We are conditioned by life in our culture to be more
conscious of the negative than the positive. The news is
largely a focus on the negative, and we are made by the
media to see life as tragic and full of accidents, murder, and
endless blunders of one sort or another. You have to go
against the grain to say to yourself, thank God for the
millions who did not get murdered last night along with
myself. Praise God for all the cars that didn't get hit. I
rejoice in the millions of homes that did not burn, and for
the millions of children who got home safely, and for the
many businesses that did not lay people off. Good news is
ten thousand times more common than bad news, but it does
not make the news because news is devoted to the unusual.
What this does, however, is make us a problem conscious
people, and this is a hindrance to praise, both of God and of
our mates. There are dozens of things we appreciate about
our mates, but like the news reporter we sniff out the real
story which is the negative, the weakness, the blunder, the
things that aggravate us. The husband comes home from
work and he brings home the groceries his wife asked him to
pick up. But he brought home the wrong kind of beans.
Now here is a wife who appreciates her husband. She
appreciates his working and his willingness to go out of his
way to pick up groceries along with dozens of other good
points, but when she sees the wrong kind of beans, what is
the news flash? Idiot husband blows it on beans.
That is not what their life is all about at all-the kind of
beans they eat. But all of the dozens of valued
characteristics are pushed out of sight, and this minor
blunder becomes the Rock of Gibralter sitting on their
kitchen counter. That is the news, and that is where we
focus. Not on the 142 times he came home with exactly the
right order, but this present atrocious blunder. So what if it
represents a mere fraction of life? It is now the headlines for
the day. She makes a federal case out of his stupidity, and
he forgets all he admires about her and says she never
appreciates anything he does. In seconds they have an
honest to goodness news worthy conflict.
This is what news is: the unusual exalted to the level of
such prominence that it dominates your consciousness. This
is what people are made to do, and mates often do it for
nothing. Has your mate ever said, "You never do anything
to help me!" This comes right after she has asked you to
pick up a piece of lint off the floor. Because you have a
higher chair and a lamp in your hands you say, "I'll get it
later." That lint becomes the news. It is all that matters
now. The sun, the moon, the stars, and all your labor of love
over the years is blotted out, and you are nothing but a
non-picker up of lint. It is not all lint for all time, but that
particular lint which is now the news.
What I am trying to illustrate is that as mates we become
problem oriented rather than praise oriented, and this
distorts our perspective so that we see life like the news. The
mini-negatives stand out like an eclipse of the sun, and the
maxi-positives fade into the background like a sliver of a
moon. Reversing this perspective is not easy, but it is the
Biblical goal, and Christians need to work at the praise
perspective if they want the blessing of Christ in their union
rather than the burden of the culture. The question is, what
do you focus on in your marriage-the newsworthy or the
praiseworthy?
The difference is that the praiseworthy partner has their
focus on the usual and the typical and the commonplace
which is in no way newsworthy, but which is what their life
is all about. The positive values they share day by day that
make life enjoyable. The massive number of little things you
appreciate, but tend to take for granted. The Bible
authorizes us to be people of praise, not just in our worship
of God, but in our relationships on the human level. In our
text of Prov. 31 we see a marvelous wife and mother, and
this is a hymn of praise to her. In verse 28 her children bless
her and her husband praises her. In verse 30 it states that a
woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Verse 31 says,
"Let her works bring her praise at the city gate."
In the space of four verses this woman; this wife, and this
mother is praised three times with the same Hebrew word
that is used for the praise of God all through the Old
Testament. No other person in the Old Testament receives
this much praise, and what this leads to is another example
of how the romantic and the religious are linked. The
nearest thing there is to the love of God is the love of a man
for a woman. That is why marriage is used in the Bible to
illustrate the love relationship of God and His people. The
nearest you can get is the love of a husband and his wife.
The language of praise to God cannot be matched except by
the praise of a man for the woman he loves.
This same Hebrew word halal is used of the pretty
woman in the Song of Solomon 6:9 where it says that even
the Queen and all the other women praise her. Then in 6:10
she is described: "Who is this that appears like the dawn,
fair as the moon, bright as the sun, majestic as the stars in
the procession." That is wild extravagant language usually
only acceptable in reference to God, but allowed by God on
the lips of a man in love with the girl he considers the most
beautiful of beings on earth. It would seem that God
permits men to come close to idolatry in their love for, and
praise of, their wives. The language of human love uses the
same vocabulary as is used for the love of God.
I adore you.
I worship the ground you stand on.
You are my angel.
You are the light of my life.
It's heaven to be in your arms.
Even knowing that men would often choose their love for
a woman over their love for Him, God still permits this kind
of love to be acceptable. Adam chose Eve over God. David
chose Bathsheba over God's will. Many others in the Bible
did the same thing, all of which has lead to a vast literature
of an anti-feminine nature blaming women for all the evil's
of the world. They can even sound valid until you look at
the attitude of God. In spite of all the risks God promotes
the devotion of men to women, and especially their wives.
Prov. 5:18, using the same Hebrew word for rejoicing in
the Lord, says, "May you rejoice in the wife of your youth."
Paul went as far as language can go when he wrote in Eph.
