Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their  husbands in everything.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. Ephesians 5:22-28

In so many ways, our culture tells us to look out for ourselves. And if we listen long enough to that message, we fall into the trap of thinking that marriage is supposed to be about us and that it is built on conditional love. We’ll believe that our mindset should be, “If you do this for me, then I’ll do this for you.” But that is not the way that God intended marriage to be done.

In the Bible, God tells us to have an unconditional, initiative-taking love for our spouse. Jesus loves us unconditionally; so much so that he died for us. He took the initiative to secure our relationship with him and we are told to do the same with our spouse.

This week, take the initiative with your spouse. Don’t wait for him or her to pursue you. Take the initiative and plan a special time together during the night. Arrange for the babysitter. Show your spouse that you are committed to strengthening your relationship.