The Marriage Series 17

Is it possible to ever stop thanking God for His faithfulness and mercies? The Bible says it’s only the living that can thank God and that I am alive and able to share the word of God today, I give all the glory to the Most High God. And I thank God specially for those of you who take the time to read these posts, may your homes and lives be transformed positively everyday as we follow the leading of God in our lives and marriages.

In today’s blog post I want to share a personal experience with the women, the godly wives that God has strategically placed in the lives of men He desires to use for His glory.

I have a lot of Christian wives complain about their husbands; pastors wives who believe that their husbands should understand them and live by their rules. These wives mean no harm at all, they love their husbands dearly but cannot comprehend why these men they love dearly don’t see things from their own point of view.

Let’s take for example, there is a need in the home; the wife sees it as an urgent need that should be attended to immediately. As far as she is concerned heaven might as well just fall if this need is not taken care of immediately, she is not going to leave it to chance, and she roams in her head of all the what ifs, and the possible damage that can happen if this issue is not given the urgency that it requires. But the husband is quite nonchalant about this need. He is not attaching the kind of urgency to it as his wife does. He feels there are other issues more pressing than the so-called urgent need in his wife's head and so these two wonderful people differ in opinion and approach over the matter.

Now the instruction of God to the wives is that we should submit to our husbands as unto the Lord. In this kind of situation where you feel a matter deserves so much attention and should be a priority on your scale of preference for attention and your husband just waves his hand and says “leave it, we’ll handle that later not now.” Is it so easy to obey such instruction against what your instinct tells you is urgent, or follow your guts feeling and do what you think is right against obeying what your husband says you should do? This issue as I have just simple put it is causing a lot of problems in homes and marriages today, causing wives to arrive at faulty conclusions about their husbands just because he does not see things the way they do.

In my own life it’s not any better I confess to that, and a lot of times I get really angry when my husband just does not see things from my own point of view. I sometimes don’t even tell him things until I have taken a decision, just because I believe his approach will most assuredly differ from mine. But the question that follows is: I am always right? Reluctantly I started abandoning those issues for him to solve and handle if he does not attach the same importance to them as I do. And I discovered that heaven never falls after all as I always assumed it would. But I can tell you for free that it’s difficult to obey one's husband in such circumstances as I have just described, but God’s rules of submission has no exception. God didn’t tell us when to submit and when not to submit, all that God instruct us to do as wives is to SUBMIT to our husbands as we would unto the Lord (Ephesians 5:22-24, Colossians 3:18 and 1 Peter 3:1-6).

To submit according to the dictionary is defined as “to give over or yield to the power or authority of another”, another says “to yield oneself to the power or authority of another.” Now what God’s instruction to the wife means in plain terms is that God wants the wife “to yield herself to the power and authority of her husband.” This instruction is irrespective of what she regards as urgent or not, and it is not subject to the fact that her husband must see issues through her eyes or agree with her opinion on all matters.

But what can a godly wife do with this kind of rule for her from God? The important thing for her to do is pray. She is not to pray that her husband should agree with her on all issues because she might not be right on all issues and her opinions might lead to disaster if implemented in some cases. But she should pray that her husband’s view should always be in line with God’s views. She needs to pray always that God will instruct her through her husband and that her husband will not take a decision outside the will of God even if he is not a born-again Christian. If the husband is saying no to a matter then it should mean for her that God is saying no to that matter owing to her prayers and request to God and she should let it rest.

When you have prayed like this and you know the God you serve as a God that answers prayers, then submitting to your husband will not be a problem at all and you will have peace in your life and peace in your marriage. You will have more respect for your husband and he will treat you like his queen that you truly are.

On a lighter note, I want to share two brief stories of how this submission issue has applied to me. A couple of weeks back my refrigerator developed problems and I got someone to come fix it. While trying to fix the fridge the technician that worked on it got it really dirty. He finished work on the fridge late on a Saturday night, so I got to work cleaning the fridge before plugging it on and filling it with stuff. My husband walked up to me and said I should stop the cleaning and go to bed as the cleaning can be done the next day. But I was quite irritated by the state of the fridge and I knew I couldn’t put foodstuff in it in that state, more so, I evaluated the chores I had to do the next day knowing that top on the list was getting my family ready for a new work week.

My husband went to bed immediately he dished out his instruction and knowing he was asleep I continued cleaning. As I was cleaning the spirit of the Lord spoke to my heart on obedience. I tried explaining to God on all that I had to do the next day and why it would be easier for me to lessen my chores by getting the fridge issue out of the way.

I was done with the cleaning and very impressed with myself. I loaded the fridge back what all that needs to go into it. I monitored the performance of the fridge and and everything appeared fine with it until after four days; the fridge developed fault again. I was mad. It was as if my efforts were in vain. I asked God to speak to me on why the fridge is still give me headache and He simply told me “Obedience.” God told me that if I find it hard to obey the simple instruction of my husband, how then can I obey Him.

This simple act of disobedience is what is plaguing many marriages with so much bitterness today. I share this with women because I have heard women speak. The heaven will not fall if it does not swing the way you want it to. God will work with your obedience and make a beauty of it.

Another story of mine in the opposite direction; I just feel compelled to share this story too that we might learn as I have.

Again a couple of days ago the bore-hole that supplies water to my house developed some fault as it was pumping up colored water. I called my husband’s attention to it and got his permission to call the plumber to come look at it. We tried treating the water and for three days we kept flushing the bore-hole system. We had spent money and time on it and there was not improvement. At the weekend when he was home, he called the guy to dug the bore-hole to come have a look at it because in the two years that we’ve been using the bore-hole we’ve not had a problem like this.

It bothered me so much because the laundry had piled up and getting water to cook was an issue. After about 7 days of work on the water system there was an improvement but not as good. The water was still not water-clear. I was agitated and I was of the opinion we get another person to come have a look at it, but my husband was done on that matter and he just said that we should leave it and with time the water will clear out by itself. Honestly that didn’t sound right to me but I struggled with it and held myself from calling another person to look at the water system. But believe me after about three days the water started clearing out by itself until it became satisfactorily clean.

These experiences that I write about are hardly any different from what a lot of wives are experiencing that is causing problems in a lot of homes. Logically the wife may sound right, a lot of people will agree that the wife is logically making sense, yet the husband sees it differently and still the wife has to obey her husband as unto the Lord. It’s hard to comprehend, but that’s just the way it is and that’s how God has made it to be. When I asked the Lord why I have to obey my husband even when his reasoning is not making sense to me and logically I appear right and he is wrong, the Lord told me that if I am having a problem obeying my husband’s instruction then how can obey His own instructions for my life when His word clearly states that His ways are not our ways and His thoughts not our thoughts. God’s approach is so very different from ours, and that our logic in it's richest form cannot match God ways.

Sincerely this has weakened me a great deal that I can’t help but share this with you. And just as I write this I am realizing all over again that God doesn't works with how plans or way of doing things even when the issue concerns us personally. When you think this is the approach with which God will fulfill His promise for you or answer a pressing prayer, He moves and touch you from an angel you least expect. The only thing that is important is not to think out a solution for God, but just obey as He directs.

Obeying your husband is just a simple act of mastering obedience. When you have learned to obey your husband’s instruction when you can’t even comprehend the rationale behind such instruction and it does not fall in line with your own thought direction, then you are practicing how to obey God even when He does not make sense to you, because in truth God does not have to make sense to you; He is God Almighty who brings forth the things that are seen from things not seen and calls the things that be not as though they were. He is God who makes impossible possible.  

There is something interesting on my mind for you in marriage series 18, so just keep your fingers crossed and stay blessed.