Faithful And True - The One Year Love Talk Devotional for Couples
Faithful and True
The man who commits adultery is an utter fool, for he destroys himself.
Proverbs 6:32
The long list of public officials, celebrities, sports icons, and other noteworthy individuals engaging in extremely tawdry behavior, if not infidelity, has made cheating a common headline. We all know that infidelity is older than David and Bathsheba; however, the media saturation, public interest, and hyperspeed revelations of mistresses makes it feel more commonplace than it is.aStill, we’ve all heard the stories about men or women who have affairs or abruptly walk out of long-term marriages. In fact, it’s difficult these days to find a person who does not personally know of a situation exactly like this.
We live in a culture that values tolerance and the individual’s pursuit of happiness. However, the flip side can be the sense that any kind of behavior is permissible as long as one is “following his or her heart.” Many of us feel vulnerable when we hear stories of a person who walks out on a relationship, and we can’t help wondering whether our spouse would ever do such a thing.
It raises a question: Can you tell whether your spouse will betray you? Not really. No research has been able to identify reliable predictive factors. But one sign is fairly consistent. A marriage partner who commits a major betrayal—not only an affair or a sudden decision to walk away from the marriage, but also a risky business deal that jeopardizes the family’s future—has probably given off warning signals all along, signals that his or her spouse often chose not to see. Throughout the marriage, this spouse consistently shows by his or her behavior that protecting the relationship is not a priority.
Consistent failure to protect the relationship in other areas is as close to a predictor of unfaithfulness as you are ever going to find. But it’s an important one. One that has a message for all of us. We need to do everything we can to protect our marriages. The consequences are too dreadful not to. As this Proverb says, anyone who does not do so “destroys himself.”
Be faithful in little things, for in them our strength lies.
—Mother Teresa
a 111
The One Year Love Talk Devotional for Couples
By Dr. Les Parrott and Dr. Leslie Parrott
Tyndale
$7.99
