Have you redeemed all those holiday gift cards yet? If not, you’d better find them, check the expiration dates and get to the store, restaurant, or coffee shop and have a little fun. Statistics tell us that retailers love to sell gift cards because the average person paying with a gift card ends up spending thirty percent more than the card’s value, and often these customers are spending money in a store in which they otherwise would not have shopped.
There have been times, I admit, when I have given my husband a gift card to a coffee shop or restaurant, secretly hoping he would share the experience with me. Sometimes that means he has to spend a little more than the face value of the gift card, but still, it’s a whole lot more fun to share the gift—even from his point of view.
There are other more enduring gifts we can give our husbands that have joint redemptive dividends. I wish I’d been more aware of this principle of investing in my husband’s happiness when I first became a bride. If you are a new bride or planning a spring wedding, may I suggest to you some “gift certificates” your husband will love? These ideas are timeless, they are non-transferable, they cannot be stolen, and they never expire. That’s right. The rewards are eternal. Best of all, the giver is entitled to reciprocal rewards. So go ahead and treat your husband to some gifts that give back. These gifts may not be everything your groom needs to be the husband of your dreams, but they are certainly on God’s list of the most useful wedding gifts.
1. Give him the gift of respect. Your husband will like the card that says, “I love you.” But if you really want to “wow” the man you’ve married, send him a card that lists the things you respect most about him. This is the card he will keep in his desk drawer forever. Use respectful terms when speaking to or about him like Sarah did to and about Abraham in 1 Peter 3:6. Reciprocal reward: He learns to communicate with you without fear of embarrassment or being belittled.
2. Give him the gift of submission (1 Peter 3:5, Ephesians 5:22). In the wording of the Scriptures, be subject to him. Obey him. If you do these things because you trust the Lord’s plan for your marriage rather than the standards of the culture around you, he will view this gift as extremely valuable. Reciprocal reward: He grows in appreciation for you.
3. Give him the gift of loyalty. Keep your commitments to him—both large vows, like you made at the altar, and small ones, like your lunch appointment. Make him know that you are a woman of your word. Reciprocal reward: He grows to trust you more (Proverbs 31:11, 12).
4. Give him the gift of intimacy. This gift is expensive for women because we can’t always understand the very real and physical need our men have for frequent sex. Ours is not to understand but to heed the words of 1 Corinthians 7:3, 4. This gift is uniquely his and is unavailable to any other. Guard this “certificate” with your utmost discretion and common sense. Never get anywhere near risking the loss of this gift. Reciprocal reward: He does handstands to take care of your needs and please you.
5. Give him the gift of friendship. The word love in Titus 2:4, in which young women are taught to love their husbands, is phileo—friendship love. Find common hobbies and make a real effort to enjoy what he enjoys. Ask questions he loves to answer and buy him little gifts that show that you love what he loves. Be willing to sacrifice time in this friendship quest. Reciprocal reward: You always have a best friend.
6. Give him the gift of agape love. Agape is loving people, not for what we can get out of it, but because we truly want what is best for them. Though each gift comes with rewards, self-gratification cannot be the reason I give them. Ironically enough, if I attempt to redeem these “certificates” for myself, both my husband and I become ineligible for any of the goods and services represented. I must be all about enriching my husband’s days in this world, and, in the process, I will be all the richer myself. My rewards are the surprise ending to my love story, not the preface. Without agape, there is no substance (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). All that’s left of the gift certificate without unconditional love is “face value.” And we all know that gift certificates at “face value only” are worth practically nothing.
There’s a line from a famous Jimmy Stewart movie that says, “Youth is wasted on the wrong people.” Sometimes it’s true. The years of marriage in which we are healthiest, most attractive, and most able to enjoy activities together have rushed by us because we’ve become too busy with making a living to really live. We failed to get the most, during those years, from our marriages because we hadn’t yet learned the biggest secret of marital happiness: Give it till you get it.
Finally, the disclaimer. There are some men who have been so unaffected by our God and His Will that they will never redeem the gift certificates. Their wives continue to offer respect, love, and submission just because God has commanded it. They experience daily disappointment, because, no matter how they may try, their husbands’ hearts are hard and their marriages will never be truly happy. I grieve at this almost unbearable situation in which some of my dear friends find themselves. But just because a husband fails to redeem the gift does not mean the giver loses all benefits. As a matter of fact, the greatest rewards of faithfulness in marriage are not even experienced in this lifetime. The Good Book says that our afflictions last but just a moment in the eternal scheme of things. It adds that they result in an exceeding and eternal weight of glory (2 Corinthians 4:17). Faithful wife, when you look back on your marriage in a thousand years, your wedded bliss will seem as the brightest sparkle in a life that lasted but a moment. Conversely, any flash of memory that you might have of an unhappy marriage will have no power to rob you of one iota of the bliss of Heaven. The gifts that you have given in marriage will be yielding rewards long after you’ve moved to a place where there is no marrying nor giving in marriage (Matthew 22:30). Everybody will be completely fulfilled and extremely happy…every single soul.
