Deer abounded in medieval England. Yet their abundance did not equate to their availability. Regarding deer as a symbol of rank, privilege, and wealth, the monarchy’s “Forest Law” reserved all deer — every last one — as the king’s property. Without the king’s approval, hunters faced penalty, imprisonment, or both. Venison was the Versace of the Middle Ages.
Lately, as I walk stores and streets, passing men and women of all different shapes and sizes, I try to place this piece of history at the forefront of my mind. I ask myself, “How might I see and treat others, how would I think of and speak to them, if I saw all people — every last one — as the King’s property?”
While the sentiment has significance in any life, perhaps it carries particular weight for the married. Wherever two wedding bands are brandished at an altar, God himself is giving the gift of marriage — and he gives it to this man and this woman. Two people (and no one else), now one flesh; God’s property, now also each other’s property (and no one else’s). The married couple receives a royal decree from the King: “What therefore [I have] joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:6).
Shockingly Faithful
When the wedding photos have received their proper admiration, and “my husband” no longer sounds strange upon our lips, how will we wives respond? What will we do with God’s gift, God’s approval, God’s commandment?
Of all the answers, faithfulness falls near the top. Repeatedly throughout Scripture, God commends marital faithfulness and condemns marital infidelity — this comes as no surprise. But what should shock us is the depth of faithfulness to which God calls married couples:
You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matthew 5:27–28)
A longing look is adultery in Jesus’s eyes? Yes. For the holiness to which we are called is not first about what our hands touch. No, Christian holiness centers on what our hearts desire — our hushed “intent” — before the all-seeing, holy eyes of God. And this God permits — and encourages! — married hearts to burn for just one person. No one else.
For those who desire to desire only their spouse, Malachi 2:15 is a lifelong guide: “Guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.”
Though the prophet addresses husbands, the principle is the same for wives. Unfaithfulness doesn’t begin in the recesses of deleted texts or “casual” coffees. Just as Jesus taught, unfaithfulness starts “in the spirit.”
But what does that mean? What is the “spirit” for Malachi (or the “heart” for Jesus), and how do we “guard” it?
The Character’s Cockpit
While the meaning of the word spirit varies in the Old Testament, Malachi seems to evoke the seat of our emotions, thoughts, and morality. Our spirit is our character’s cockpit. What we most deeply desire, what we most frequently dwell on, what we most eagerly approve and most vehemently disapprove — these chart a course to who we most truly are.
The same meaning is present in Jesus’s use of heart in Matthew 5:27–28, which here, as in many other places, “denotes the center of all physical and spiritual life” — “the fountain and seat of the thoughts, passions, desires, appetites, affections, purposes, endeavors.” What a list. What an “organ.”
And what a reason for wives to guard ourselves in our spirits! The Hebrew word for guard is also translated as “keep,” “heed,” “observe,” and “watch.” At a minimum, to guard the spirit is to think about the spirit — to note where it wanders, to mark what makes it race. The prison guard who closes his eyes as he makes his rounds is no prison guard at all. To guard something, we must be aware of it.
So, we wives might ask ourselves: “When I daydream, do my own husband and my own life take center stage — or do I more often muse on someone else’s lot? What feelings rise up when my husband speaks to me, hugs me, disagrees with me? Is it mostly a combination of affection, gratitude, and respect — or a cauldron of scornful attitudes? Am I quicker to blame and grumble about my husband or to pray for him?”
If we truly guard our spirits, we will be more than aware of their whims and whereabouts. We will try to change them. Again, the guard who stands still and silent during a prison break is no guard at all. To guard something, we also must take protective action.
Three Daily Guards
What, practically speaking, can we do to protect our spirits? Our spirits, being spirit, cannot be defended with pepper spray. But the various influences that come to us from the outside can certainly shape our spirits. By God’s good design, what impacts our senses impacts our spirits. We protect our inner lives in part by protecting our outer lives. To this end, consider fortifying three aspects of your material life for the sake of marital faithfulness.
Guard Your Home
The wife who is happy within the actual walls of her home is far, far less likely to look outside of her home for sinful pleasure. And by “outside,” I don’t just mean upon exiting the front door: Social media feeds and mental fantasies are also roads for seeking ungodly satisfaction — all from the crooked comfort of one’s own couch.
Instead of searching elsewhere for livelihood, look within the worn, lovely halls of your own home. Faithfully invest in what is yours. Deposit daily stores of time and energy into making your home a place you and others actually like to be. Perhaps some of our marital discontentment can be traced back to problems not with our husbands but with our parenting, homemaking, or family rhythms.
Guard Your Clock
Unfaithfulness can be a matter of time — wasted time. Spend your time on activities that enrich rather than dull the spirit: Bible reading and prayer, church membership and evangelism, marital intimacy and family discipleship, consistent labor and meaningful rest. In 1 Timothy 5:13, Paul describes women whose idleness leads them to become “gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not.” Squandered time is a stone’s throw from many sins, including marital infidelity.
Guard Your Screen
Some time ago, my husband and I were midway through a tennis documentary when we abruptly turned it off. The Rolexes, the Ferraris, the impeccable physical fitness, the year-round tans, the tantrum-free free time — well, in just thirty minutes our many years together had begun to look woeful. So, we gave away our TV.
While we do own one now, we still stick to our same screen-guns. Far from seeing our own life as sorry, we remember that digital life is the sore replacement. Then we order our screen usage around that belief. Married couples do well to consider whether they live vicariously through the likes of Instagram and Netflix. The more we sit and stare rather than move and serve, the more other marriages and other lives can look more attractive. Of course they do: They’re edited.
Your One Lovely Deer
No matter how sturdy our practical guards, we protect our marriages from private and public unfaithfulness only so far as God acts. So, we pray, every day, for our own and our husbands’ spirits, that God would make us to “rejoice in the [spouse] of [our] youth” (Proverbs 5:18). The battle to remain faithful is fought in the heart.
May the spouse God gave you — and no one else — be always your “lovely deer” (Proverbs 5:19).
Desiring God