Your Wife Is a Gift From God. Start Treating Her Like One.

There is a treasure in your house, and a lot of men are treating it like furniture.

She has been there so long you stopped seeing her. She is background now, part of the scenery, the person who is just there, and you notice her mostly when something is wrong or when she needs something from you. You would swear you love her. But look at how you actually treat her, and then look at how you treat the things you consider valuable, and be honest about which list she is on.

God does not put her on the furniture list. He calls her a treasure and a gift, and He says it plainly.

"He who finds a wife finds a good thing And obtains favor from the LORD."

Proverbs 18:22, NASB 1995

Slow down and take that apart, because there is more in it than men usually hear.

A good thing. Not a burden. Not a ball and chain. Not the punchline of every tired joke men make about their wives to sound like one of the guys. A good thing, from the mouth of God. When you found her, you found something good, and if you have started thinking of her as a weight you carry instead of a gift you were given, the problem is not her. It is that you forgot what she is.

And favor from the LORD. Read that word. Favor. That means she was not a wage you earned. She was grace you were handed. You did not deserve her, you did not build her, you did not achieve her, God gave her to you as an act of His own kindness. She is not your accomplishment. She is His gift. And that changes everything about how you are supposed to hold her.

The Bible does not say it once and move on. It stacks it up.

"House and wealth are an inheritance from fathers, But a prudent wife is from the LORD."

Proverbs 19:14, NASB 1995

Your dad might leave you a house. He might leave you money. But a good wife does not come from your father, or your effort, or your luck. She comes straight from the hand of God. She is in a different category than everything else you own, because everything else came from men, and she came from Him.

And what is she worth in that category? The wisest book in the Bible does not hedge.

"An excellent wife, who can find? For her worth is far above jewels."

Proverbs 31:10, NASB 1995

Far above jewels. Now go look at your life and ask what you actually treat like it is worth more than jewels. Your truck. Your tools. Your phone. Your hobby. The thing you wax, and guard, and research, and spend money on, and give your best attention to. You protect what you treasure. You maintain what you value. So watch where your care actually goes for one honest week, and then tell me whether your wife or your stuff is being treated like the thing worth more than jewels. For most men it is not close, and it is not the wife.

Here is where it goes all the way back. God looked at the first man, in a perfect garden, walking with God Himself, and said something was still not right.

"Then the LORD God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.'"

Genesis 2:18, NASB 1995

Before there was sin, before there was a single problem in the world, God looked at a man and said he needed one more thing, and then He made her. She was God's answer to your aloneness. She was the gift He decided you could not do without. And you have been treating that gift like she is lucky to have you.

So let me drive this all the way home, because you need to feel it, not just nod at it.

The way you treat your wife is the way you are treating a gift that God personally handed you. When you are cold to her, you are being cold to His gift. When you take her for granted, you are taking His grace for granted. When you speak to her with contempt, or ignore her, or give her the leftovers of your energy after the job and the phone and the buddies have had the best of you, you are despising something the God of the universe called good and gave to you on purpose. Contempt for the gift is contempt for the Giver. You cannot sneer at what God handed you and pretend it does not reach Him.

And God did not just give her to you to have. He gave her to you to enjoy.

"Let your fountain be blessed, And rejoice in the wife of your youth."

Proverbs 5:18, NASB 1995

Rejoice. Delight in her. Not tolerate her, not manage her, not endure her. Rejoice in her, the way a man rejoices over a treasure he cannot believe he was given. That is the posture God commands, and it is the exact opposite of the bored, checked-out, taking-her-for-granted man that most husbands slowly become.

So here is your assignment, and it starts today, not someday. Go home and look at your wife like you are seeing the gift again instead of the furniture. Tell her what she is, out loud, that she is a good thing, favor from the Lord, worth more than anything else you own. Then back it up. Give her your best attention instead of your leftovers. Guard her, cherish her, invest in her the way you invest in the things you actually treasure, because she outranks every one of them.

You have a treasure in your house, straight from the hand of God. Stop treating it like furniture. Start treating it like the gift it is, before you learn the hard way what it was worth by losing it.