Pastor Gerald Harris was working on a sermon on love. With sermon preparation on his mind, Harris stopped by a Waffle House. As he sat there with his coffee, an elderly couple drove up in a pickup truck. They came into the restaurant and sat near him.
After they ordered their meal, the lady went to the restroom. As Harris got up to leave, he decided that he would talk to the elderly gentleman and said, “Sir, I’m Gerald Harris. I’m a Baptist preacher. Very soon I’m going to be preaching upon the importance of love. Am I correct in assuming that the lady that came into the restaurant with you is your wife?”
He said, “That’s right.”
Harris continued, “I don’t mean to pry, but this thing of love is so important to me. I just wonder if you remember the first time you ever kissed your wife?”
The old fellow turned around, looked up at him and said, “Preacher, I don’t even remember the last time I kissed my wife.”
Harris left with a sermon illustration, but not the one he expected.
New neighbors moved in across the street from another couple, and the wife started watching these newcomers. Every evening she looked out the window and noticed the husband come home after work. She couldn’t miss the fact that nearly every night, this man would bring home flowers or a little gift for his lady.
She’d run greet him as he got out of the car, and he’d hand her a gift. They’d kiss and hug and then walk in the house and close the door behind them.
One night after watching this same gushy scene over and over, the poor neighbor woman finally reached the breaking point. When her husband came home, she asked, “Have you noticed the new neighbors across the street?”
As he dropped his briefcase on the floor and fell into his chair in front of the TV, he replied, “Yeah, I’ve noticed we have new neighbors.”
“But do you have any idea of what they do every night?”
“No, dear,” he replied, “what do they do?”
“Every night when he comes home, he gives her a big kiss, he hugs her, and he almost always brings her a special gift like flowers or something. How come you don’t ever do that?”
Her husband stared at her with a puzzled look and said, “Honey, I can’t do that. I don’t even know the woman.”
Sorry, ladies, but I admit that we husbands are sometimes a little dense and slightly slow. A husband and wife who had been married for 30 years constantly fussed and fought, so they decided to go to counseling.
They sat on the couch across from the young counselor bickering and arguing, and the counselor couldn’t get a word in at all. Finally, he got up, walked around to the front of the desk, pulled the woman into his arms, and planted a big Hollywood kiss on her.
He turned to the husband and said, “That’s what she needs three times a week. She needs more affection.”
The husband said, “Okay, I’ll bring her in Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.”
There’s a lot of male bashing out there. Some women love to vent by telling men jokes. Like, how are men like parking places? The good ones are taken and the rest are handicapped.
Yet, love is powerful, and it’s a two-way street. On Valentine’s Day, both husbands and wives have a great, calendared reminder of the importance of demonstrating love to one another. Love is the glue that holds the marriage together, and must be expressed every day, not just once a year.
I recently attended a surprise 50th wedding anniversary dinner for a dear couple. I asked the husband, “How did you all make it fifty years?”
He said, “Patience and sacrifice.” Short and to the point.
When I asked the wife, she offered, “Being willing to share everything with one another. Lots of not sweating the small stuff and not being petty. Love is the basis of all of it: love for God, him and self.”
God made the greatest demonstration of love. The Bible says, “God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” (Romans 5:8, NLT).
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Dr. David L. Chancey is pastor, McDonough Road Baptist Church, Fayetteville. The church family gathers at 3:52 McDonough Road, just past the department of drivers’ services building. Join them Sunday for Bible study at 9:45 and worship at 10:55 a.m. Visit them on the web at www.mcdonoughroad.org.
