Pray the Word with David Platt is a resource from radical.net.

Genesis chapter 29, verse 20.

So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her.

So there's a lot to this story in Genesis chapter 29 as Jacob comes into Laban's land

and ends up wanting his daughter Rachel as his wife, Laban, giving him first Leah, and then this first talks about how Jacob served

Laban for seven years so that Rachel could be his wife. But this first says it seemed to him,

those seven years were like a few days because of the love he had for her. Now there's a lot of things we

can talk about in this chapter, but when I read this verse, I just picture this love and affection

that Jacob had for Rachel. And I can't help but to think that this is God's design for marriage, that marriage would

be marked by that kind of zeal, that kind of emotional affection and love. Not that we always

feel the exact same way every day and every month and every year in

marriage, but that there is intended by God a delight in marriage in one's spouse, a love that makes

even really hard circumstances seem a lot lighter because of who we're sharing them with.

And at the same time, I read this verse. I know that there is a tendency in many marriages

for love to grow cold, for affection to diminish.

And that's not God's design.

It's not that things are always easy, and the circumstances we walk through in marriage are always even simple.

Like there's all kinds of challenges and complications

and trials. But God is designed in the middle of all of those for us to experience in a spouse.

We're married in our husband or wife like a love and affection that grows and increases over time.

I was listening at Billy Graham's funeral to one of his children talk about how

when his wife Ruth was still alive, Billy Graham would just walk into a room. She was sick. She was

...