Priceless

Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with your wives according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife —
–1Peter 3:7

I’m sure I know my wife better than anyone else could know her, which I get no props for. We’re 27 years married, after all, so if my working knowledge of the woman didn’t surpass anyone else’s, it would be a mighty indictment against me. So ask me practically anything about her and I can fill you in, though I won’t, but I could. I know her fully, not completely, but pretty thoroughly.

And I am trying to honor her, daily, with affection, deference, service, provision, and compliments.

So have I met Peter’s requirement as stated above? I dwell with Renee, know her and honor her. Check. But before I accept the gold star I have to re-visit this verse, and in doing so, I find an interesting point.

Peter’s phrase “according to honor” literally means, per Strong’s concordance, “according to a valuing by which the price is fixed.”  That tells me I’m to honor my spouse based not on my limited ability to see her good qualities, though that’s warranted. But besides those, there’s a pre-existing value God placed on her before I ever came along, making her royalty before I met her by virtue of who and whose she is. My tendency has been to value Renee because of her obvious qualities, which forces the question of whether I’d do so if those qualities weren’t so obvious. According to Peter, I’d have to.

Let’s re-iterate that point “according to a valuing by which the price is fixed.” The fixed value of a mate may, at times, not match the perceived value, which is true of anything, I guess. I may own a gold ring and treat it like brass or like Fort Knox, but its value stays intact either way. The value isn’t determined by me; it’s there whether I recognize it or not. So it is with the mate I’ve been entrusted with. She has a value set on her that has nothing to do with me or what good or bad qualities I see in her. It’s the value her Maker and Father placed on her, and that – the valuing by which the price is fixed – is what I’m to honor.

Suppose I really did value that gold ring, but, because it was a gift bought by another, I never knew its true worth. Maybe I just thought it very handsome; very flashy and impressive, without understanding its monetary value. I’d be honoring it to a point, but not the most accurate one. Only with a bit of investigation would I come to realize what a treasure I had.

The parallel’s obvious. I can value my mate because she’s pretty, talented, passionate or sweet, ad that’s fine to a point. But, because she’s a gift bought by another, I can miss her true worth. Only with a bit of investigation do I come to realize what a treasure I have. There’s a fixed and unchanging value placed on her. Sometimes, when grouchy, stressed out or self-absorbed, I miss it, but that hardly diminishes it. So all of us husbands would do well to take a minute to reflect on what we’ve been given, both in its real value and the responsibilities that come along with calling this gift “mine.”

Because the time will come when we surely answer for the way we’ve treated our treasures.