Today's question is from a listener named Emma, who is in love. "Hello Tony and Pastor John. Thank you so much for your ministry. It is truly a blessing to me and so many others. I am currently in a serious relationship with a man who loves Christ and encourages me as I follow Christ.

But as our affection for one another continues to grow, how can I make sure that I am loving God more than I love him? What exactly would it look like to be putting my boyfriend above God? And is there something like this I can expect to face in marriage too?" Pastor John, what would you say to Emma?

You know what I really want to do is to read to Emma a poem that I wrote for one of my sons when he was getting married, a poem about this very question called "Love Her More and Love Her Less." So let me give a brief answer and then I am going to close with just a part of that poem, because sometimes I think poetry can unfold a mystery of emotion that a straightforward APJ answer might not.

With regard to that last question, "Is there something like this in marriage too?" The answer is yes, and not only in marriage, but it's possible to love children more than God, health more than God, reputation more than God, friendship more than God, comfort more than God, security more than God.

In other words, the question you're asking about the boyfriend is a question all of us must pose about everything. Now that's why the 10th commandment is there, right? "You shall not covet," and covetousness means simply loving something too much, loving it the way you shouldn't love it, like loving a boyfriend or your husband or your health or your life in such a way that it starts to undermine your love for God.

How can you make sure you love God more than your most cherished earthly love? And one answer to that question is surprising, maybe the most important answer of all, namely that God himself will use whatever means he must to keep that from happening, to keep us from loving him less than something else.

1 Peter 1:6 shows that God regards faith in his children as so precious that he will use fire to refine it so that dross is burned out of it, and it comes through like refined gold to the praise of glory at the end of our lives. The same principle applies to love.

So the issue does not lie finally in our own hands. God will keep his children absolutely secure. He will use whatever means he must to prevent us from idolatry, from loving anything more than we love him and thus making shipwreck of our faith if we are indeed his children.

The next thing to say is Hebrews 4.12. How can I be sure? What means might I use to keep from loving my boyfriend more, or at least how can I find out if I do love him more? And the answer is the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

In other words, stay close in the Word of God. Saturate your mind and heart with the Word of God, and he will cause you by the Word to know your own heart and what you love most. That's what the Word of God reveals. And when you read the Word, it gives you some specific criteria to test your heart.

For example, does your allegiance to your boyfriend or your husband lead you into sin? Does the pleasure that you have in being with your boyfriend diminish or does it increase the pleasure that you have in being with Jesus? Does the enjoyment of being with your boyfriend increase or diminish the enjoyment you have in being with Bible-saturated godly people?

Does getting to know your boyfriend lead you to know Christ better? Does the thought of losing your boyfriend cause you to think of getting angry with God or throwing yourself more fully on God's mercy? Sometimes a poem can capture a mystery and stir us up to love God even better than a theological argument or an APJ answer.

So let me venture on that possibility for the rest of this APJ. Emma will need to make an adjustment. Since I wrote this for my son, and she's a woman, not a son, I didn't write it for my daughter, though I could have. So all Emma needs to do is just do a little switch and think of me speaking to my daughter toward the one she's about to marry rather than my son towards the one he's about to marry.

The poem is called "Love Her More and Love Her Less," or Emma would need to say, "Love him more and love him less." So here's the excerpt from the poem. If you now aim your wife to bless, then love her more and love her less. If in the coming years by some strange providence of God you come to have the riches of this age and painless stride across the stage beside your wife, be sure in health to love her, love her more than wealth.

And if your life is woven in a hundred friendships and you spin a festal fabric out of all your sweet affections, great and small, be sure, no matter how it rings, to love her, love her more than friends. And if there comes a point when you are tired and pity whispers, "Do yourself a favor.

Come. Be free. Embrace the comforts here with me." Know this, your wife surpasses these, so love her, love her more than ease. And when your marriage bed is pure and there is not the slightest lure of lust for any but your wife and all is ecstasy in life, a secret all of this protects, go love her, love her more than sex.

And if, to your surprise, not mine, God calls you by some strange design to risk your life for some great cause, let neither fear nor love give pause, and when you face the gate of death, then love her, love her more than breath. Yes, love her, love her more than life.

Oh, love the woman called your wife. So love her as your earthly best. Beyond this, venture not. But lest your love become a fool's facade, be sure to love her less than God. It is not wise or kind to call an idol by sweet names and fall as in humility before a likeness of your God.

Or above your best beloved on earth, the God alone who gives her worth, and she will know in second place that your great love is also grace and that your high affections now are flowing freely from a vow beneath these promises first made to you by God. Nor will they fade for being rooted by the stream of heaven's joy, which you esteem and cherish more than breath and life that you may give it to your wife.

The greatest gift you give your wife is loving God above her life. And thus I bid you now to bless. Go love her more by loving less. And for Emma, the poem would have to close, and thus I bid you, Emma, bless. Go love him more by loving less.

Thank you, Pastor John, for sharing that poem. And Emma, thanks for the great and important question, one that I'm sure many other listeners are wrestling with right now as well. Thank you for articulating it and putting it on the table for us to address. Well, we publish this podcast three times per week with over 1,500 episodes now in the archive.

You can find them, subscribe to the podcast, or send us your own question. Do that online at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. So how do we respond when life seems meaningless, especially when suffering hits and that suffering itself seems utterly pointless? How do we respond? It's a great question, and it's up next time when we return on Wednesday.

I'm Tony Reinke, and we'll see you then. Bye.