I am blessing God for another opportunity to share His word, and I am so grateful and humbled to be a vessel in the hands of God. And I am so positive that today’s blog post will bless many lives to the glory and praise of the living God.
In today’s post I am trusting God to help put clarity on a topic that has raised a lot of objection from married women, and that is “As a God fearing wife, is it compulsory that I submit my hard earned income to my husband?” Also included in the discussion is always the “I don’t have” attitude that wives put up when their husbands request for financial assistance from them. So I want us to objectively look into this issue based solely on the truth of the Bible and not on what should be or as related to the attitude of the husbands.
Ephesians 5:23-24
For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church his body, of which he is the Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also the wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
This is the passage that answers the big question that we wives always don’t want answered including my very self as I write this piece to you. Yes we all might not have big issues submitting ourselves to our husbands in all other areas of our marital lives, but when it comes to our hard earned income, you bet I won’t just let go that easily. In reality, every woman would need frequent consultations with God and several making up of mind to be a second place controller of the money they worked hard to get.
The important issue in this matter is that it’s not how I feel or how you feel about the subject that matters now, but it is the instruction of God on your life that should be first priority. When you make obeying God’s word a priority over your emotions, you will surely receive a reward from the Almighty God whom you have chosen to obey above your emotions.
So God expects that you should submit to your husband in the manner in which the church submits to God. So if you are not reluctant to put your money in God’s hands, then you should not be reluctant in submitting everything to your husband, even your hard earned income. Because in doing this you are obeying the instruction of God in your life and trusting God to make right every wrong that tramples on your obedience.
Yes, some men are of the habit of holding back their own resources when they know their wives are financially capable to making things happen in the home. And the thought of the wife would be "why is he asking me to spend my money when he has the money to spend and it’s his responsibility to take care of things." Well you are correct in your thought but I will say that obedience is better than sacrifice, if the Lord has asked you to submit in everything, then I will say you should submit in everything and trust God to handle the rest.
When Peter was addressing the men on marriage issues in 1 Peter 3:7, he instructed the men to love and treat their wives with respect so that nothing will hinder their prayers, and Paul said in 1 Timothy 5:8 that a man who does not provide for his family, especially his immediate family (which includes wife and children) has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. So if your husband is not wise enough to place you and your children in his spending priority list he is smiling at the wrath of God. The Bible says he stands the risk of his prayers not been answered by God and he is worse than an unbeliever.
So it is important that as wives we don’t take laws into our own hands and fight our battles ourselves. If God says submit in everything, then, you should submit in everything. He who has asked you to submit to your husband in everything has also instructed that your husband must provide for you and your children and that he must love and treat you with respect or he stands the risk of his prayers being turned down. So it’s important that as a wife you obey your own side of the instruction and leave your husband to obey his. Remember it is the Lord who has instructed you to do so, that has also taught your hands to make wealth. The wealth you are holding back comes from God who is asking you to let go. He will only give you the permission to let go because He know He can double and triple that which you are letting go of.
What a lot of men don’t understand is that the secret to continuous increase is when you continually empty yourself for God to refill. When a man empties himself in accordance to the will of God, he will surely be refilled by God before whom he has emptied himself. I have noticed that men who take the time to make the needs of their wives and children a priority in their spending do not always go deadly broke. When such a man is saying he’s broke, he definitely still has a bit of a reserve fund laying somewhere. Men who take care of their families always prosper. This is a secret I am sharing with the men who read this blog.
In closing I want to share my own experience on this issue. In my early days of marriage, I was earning way more than my husband; I was more or less the breadwinner of my family. At that time I learnt to submit to my husband even my income. My husband had control over me and everything about me, even my money. In truth I didn’t agree with a lot of his spending activities but submitted anyway and prayed.
After a time, I lost my job and started off managing the home with was left of my accrued salary backlog and since nothing additional was coming in, soon what was left finished. I didn’t know and could not understand what my husband was using his own pay package for and it hurt very bad then, but I tried my best and I prayed.
Soon my husband got a new job and with it a better salary. To cut the long story short, he now earns over ten times what I was earning then and he is now fully taking care of the financial needs of the family. Looking back I realized that if I had not been obedient to the word of God and submitted to my husband even with my income, now that he is the one bringing in the money, he might visit on me the same cruel deeds if that was the attitude I put forward when I was the one bringing in the money and he would be justified doing so.
This experience is humbling for me, because a lot of my prayers with regards to money has been answered through my husband. So as a wife, I would say again in everything the word of God says submit. Holding back one aspect of you from being submitted makes your submission partial submission, but what God is asking of you is total submission and be sure that God who has asked you to submit will reward your act of obedience. May the Lord bless our homes.
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