My dear brothers in the Lord,
Thank you for taking the time to read some things I’d like to share with you that I hope may be helpful. I appreciate your time and support so very much!
Note – My sites and books are purposely one-sided. I only talk about what women should do because I don’t teach men, so that I can honor the scriptural command that women are not to have authority over men in the church. That is an important thing I hope that people will keep in mind when they read my posts. There is a whole other side for men who follow Christ, as well. I trust that husbands will study and seek the Lord wholeheartedly for themselves, yielding fully to His Lordship.
THIS IS A NARROW ROAD
This road that your wife is taking is very narrow – just like the road all believers must take. It is the road to true discipleship in Jesus – to biblical womanhood. Only a few women, even in the church, find and take this path today. It is completely:
- counter-cultural.
- counter-intuitive.
- absolutely crazy from a worldly, human perspective.
Women who take this road must challenge everything they thought they knew about:
We must question our old fixed beliefs about almost everything and be willing to tear down most of what we thought was true and rebuild on God’s Word alone – even if we have been believers in Christ for decades.
THIS IS A TOTALLY NEW LANGUAGE AND PARADIGM
We must learn this new foreign language of respect that goes completely against all of the messages in which we have all been marinating in our culture for generations. What God calls us to do (respect our husbands and submit to their leadership) also goes completely against the way most women think.
There are so many things that seem very disrespectful to men that are just not on our radar as women or that seem like “not a big deal” from our perspective. Most of us are not purposely trying to be disrespectful. Most of us also don’t realize that our culture is very disrespectful toward men and that disrespect for men has become mainstream and normal. Most of us who struggle with being disrespectful or controlling don’t realize what we are doing or if we do, we have no idea how to stop.
It is shocking to us, and a bit overwhelming, when we first see all that is disrespectful to our men and we are confronted with sin we didn’t even realize we had.
We tend to speak and hear the language of love. The list of things that can seem unloving to us is often just as overwhelming to husbands as the list of things that can feel disrespectful to men can be to wives. The language of respect is very different – sometimes completely the opposite of our language of love. Many of us have never even heard about this stuff before. Ever. So it is a lot to absorb and process.
THERE IS VERY LITTLE HELP AND SUPPORT FOR WIVES ON THIS ROAD
Many wives have no one to:
- be a real life example.
- mentor them personally.
- pray with them.
- help them get up when they stumble.
- cheer them on.
- teach them.
My calling from the Lord is to seek to be a Titus 2:3-5 wife for my sisters in the Lord online so they don’t have to walk this road completely alone. Thankfully, we all have access to God. The most important thing is that we have Him with us.
Women who seek to learn to genuinely respect their husband and honor his leadership face incredible opposition from:
- the enemy.
- family members.
- most friends, even Christian ones.
- neighbors.
- coworkers.
- many church members.
- sometimes even pastors and Christian leaders.
- the media – books, shows, love songs, romantic movies, magazines, commercials, etc…
- the world.
- the culture.
If they also face opposition from the very man they are trying to learn to bless, it can be extremely discouraging.
Of course, the same things are very true for men, as well.
THIS IS A LONG PROCESS
It’s easy for husbands to think that wives should just suddenly “get” respect and biblical submission and be able to be completely perfect godly wives at the flip of a light switch. That they should never ever stumble again.
I have walked beside thousands of women on this road. I have seen many miracles! But I have never seen instantaneous perfection.
I have never seen any wife (or husband) become absolutely perfect and completely sinless for the rest of their lives. We can learn to walk in the power of the Spirit and have increasing victory over sin. We can stumble much less as we grow as we yield to God’s Spirit and His Lordship. But absolute total perfection is something that will not be ours until we enter the gates of heaven. While we are on earth, all of us will still need grace at times.
I want to encourage you that if your wife is seeking to allow the Lord to change her, just because she stumbles at times does not necessarily mean that she is not changing.
If she gets right back up and continues pressing on, God is changing her.
(Ladies, this is not an excuse for us to purposely keep sinning, of course. Our goal must be to seek to please the Lord and to allow Him to transform us and empower us to walk in victory.)
MEN AND WOMEN HAVE VERY SIMILAR JOURNEYS
This is the process of sanctification. It is a lifetime journey of becoming more like Jesus. Husbands have a very similar journey to take that is equally grueling, humbling, and difficult as they learn to become the godly men the Lord calls them to be. It is completely counterintuitive for men to love their wives with the agape love of Jesus and to lead with authentic Christlike humility, gentleness, and godly wisdom. As one man in my Sunday School class described it,
“It requires a complete change of the constitution of a man to be the husband God calls him to be.”
This path toward holiness is equally challenging for wives and husbands. It requires a fundamental change of our constitution – dying to our old sinful self, taking up our cross, giving up control, learning to love/respect supernaturally and unconditionally, receiving our new nature in Christ, tearing out any idols in our hearts, repenting of all sin, learning to let God’s Spirit have control rather than the flesh, yielding to Him in absolute surrender, giving up the world’s wisdom and its ways, etc… These things are generally a process of growth, refinement, and maturation for all of us.
WE GREATLY APPRECIATE OUR HUSBAND’S SUPPORT
Some husbands are extremely unsupportive as wives seek to change. I totally understand why. I know many men are afraid that this process is not real and that their wives can’t really change. It is easy to assume that this is just another attempt at manipulation. That is how my husband often felt until God opened my eyes almost 9 years ago and began to slowly change me. I know that many husbands are afraid to get their hopes up that maybe their marriages might be healed and that they might feel respected and honored by their wives. I know there is a lot of pain for many husbands that is extremely difficult to bear.
But when a husband throws obstacles (his own sin) in his wife’s way – like being negative, critical, harsh, hateful, controlling, mean, unplugged, rude, unkind, or is consumed by some addiction – it makes it much harder for her on this journey. These stumbling blocks delay healing for the marriage. My prayer is to see all husbands and wives experience the healing and transformation that is available to them in Christ and that all of our marriages might bring great glory to the Lord.
I long to see husbands seek to help their wives and support them on this narrow path that leads to Life in Christ.
Your love, prayers, support, words of life, gentleness, selflessness, and humble leadership are so powerful in our lives as wives. What a blessing when we have husbands who are willing to love us like Jesus loved the church even when we are struggling and stumbling. When one spouse obeys the Lord, the other is blessed and it is much easier for the other spouse to obey Him, as well.
IF A HUSBAND AND WIFE ARE BOTH ON THIS JOURNEY TOGETHER, HEALING COMES MUCH SOONER
I share things with men, at times, that I hope might be helpful, like today’s post. But I don’t seek to teach, disciple, or mentor men. I simply implore husbands to start on their own journey to become godly men and husbands, to seek to be as supportive as possible of their wives’ desire to follow Christ and to become godly wives. If both spouses are on this journey together, my experience has been that the healing can happen a LOT faster.
Much love in Christ!
April
SHARE:
If any husbands would like to share with our other brothers how the Lord has shown them to encourage and support their wives on this journey, that would be great.
RELATED:
An explanation of how this process for wives usually unfolds
Resources for Men
www.peacefulhusband.com – my husband’s blog
Why Do I Have to Change First?
Like this:
Like Loading...
I have converted my Youtube videos to mp3 files so that you may download them.
