Tag: wife

Nurturing Your Marriage – Part Three

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Clear Priorities

A thriving biblical marriage can be characterized by having three priorities in place.  The first priority is to have a growing
relationship with God.  As I said in the previous post, God ordained marriage for His children.  Those outside of the faith cannot have a true biblical marriage.  Our relationship with
God should be preeminent.  C.S. Lewis said, “When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall
love my earthly dearest better than I do now.”  My husband and I have an understanding that God comes first in our life.  We’ll gladly settle for second place.  When we are each putting God first we are both moving in the same direction and our marriage is strengthened.

The second priority is a growing marriage.  Other than God, nothing should come before your marriage.  That includes your children, family, friends, or career.  The Christian marriage is like a triangle.  God is on top and the husband and wife at
each bottom corner.  The closer they get to God, the closer they get to each other.  The Scriptures declare, “A threefold cord is not quickly broken,” Ecclesiastes 4:12b. Wife, your husband should know that he is a priority in your life.  He should know that you understand and embrace your calling from God as help meet to him.  He should know that, next to God, nothing is more important to you on this earth than your relationship with him.  I like what Martin Luther said about marriage.  “Let the wife make the husband glad to come home and let him make her sorry to see him leave.” This is a God-honoring marriage that points other’s to Him.

The third priority is a growing relationship with the children.  Notice the order.  As precious as children are, they should not come before the marriage.  The home is
not to be “child-centered.”  If the children are the focus, what happens when they leave?  God’s design is for the children to eventually leave, cleave, and weave their own family together. Therefore, mother should not devote all of her time and energy to them.  She should save some for her husband.  Of course, this is not always easy to do.  It takes a lot of time and energy to raise children.  Homeschooling takes even more.  But the most wonderful gift you can give your children is a deep love for their father.  A strong marriage brings security to the home and an environment that children thrive in.

Tomorrow we will look at the third key to nurturing your marriage – practical application of these truths.

Nurturing Your Marriage – Part Two

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Recognizing Your Role

The first key to nurturing your marriage is recognizing your role as wife.  Modern society and the feminist agenda whisper lies into the ears of many Christian women.  One very subtle lie is that marriage is a corporate merger.  The idea is that you will bring in your career, assets, goals, and hobbies into the marriage and I’ll bring in my career, assets, goals, and hobbies and we’ll merge the two together.  What it looks like played out is the husband goes one way and the wife another.  They have two separate visions with two separate goals.  This idea is secular and worldly
and it destroys many marriages.

The biblical role of the wife is to be the help meet to her husband.  We are shown God’s perfect plan for marriage in Genesis chapter two.  When Adam is created God places him in the garden and gives him a job to do and a law to keep.  Adam was to work and tend to the garden.   But he needed help. “And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him,” Genesis 2:18.  God did not created Adam and Eve together.  He created Adam, set him on his path, and then created Eve to come along side him to help accomplish all that he had set out to do.

Today, we see a different take on marriage.  It seems oppressive to say a wife’s job is to help her husband with his career, plans, goals, and dreams.  She should be seeking her own heart’s desire.  He should respect her need to be independent and they should both give and take in the marriage vision.  While that might sound good and noble, it is a distorted view of biblical marriage.  (Remember, marriage is for the saved.  God ordained marriage and the unregenerate cannot achieve marriage as He intended.  They do not know true love and they certainly cannot follow the mandates of Scripture.)  Here is what often happens in today’s society.  A husband has a vision and goes to work.  But, due to materialistically enslaving ourselves with homes, cars, and consumer debt, we are told that both husband and wife must bring in an income in order to survive.
So the wife becomes career focused and goes out into the world and works for another man or woman.  She spends her life building up the empire of another person.  She has taken on man’s curse to work by “the sweat of thy face.” She comes home over worked and exhausted, having no energy for her husband and her family.  She is no longer “husband focused”.  Because she is sharing in his role of providing, he now has
to step in and partner with his wife in tending to the children, managing the home, cleaning house, doing chores, etc.  While some Christian women willingly choose this way of life, I believe that deep down most women resent it.  I lay this problem mostly at the husband’s feet.  He should recognize his role as provider.  Unfortunately for them, most men have never been taught this.

Biblical marriage looks a little different.  The husband takes the responsibility to provide for his family. The wife comes along side to help him fulfill his goals.  Now, it might be that for a season she works for another in order to help her husband do this.  I am not implying this is wrong.  In no way am I saying that it is a sin for a Christian woman to work outside the home. (I will, however, say in confidence that it is God’s plan for mothers to be at home with their babies and young children and for her life to be centered on the home. Read Titus 2 and Proverbs 31.)  Her priority in life should be to help her husband achieve his goals.