5:25, "Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the
church and gave Himself up for her." It is shocking, and it
would border on blasphemy if it was not clearly Biblical that
we are to present our bodies as living sacrifices unto our
wives. We are to rejoice in our wives always just as we are
to rejoice in the Lord always. We are to offer unto them also
the sacrifice of praise.
God will not tolerate any rival among the gods, yet He
will tolerate and even encourage you to treat your wife like a
goddess. God has exalted romance to the highest level in His
Word. The essence of worship is praise, and the essence of
romance is praise. It is the beauty of God's being and His
loving acts that motivate us to praise Him, and it is the
beauty of the female and her loving acts that motivate us to
praise her. Just as we are happiest in our relationship to
God when we are praising Him, so we are happiest in our
relationship to our wives when are praising them.
The formula for revival and a renewed fire in our love for
God is praise. The same formula is the key to renewing the
fires of romance in our marriage. Praise is a form of power
that works wonders on all levels. The secret to keeping the
fire of romance alive is praise. Those mates who cease to
praise can plan on living with a lot of cold ashes, but those
who practice praising will be kept warm for as long as they
live. To praise is to love. Anything, or anyone, you love you
will praise. If I love a certain kind of candy I will praise it,
and let others know of my appreciation. If I think Estes
Park, Colorado is a place I love to visit, I will praise it and
tell others of its beauty. Love is expressed by praise.
Those who do not love the one I love will see their
defects. They will focus on the news worthy aspects of their
being and doing. The matters that have gossip value. They
talk too much, or they are too shy, or they lack maturity, or
they lack depth, or on and on. But love is blind to the
defects because of the light of what is praiseworthy. It blinds
them to the minor defects, but reveals to them the beauty of
the major values. The highest level of romance is when all
the negative realities are as nothing, and you are
overwhelmed by all that is praiseworthy.
This is what we call falling in love, for when this happens
you seem somewhat crazy to everybody else. Your parents
see all the defects and weaknesses of the one you have fallen
in love with. They will try to subtly warn you of the these
negatives realities. But it is like trying to get you to feel bad
that there is a spot on the sun. You do not care, for there is
light and warmth to meet your every need. This is the state
where people say you are walking on air, and your head is in
the clouds. It is so heavenly that you care nothing for
earthly realities. This is the height of the love state of
romance, for it is totally praise dominated. This is the state
that the great love song of the Bible is all about. The Song of
Songs is eight chapters of almost continuous praise. And the
good news is that the male is praised by the female also, and
so praise is a two way street.
The Song of Songs is a book where rejoicing, delighting,
and praising are the theme. The romantic and religious life
are so intertwined that all through history this song has been
applied to both the love of man for God, and the love of male
and female. It is the Song of Songs-the greatest song of all,
and there can be no separation of the romantic and the
religious, for they both thrive equally on praise.
The male is always saying, "How beautiful you are my
darling." Then he goes into a rapture of praise as he
describes the loveliness of every part of her body.
The female returns the praise by saying, "How handsome
you are my lover, oh how charming!" Then she launches
into a song of adoration of all his body parts, and ends up,
"He is altogether lovely."
The bottom line is this: God is revealing through this
great romantic song that they key to romance is praise. The
female gets most of the praise, and the words for praise are
used most often for her, but the fact is, it works both ways,
and it becomes a basic principle of life that praise is what
kindles love, and it is praise that keeps love glowing in any
relationship. The praiser is the true lover. Now this has
implications for all of life, for if love is the highest virtue
without which, as Paul says in I Cor. 13, all other virtues are
worthless, this means the single most important part of our
personality is our spirit of praise.
To be spirit-filled means to be filled with a spirit of
praise. To be Christlike means to be ever seeking for ways to
praise. To praise is to love. How do you love your children?
There are many ways, but you will fall short of the best if
you do not learn to praise them. That is the basic need
children have. They need to be loved for who they are, and
praise can give them that assurance that they are worthy
even if they are not superior and able to do all things well. A
child raised with praise will be a love child with a strong
sense of self-esteem.
How do you love people that you may have no depth
relationship with? Maybe they are people at work that you
know only in that setting. The latest management books like
The One-Minute Manager is telling managers all over the
country to look for what people are doing right and give
them a one minute praising. Production will go up and the
atmosphere of the work place will be much better, and
everybody wins. This is a Biblical principle being applied in
daily life. The news worthy will tear you down, but the
praiseworthy will build you up. Look for all the mistakes
and errors, and there are always more than enough in fallen
world, and you will destroy relationships. But if you look
beyond them to the praiseworthy, and let people know what
they are appreciated for, you will build relationships and a
positive atmosphere. A praising personality is the greatest
asset in any relationship.
Tracy Cabot in her book How To Keep A Man In Love
With You Forever stresses the need for praise. She says the
secret of long married women is they flatter their husbands
and tell them they are wonderful. Drug addicts, she points
out, come back again and again to their drugs because they
get predictable and repeatable pleasure on demand. The
goal of a wife is to get her husband addicted to her praise.
