A Challenge In Respect

God’s will for every Christian wife is that her most important ministry be to her husband (Genesis 2:18). After a wife’s own personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, nothing else should have greater priority. Her husband should be the primary benefactor of his wife’s time and energy, not the recipient of what may be left over at the end of the day. Whether her husband is a faithful Christian manor an unbeliever, God wants every Christian woman to be a godly wife -- an excellent wife. ~ Martha Peace ~

We live in a culture that does not believe this! Husbands are portrayed as annoying, tv watching, good for nothing idiots who add little to the family as a whole. This is simply not true, and yet it's what society is screaming for us to believe.

Well, we're not buying it in this house! My husband works his tail off for our family. HE is usually the one falling into bed at night. After being gone for 14 hours and working all day, he comes home thinking of his family first. He challenges us to good conversation at dinner, leads us in family devotions, tucks the kids into bed and then asks what else he can do for me! He helps with dishes, folds laundry, changes light bulbs and listens to me vent about my day before he even thinks about relaxing. And that's just the beginning.

Is he perfect? No way! (Sorry, Honey!) I could make a laundry list of his weaknesses, but what would that help? He knows them better than I do.

In the last year or so, God has been pressing me to be a more honoring wife. To be better at appreciating and respecting my husband. Contrary to the messages we hear, the Bible's mandate for me to respect my husband is no less conditional than his command to unconditionally love me (Ephesians 5). He doesn't have to earn it and I don't have to feel it!

The more I encourage my husband by honoring him (rather than nagging him!), the more he becomes the head of household I need him to be. My motivation can't be selfish, but the end result certainly benefits me.

My friend Lois issued a year-long challenge on her blog today: "I want my husband to be my most important ministry. Not what I do in church, not my job, and (GASP) not my children. My husband is my precious gift and how I handle that gift reflects on the attitude of this household. So this will be my goal for the year. To truly put my husband in the place God intended all husbands to be...at the head of our household. "

So, I'm taking up the challenge, and encourage you to do the same. I know what I should be doing, but I can certainly do a better job of actually doing what I should I be doing!

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Ephesians 5:22-24

the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things— 4 that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed. Titus 2:3-5

Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies. The heart of her husband safely trusts her; So he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not evil All the days of her life. Proverbs 31:10-12