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
Marriage is a holy institution, created by God at the beginning. It was designed with our very best interest in mind, and it’s a beautiful thing when we do it God’s way.
So here is our marriage advice for the day, summed up in one sentence.
We don’t put down our spouse, and we don’t disparage marriage.
Comments?
E-mail me: dougapple@wave94.com.
May God bless you today! With Apples of Gold…I’m
You can see the Abe Lincoln Geico commercial here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdy3orO6tQA
© 2010 The Arrow’s Tip
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(Proverbs 25:11 – “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.”)
Why “The Arrow’s Tip”? Each morning, after diligently seeking the Lord, I write Apples of Gold. Then before I release it to the public I pray one final prayer, “Lord, send forth your arrows.” I envision App
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