Drink water from your own cistern, and running water from your own well. Should your fountains be dispersed abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be only your own, and not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of your youth. As a loving deer and a graceful doe, let her breasts satisfy you at all times; and always be enraptured with her love. For why should you, my son, be enraptured by an immoral woman, and be embraced in the arms of a seductress? For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and He ponders all his paths. (Proverbs 5:15-21)

God’s Plan For A Happy Marriage

Fidelity will bring about a happy marriage. When God created the world, He set in motion many laws that when followed will bring about the intended purpose, design and outcome desired by the one who created everything to be very good. Before sin entered the world, God looked upon His creation and proclaimed it to be very good because it was very good. One man and one woman lived in a paradise garden and they both walked with God. Like the heavenly bodies that were placed in the sky in a precise manner for a precise purpose, the union of Adam and Eve was designed to maximize the full potential of why the Lord created two beings in His image. Until the fall of man, that design was lived in its perfection because the home was surrounded by the presence of the grace of God. The temptation of Eve was not only the beginning of man’s fall but the battle for the home that remains through every generation. The wisdom literature of the Old Testament is a reminder of the will of God to impress upon the hearts of all men and women the purpose and design of the home as intended by the Creator. Solomon uses the analogy of the cistern or a well to show the relationship enjoyed by a husband and wife should be exclusively their own. Wells of water were highly regarded for their life-giving force and possession of a well was severely protected. In some cases, drinking from a well of another would bring about death. The husband must guard the trust of this love for the wife and the wife to the husband with devoted love for the blessings each brings to the other. God created the marriage of a man and woman to share in the flowing waters of the blessings of conjugal, spiritual and personal fidelity. There is no purpose in allowing the streams of the marriage love to be spread among others. In marriage, two streams are joined together as one so they may both flow together as one without others merging into their union. Sexual immorality is sharing that stream with others and is condemned by the Maker and Creator of the marriage bed.

Often the marriage union can be viewed as one does dining at a fine restaurant. An order is placed for the desired dish and after it comes and is tasted the eyes look at what others have and a desire to have what they have fills the heart with envy, regret, and lust. There is nothing wrong with sampling the delicacies of another’s dinner plate but to disperse the fountain of marital fidelity among others is an abomination in the eyes of God. Marriage is a blending of souls only for the one union formed by the hand of God, instituted to be a faithful promise of hearts devoted to the purity of marriage. What happens in marriage remains in marriage. Happiness will only come from commitment to the creative design of God’s word for the union of one man and one woman. The fulfillment of marriage comes from each party committing to finding the blessing of one another in the union of God. Solomon exhorts the husband to be blessed in the fountain of marital happiness in the joy of his wife and his wife alone. There will be no regret, sorrow or heartaches that will last a lifetime in marriages that are held together by the desire of following the divine pattern. A woman who is loved by her husband will always be the wife of his youth. There will never be a desire for another because there is no other. The passions of the sexual designs of marriage are highlighted in the relationships husbands and wives share with one another. God created the woman to be a beautiful creation to become one with the man in every aspect of their union. Solomon tells the man to keep his heart and his mind upon the beauty of his wife physically, sexually, spiritually and emotionally. A man should be enraptured by his wife, to be ravished always with her love, and as the English Standard Version suggests, a man should be intoxicated by the love of his wife. This is further explained in the New American Standard Version that tells the man to be exhilarated always with the love of his wife. Happiness in marriage is when the man keeps his eyes on the wife of his youth.

There is a counter thought to the need of faithful love. Solomon poses the question of why would a man so devoted to his wife be enraptured by an immoral woman? The same word is used in the negative as it was earlier used in the positive. What makes a difference is what becomes of the enraptured soul that has filled the heart with a ravishing need to find sexual enjoyment outside of marriage. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God and failed to follow His divine plan, sin brought immense shame. For a moment they thought they would enjoy an eternal pleasure in eating the forbidden fruit but the moment they rebelled they felt shame, fear, and dread to be in the presence of God. Sexual infidelity is the same. There is a rush of desire that is as intense as any emotion but when gratified there is nothing but anger, shame, and fear. Guilt enters the mind as sin corrupts the pure heart. The word of God tells the tempted to keep the fountain of marital purity for one another and not to dispel abroad the blessings intended by God for marriage to others. There will never be any lasting happiness in sexual promiscuity and supposed freedom to disperse abroad the fountain of life. Marriage was created for a union of fidelity so that happiness can be enjoyed, enriched and enlivens the hearts of the man and woman in the holy bond of God’s design. A happy marriage comes from hearts that are happy in the word of God.