Why would I as a Christian wife go out into this world and spend all my talents, time, and energy building up the kingdom of another man by working for him?   I would much rather spend my talents, time, and energy building up my husband’s kingdom.  When his kingdom is built, so is mine!   If we would step back and honestly look, we would see that most of society at best does not understand biblical marriage and at worse views biblical marriage in disdain.  Let me give you an example.  The other day my husband was talking to man at our church and turned to me and said, “We are going to have dinner up here Friday night at 7 p.m.  Please take care of that.”  I said, “Sure, no problem.”  Later the comment was made that this man felt sorry for me because my husband told me what to do and I had to do it.   Let me ask this.  If I worked as a secretary for another man and he turned to me one day and said, “We need a meal catered in for a board meeting, take care of it” would people feel sorry for me?  I don’t think so.  The thought would be that it is my job to do as I’m told.  But for some reason when a wife takes her role as “help meet” seriously it is perplexing to people.  Sadly, I believe it is partly due to the fact that biblical marriage is just not taught to Christians anymore.

Now, I realize that this article is addressing homeschooling mothers.  Most of them do have lives that are centered on the home.  However, it should be noted that just because you are not out in the world building up another’s kingdom, does not automatically mean that you are building up your husband’s kingdom.  Are you the help meet God intended?  Do you use your time and talents to help your husband achieve his goals?
Do you use your energy to further his kingdom?  Are you investing in the things that your husband wants you to invest in?  Are his plans for life your plans?  Or, are you both trying to achieve two separate goals in life?  Are you moving in two separate directions?  These are important questions to ask.

One of my favorite scriptures in Proverbs is, “Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands,” Proverbs
14:1.  In order to build my house I must recognize my husband’s needs.  Automatically society will say, “No, no, no, you need to worry about
your own needs.”  But, a true understanding of “two becoming one” (Genesis 2:24) is that when I meet my husband’s needs, I am meeting mine.  Husbands have three basic needs – respect, sex, and food.  All of them are scriptural.  Ephesians 5:33 says, “see that she reverence her husband.”  This is the number one need of a husband.  Whether or not a man deserves respect is not the issue.  It is the position of husband that deserves respect. It is no different than respecting those in authority, like the president, because of their position.  The second need is sex.  Sex is only for marriage and by God’s design the wife is the only one that fulfills this need in her husband.  I Corinthians 7:3-5 explains this and the importance of it.  My husband will encourage husbands to give their wives 5 to 6 “non-sexual” hugs a day.  Women are built to need that.  But let me encourage women.  Your husband needs 1 sexual hug a day.  It truly makes for a great marriage.  The third basic need husbands have is
food.  They need it to survive.  I Corinthians 7:34 says, “she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband.”  A husband that has respect, sex, and good food will be a blessed man indeed.  It will be easy to love and provide for a wife who joyfully meets all of these needs.

Part three in nurturing your marriage will address the second key– Having Clear Priorities.

The Submissive Husband

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Is your husband submissive? Sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? I believe that every wife wants a submissive husband. I know that I do and I’m thankful for mine. While society likes to think of it as such, submission is not an ugly term. However, before the feminist get too excited, let me clarify that I am not talking about some distorted view of manhood and marriage. As a woman, let me say that there is nothing more appalling than a weak and fragile, “Yes Dear, whatever you say” type of husband. Men are designed to be men. They are created to be leaders. Simplistic, I know, but so true. So, what I am talking about is a husband who is submissive to biblical authority.

Authority is a large part of everyone’s life. We are always under some type of authority. Children must learn to submit to the authority of their parents. Wives must learn to submit to the authority of their own husbands. Husbands must learn to submit to the authority in the workplace, church authority, and governmental authority. All believers must submit to God’s authority. Even unbelievers will one day submit. “For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God,” Romans 14:11. (Sadly, by the time an unbeliever learns to submit to God’s absolute authority it will be too late for them.)

Submission is a reality of life. It is one that has been under attack since the beginning of time. Today we see unnecessary heartache because of the lack of understanding of biblical authority. There are miserable parents who have failed to teach this truth to their children and who are reaping the consequences. The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame. (Pro 29:15) There are husbands and wives who are struggling in their marriage because they have never been taught proper authority or have simply chosen to ignore it. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; (Eph 5:24-25) There are churches that are spiritually dying due to sin in the camp and a refusal to lovingly establish the authority of church discipline. Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened… (1Co 5:6-7a) There are pastors who struggle in leadership because they have not taught their flock to “obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you,” Hebrews 13:17. Untold numbers of boys and girls live in daily turmoil at home, in school, and with society because no one taught them the truth. Thousands of men and women are in prison today because they did not submit to proper authority. Do you see the importance of biblical authority?

For the believer in Christ, submission is essential. James 4:7 says to, “Submit yourselves therefore to God.” It is through submission to Christ, as Lord and Master, that we are saved. As a Christian wife, Ephesians 5:24 states that your submission to your husband beautifully illustrates the submission of the church to Christ. When we as believers fail to submit to our husband we demonstrate to the world a distorted and pathetic portrait of Christ and His holy bride. This is one of the reasons that having a husband that is submissive to Christ is so important. Christian wives must submit to their husband in order to be obedient to the Lord. The command to submit is not circumstantial. As stated in I Peter 3:1, “Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives.” However, it is a lot easier to submit to a husband who is submitting to Christ and following Him.

Is your husband submissive? I hope so. It makes for a glorious marriage. If not, Christian wife, keep praying for your husband. Love him and still submit to him. Win him over with your lifestyle. Have a quiet and meek spirit. Let him see your loving heart and good works. And watch and see what the Lord will do in your marriage!

“For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him.”(2Ch 16:9)