MARRIAGE ARTICLES
RELATIONSHIP PRINCIPLES |
| I am still confused about headship in the home. I know Christ is my spiritual head, but I have been under the impression that the husband must answer to God for the spiritual condition of his family. Doesn't that put him in a position of directing the spiritual climate of the home as he is directed through Christ? |
Be led by the Holy Spirit.
No! The Holy Spirit will direct the spiritual climate of your home, through whoever is yielded to and obedient to Him. However, the spiritual climate will be affected by the spiritual life (or lack thereof) of those in the home.
flowing through willing and yielded hearts
directs the spiritual climate of the home.
| You say that he does not need to be a spiritual leader in the home, but doesn't that undermine the unity of husband and wife before the children? |
Be unified in your everyday life.
The unity the husband and wife have in their everyday affairs is what children see as they are growing up. Do mom and dad speak kindly to each other? Do they work out problems together? Do they listen to each other? Do they hug and kiss each other? Do they like to be together? Do they like to be with us children? Children will not be undermined when the marital relationship is lived with unity in the everydayness of life.
However, if mom is always depressed and angry because dad isn’t leading devotions or not providing vision to the family or not being a “spiritual” leader, mom is undermining unity because she is trying to fit dad into an image instead of validating dad right where he is.
Think of Timothy in the Bible, whose mother and grandmother were praised for how they raised him. One yielded heart is all that the Lord needs to pour forth His love, and it doesn’t need to be the father’s heart necessarily. If both mom and dad have yielded hearts, praise the Lord! But there only needs to be one for the Lord to do His work. We moms need not fear!
| But my husband doesn’t care about the things of the Lord. |
Be genuine. Let your husband be genuine.
for whatever reason,
coercing him to take on an outward responsibility
when the inward heart is not yielded
will create a hypocrisy
that children will instinctively recognize.
Genuinely dwell in the reality of your circumstances and relationships. Don’t put on something that is not real, and don’t expect your husband to either. As long as he isn’t abusive to your children or you, let him be who is he right now and validate him where you can.
Be patient and discerning as you wait on the Lord.
The Lord will draw a husband to Himself, just as He will draw the wife. We wives need not force that “growth” (we can’t anyway) by expecting our husbands to become something they are not.
| Personal example. In 2007 my husband and I watched a movie while our children were visiting their grandmother (it was the first time in 16 years that we were alone in our house together!). In this movie, the husband would go to the woods and sit on a log and sing hymns out loud—no organ, no pastor, no choir director, no worship team—just the husband, alone, in the woods with God. My husband started to cry (yes, cry!) as he watched that, and he shared with me that he enjoys worshiping like that too. I never knew that until we watched that movie. |
When we learn to love our husbands like God loves us, we can be prepared for the unexpected... and that unexpected thing will always be more than we can ever ask or imagine because when God works in a heart, the real, genuine, Life-giving fruit is sweeter than any picture we can paint in our mind's eye. Praise Him!
| If my husband sins against me or the children, I thought I was supposed to be quiet before him. Are you saying that, as wives, when our husbands sin against us, it's ok to go to them and tell them so, not just bite our tongues and take it? If so, how can this actually be done in love so as not to make their anger worse? |
Be a helpmeet, not a hindrance.
We wives help our husbands as we meet them where they are. Helping them to be accountable relationally often involves intense fellowship. If they become angry, that is something they will need to take before the Lord. If their hearts are bumped through this intense communication and anger pours out, then the root of their heart condition is being revealed to them. We women “cover” our husbands in an unhealthy way when we tip-toe around their sinful behaviors.
If the fellowship between us becomes intense, then let it be intense. We need not stand by idly and allow our husbands' dominant soul life to ruin relationships within our homes. We don't have to nag them about meeting our (or someone else's image) of what they should do, but we have a responsibility as their helpmeets to speak to them, when the Lord directs, about who they are and are becoming.
outpouring of who we ARE becoming.
When we validate our husbands, just as when we validate anyone, we need to look at who they are becoming rather than what they are doing. And if they are becoming more Godly in their response to relationships and circumstances, we can validate their inner growth rather than focusing what they are doing or not doing to fit an image we may have. The one-anothering article addresses this principle more fully.
affects relationships.
But when our husbands are not growing and who they currently are negatively affects relationships in the home, we must exhort as led by the Lord. Exhorting is a part of our covenant with them as helpmeet (Genesis 21:12). There are times, however, when we should be silent as we wait on the Lord to work in our husbands’ heart. This process of knowing when to speak and when to be silent helps us women to learn to hear the voice of the Lord and also helps us to examine our own hearts and reject the images we have accepted.
Summary: Become Godly and allow your husband the freedom to become Godly as well.
When we try to persuade our husbands to change what they do or don’t do, we hinder their growth and we undermine unity in our relationship. Metaphorically, we are trying to shape a tree to our image, instead of allowing the Lord to prune in our husbands’ lives.
But when we validate where they are growing and address when they are sinning, we get to the heart of who they are and who they are becoming which helps them grow. Metaphorically, we are being used by the Lord as a helpmeet to fertilize the root of the growth or address the underlying reason for lack of growth. As always, these intense relational times must be carried in the Spirit of love.
Once we cast out the “spiritual performance” images of doing things in a prescribed way and, instead, learn to let the love of God in us overflow to our husbands, our husbands will be much more receptive to receive from us because they will know that our hearts are with them.
so they can pour Your love out to their husbands
with wisdom.
lest any of you be hardened
through the deceitfulness of sin.
~Hebrews 3:13
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