When my husband and I got married, we had just started to understand the concept of what it meant to follow Jesus.
At that point, I was pursuing Jesus at what felt like a million miles per hour and in my perception he was moving at a much more glacial pace. Though my husband was willing to go to church, he was hesitant to join me in small groups, pray together, or dig into the word.
I was very much the spiritual leader of our home. It was stunningly apparent to both of us and if I am being honest, part of me liked it that way.
At this point in time, I was steadily pursuing my career and it poured over into every area of my life, even my relationship with Christ. I wanted to portray success in being christian more than being christ like in my most important relationship, my marriage.
It was not until my husband and I joined a small group through our church that my eyes were opened to the fact that I had my marriage completely upside down.
Our small group leaders were an older couple who oozed a wisdom that I will forever praise God for. They gracefully and thoroughly shared with us God’s vision for marriage.
After a few months of being in this small group community, my husband and I really began to notice a difference in our relationship. We started to pray out loud with one another, spiritual conversations became a regular part of our married life, and we both felt a renewed sense of joy. All of these things seemed great on the surface but, in the depths of my heart I still refused to give up leadership to him.
Deep down, I feared that he lacked the ability to lead me and satan liked to nurse that lie. Every time my invite to read the bible together was denied, it built. When the rejection came to my offer to watch a Godly movie, it was an affirmation. The worst was the dreaded refusal to skip out on attending something that I felt was not life giving, it was like another lump of dirt was heaved over my shoulder digging me deeper into the hole of doubt. Each of these event would cause me to tighten my grip on the control I had as leader of our home.
One weekend, almost exactly two years ago, my husband and I took 72 hours to focus on our marriage at a marriage retreat hosted by our church. Going into the weekend, we both felt like we had made huge strides to succeed at becoming closer to one another and to God. We felt like we were in a much better place but going into that weekend we both knew under the surface we were not being fully transparent with each other.
While away at this retreat we had a huge faith breakdown. It was the growing pains of honest hearts finally laid bare.
My husband shared the pain that it caused him as a man growing in his faith but still being denied the ability to lead our home. He expressed to me that he felt stifled in his walk by my need to control every detail of our home. I had built up a mountain of expectations that I required him to meet before I would allow myself to accept the validity of his faith and God’s command to make him leader of our home. I had created my own laws of Godliness and completely removed the true power of Christ from our home. I was not only failing him as a wife but I was failing him and our children in the building of their faith.
In hearing these words and seeing the tears of pain streaming down his face God gave me a stunning insight into the truth of this verse.
But there is one thing I want you to know: The head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.
1 Corinthians 11:3
By refuting my husband’s attempt to be obedient in Christ, I was denying him access to something God had created him for. I was trying to make his faith look exactly like mine rather than see the way that God had created us beautifully different so that our spiritual giftings may compliment each other. (Genesis 2:2)
It was not easy giving up control of our home and it did not happen over night but, it gave me a front row seat to watching the man I love flourish in his faith. It allowed me to practice and receive the humility and grace that the Lord truly intended a marriage to portray.
Those amazing afore mentioned small group leaders we had once explained to us the submission of husband and wife illustrated through what they called the dance of God the trinity. The son bows to God the Father, which invites in the Holy Spirit who encompasses the both of them. They bow and weave back in forth in this exchange that creates a flawless waltz of submission, grace, love, and perfection.
When our marriage is centered on the Lord, that invites us into that dance of the Trinity.
The man first bows leadership and reverence to humble himself under Christ. The woman then bows to the man, out of love for him and Christ. Christ then allows his leading to be done by the father, allowing his perfect will to guide the steps of the dance and gift us the Holy Spirit as the tempo of our souls.
Ladies, I know this beautiful dance is not easy to learn. It is important to note that submission in biblical terms does not condone abuse or neglect. The bible actually defines the word submit, as a verb, meaning to yield authority or be accountable for another.
This means as a husband, your man is responsible for keeping you as pure and clean as humanly possible. He is to lead you to God, in a way that would honor your position as a daughter of God the father.
This being said it is also important to note your husband is not God. He will still fail you sometimes which emphasizes why it’s important for you both to ultimately be lead by God, not just each other. This means you support him even when this happens by extending grace.
As a submissive wife, you are to allow him to lead you out of reverence in your belief that he is the one God has intended to for you.
Ladies, I pray that you and your man may keep so flawlessly in sync with the tempo that God has in every stage of your marriage. Every once in a while there may be a stumble or sometimes even a hard fall but, we have a father who picks us back up and sets us back into motion as one.
Jesus I pray for these women who are longing for their man to lead their lives. I pray that if there is any hardness in their hearts whether man or woman that you would soften that. I pray for you to do a great healing in the marriage that needs your rescue. God I pray that you would give us the steps and we would be obedient to follow. Thank you for the gift of relationship that so beautifully portrays your trinity. Thank you for your words to guide us. You are a father who provides so abundantly, remind us of that in the struggles of marriage. In Jesus’ Name, amen.
Reason 2911 