He will keep coming back to her again and again, for he will
feel she is a dependable source of pleasure. If all he gets is,
"You lazy bum," in his face, there will be a lessening of that
magnetic attraction. The fact is, he may at times be just
that-a lazy bum. But the question is, is this a newsworthy
fact-that is a small part of his total lifestyle, and if so, is that
what you desire to focus on and be miserable, or will you
focus on the larger picture, the praiseworthy, that which
made you fall in love with him?
A focus on the negative will depreciate your relationship
and make it of less value. But a focus on the positive will
appreciate it. Your home appreciates in value so that it is
worth more this year than last year. The best investments
are in those things which appreciate. Marriage can go either
way, and the deciding factor is the power of praise. If you
want your marriage to appreciate in value, then you have to
focus on what you appreciate about each other and praise
your mate for those praiseworthy values. The alternative is
to start your marriage like a Cadillac and let it depreciate by
being critical until all that is left is the junk value. You
determine by praise, or the lack of it, whether your marriage
is a house appreciating in value, or a car depreciating in
value. Is your mate most often in a cave of criticism, or on a
pedestal of praise?
Gary Smalley in his book The Joy Of Committed Love
tells of the crisis he had to go through to see the light. He is
watching the Saturday afternoon football game, and his wife
goes into the kitchen and comes back with sandwiches for
his three children, and there he sat a few feet away and he
gets nothing. In a matter of seconds he is fighting
resentment. After all, he is the bread winner in this home,
and if anyone deserves a sandwich it is him. He in anger
went and made his own sandwich, but he could not get rid of
the resentment. After letting it burn a few days he decided
to confront his wife on the issue. He asked her why she did
not make him a sandwich last Saturday during the game.
He was not prepared for how fast the pieces of this puzzle
were put together by her response.
"Are you serious," she asked? "Do you realize that every
time I make you a sandwich, you say something critical
about it?" 'Norma, you didn't give me enough lettuce....Is
this avocado ripe?...You put too much mayonnaise on
this.....Hey, how about some butter?...Well, its a little dry'....
"Maybe you've never realize it, but you have had a critical
statement for every sandwich I ever made. I just wasn't up
to being criticized the other day. It wasn't worth it. I don't
enjoy being criticized."
Now he was not sure he didn't like it better when he was
in the dark. The light hurt, and he realized it was true. He
had sown criticism, and now he was reaping and empty
plate. From that time on he began to praise Norma for every
sandwich she made, and his pleasant observation is that he
has never been left out again. Praise is a powerful tool of
positive productivity. Deprive any relationship of praise and
you will suffocate it, for praise is the oxygen that keeps it
alive and burning. The number one way to rekindle the
flame of romance is to stop looking for the newsworthy, and
start looking for the praiseworthy. Give up on your critical
spirit, which is our fallen natures way of trying to bring
about change, and follow the ways of praise which leads to
change for the better.
Secular studies confirm what the Bible says. It is a
principle that God built into human relationships. The
praising teacher has the best students. The praising boss has
the best workers. The praising leader has the best followers.
The praising mate has the best marriage. It is not a
gimmick, but it is a law of life, and Christians are to obey
this law to the highest degree, for this is the key way by
which we please God and find happiness in all relationships.
This is such an obvious and universal law that even many
secular authors have discovered it. Why is it that many
Christians fail to live by it, and praise their mates often?
For the same reason they neglect the praise of God. They
are too preoccupied and just do not take the time to think
about what they have to be thankful for, both to God and
the one they love. Charlie Tremendous Jones, the Christian
motivational speaker and author, says that nobody can be
completely positive about all of life all the time, but all of us
can be engaged in a process of learning, growing, and
developing positive attitudes.
If we are not so engaged, we are being self-centered and
deserve the poor relationships we have. Charlie Shedd, one
of America's most famous marriage enrichment authorities,
says that most people spend most of their time thinking
about themselves and just don't bother to consider the role
that others play in their lives. They seldom express praise
for all the ways they are benefited and enriched by others.
This ideal wife and mother in Prov. 31 is praised to high
heaven. She is on a pedestal of praise. But many wives who
do their best never receive a compliment. We know this
because case histories are in most every book written about
marriage problems of Christian mates.
If I, who have read several hundred books on the subject
over the years, and who has taught a number of marriage
enrichment classes dealing with the importance of
complimenting your mate often, still neglect this area of
praise, then I know it is almost universally neglected. Jesus
knew our weakness, and knew it was possible for His
disciples to even forget and neglect to praise Him for His
sacrifice on the cross that made their eternal salvation
possible. That is why He gave us the ordinance of communion.
He said, do this in remembrance of me, and by
doing this made it clear that we can't rely on our own will
and memory to be a praise-ful person. We need a reminder
to keep us aware of the need to never forget and forsake
praise.
Applying this to marriage, we need to set aside a time,
once a week, once a month, like we do communion. The
frequency depending on the degree of your weakness, but
periodically reading the love portions of the Bible. Prov. 31,
the Song of Solomon, and I Cor. 13. We need perpetual
reminders that the essence of life is love, and the essence of
love is praise, for both romantic and religious love. God
expects us to be ever growing in both realms, and be praisers
of Him, and be praisers in romance.
