Archive for the 'Marriage' Category

I’ve written about submission when it’s hard. In fact, in the earlier post on unsubmissiveness, I said that it isn’t even submission if you agree with your husband. But I need to clarify that.

In a godly marriage, a wife is living in a respectful and submissive manner with a husband who is living in a loving and sacrificial manner. Both are sacrificing for one another, laying down their lives for one another, and they do this all the time. They may not even notice because it is such a pattern of life for them. Submission is an attitude of the heart, and it is a frame of spirit. So a wife could be living submissively day-in and day-out and never really be identifying it as “submission.” But it is.

I don’t want to give the word submission a bad rap by giving the impression that it is only applicable when it’s hard. It is sometimes hard. When Jesus submitted in the Garden of Gethsemane, it was very hard. But when He was doing the will of His Father day-in and day-out while on the earth, He was living in a submissive manner. God’s will was Jesus’ will. They agreed. And in the Garden, Jesus made the Father’s will His own.

So God has shown us how to submit when it is hard, and He has shown us how to live submissively all the time. Both are good. Both are required.

Sometimes, as I’m sure you know, wives can take on more than they can  physically, spiritually, or emotionally handle.  It’s absolutely humanly impossible, but they manage somehow anyway, and the family survives the craziness after all. Survives. That’s an interesting word. But there’s a toll. And the family or the kids or mom herself pays it.

When a wife is carrying a burden of responsibility that is simply too much for her, her husband is the one with the responsibility to notice. He is supposed to protect her from her own rash commitments. In fact, somewhere in the OT law there is a verse about how if a husband hears of his wife’s vow on the same day that she made it, he can overturn it. That’s a good one, and I fully approve. Three cheers for the husband who says, “You said you’d do what? Are you crazy? I don’t want you to do that!”

Wives tend to underestimate the impact they have on their very own families, and, at the very same time, they also overestimate their own ability to carry far more weight than they were designed by God to carry. (Did you follow that?)  A wise husband will Continue reading ‘That’s What Husbands Are For’

One of God’s clear commands to wives is to see that they respect their own husbands. One of the hard things to get wives to see is that this is not about their husbands. It is not a command to the husbands to be respectable (though they should). It is to and for the wives. And respect is really about the wives, not the husbands.

What do I mean by this? A wife is to see that she does something herself. Respect is a behavior that the wife is to display. Here are a few things that characterize a respectful wife.

1. She thinks right thoughts about her husband, contemplating his strengths and godly traits.

2. She shows gratitude to him for his work and provision and abilities.

3. She shows concern for his needs and wishes.

4. She speaks courteously to him.

5. She fulfills his requests, submitting to him in the little things and the big things.

6. She speaks highly of him to others.

7. She is trustworthy.

8. She goes to him for counsel first.

9. She prays for him.

10. She forgives him.

Now some women will say, “I refuse to do that. My husband is not worthy of such treatment.”  Then why did you marry him? Some husbands may say that they refuse to love their wives because they are not lovely or lovable. So why did they marry women they couldn’t love? They are still required by Scripture to love them anyway.

This is why it is so important for women to marry someone for whom they have great respect. Otherwise, this is a very high bar. If you have great regard for your husband, then you married the right guy. And respecting a respectable man is not too difficult after all.

But if on the other hand, you are already married to someone for whom you have little respect, the command is still there, but it will be much more difficult to obey. At the same time, if you begin to treat your husband with respect unconditionally, out of respect for Christ and His Word, it will be good for you and good for your husband.