Nothing is wrong with a woman being ambitious and driven – provided that she is ambitious and driven in obeying God, submitting to Him and living in His power for His glory.
If a woman is ambitious and driven to do things HER way, not God’s way and disobeys God’s commands for her as a believer in Christ and as a wife – that is a huge problem. This is where we began to go wrong in the Garden of Eden, actually. We decided that we were more wise than God and that our lives would be better if we became independent from Him. In our quest for independence from God, we became partners with Satan and then we fell.
A godly woman can have a strong personality, her own giftings, her own perspective and her own voice.
I am personally still very ambitious and driven, a go-getter, with strong opinions, ideas and feelings. But I no longer try to control my husband or God or demand my own way. I no longer disrespect my husband. My goal is to harness the power and strength of my flesh and yield it all to Christ. I seek to lay everything that belongs to me before Jesus to be used only for His will, not for my will now. I no longer belong to myself. I am not my own master. Jesus is the “Boss.” He has the reigns and He calls the shots now. And, He graciously gives me the power of His Spirit to do the things He calls me to do that I could never do in my own power. It is not about me “trying harder” but about me resting in Him and trusting Him to work through me.
I willingly, joyfully place myself under Greg’s God-given authority and leadership in our marriage and I put all of my strength, drive, ambition, power and motivation behind him to bless him. I bring all of my talents, intelligence, abilities, gifts, ideas, feelings and perspective to the table, and more than that, I bring all of the power of heaven and all that belongs to Christ with me because all that I have is His and all that He has is mine. I operate within the parameters of God’s Word and Greg’s leadership now. I seek to to build Greg up, to support his decisions, to work as a team together for God’s glory. I am a living sacrifice each day for Christ, yielding myself to Him, longing to be of service to Him. And I make myself available to my husband to serve, honor and bless him as well.
Now, God’s power floods my soul and my marriage and I have the power of heaven at my disposal to do good to my husband and my marriage. I have access to all of the the power of Christ to live in victory over sin (to read more about this, I strongly suggest checking out The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee). I no longer employ the power of my sinful nature to destroy my husband and my marriage, but rather allow God to work through me to greatly bless my husband, to empower and inspire him to become the man God desires him to be. I allow God to work in my husband’s life instead of me trying to play “the Holy Spirit” in his life.
The only power I gave up was the sinful power I used to have to destroy my husband, my marriage, my children and myself and the power I had to separate myself from fellowship with God. I have infinitely more power and influence for GOOD in my marriage now than I ever had when I was focused on what I wanted and on trying to do things myself my way.
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