The Bible tells us in Luke 6:35 to give without expecting anything in return, and in Deuteronomy 15:10 we are told that when we give freely, God will bless us. There are two types of commands God gives that expresses a wife’s acceptance for her husband. Her confidence in doing so comes from her trust and obedience to the Lord. The first command in Ephesians 5 is to have reverence for her husband, and the second is to be submissive to him.
A woman who does not fully accept her husband, or trust in the Lord, would find obeying these commands virtually impossible. She fails at doing her part because she thinks she knows something about her husband that God doesn’t. She allows her feelings to mislead her, instead of obeying the truth. She lacks the faith to trust that God knew what He was doing when he commanded her to submit to her husband. She also fails to trust that God cares about her more than she herself does and knows what’s best for both her and her husband. A woman of no faith may be disgusted with the mere thought of honoring and submitting to her husband. I know this to be true because when I first learned of these commands for wives, the thought of doing them was completely repulsive to me. I had to learn to first trust in God’s plans and accept my husband just as he was, with all his strengths and weaknesses, and avoid having the motive of trying to change him.
The Greek word for reverence means “to be afraid of” or to fear, to be in awe of or to respect someone deeply. This means that a wife is to respect her husband. She honors him, notices him, admires him, and prefers him above all others. She defers to him, regards him, adapts to him, praises him, is in unity with him, and loves him exceedingly. God makes a wife’s role to respect her husband very clear, but some women think they can only be this kind of wife if their husband loves them like only Jesus Christ can. Many may mistakenly expect their husband to always be ready to forgive, totally attentive and understanding, unendingly patient, tender, loving, and unfailing in every area. Expecting a husband to fill a wife’s never-ending demands and serve her hand and foot is a set up for failure, and a means to an end to major disappointment.
You must be realistic and not look only to your own interests, or demand that you have your own way. In humility consider others above yourself (Philippians 2:3). Your attitude should be the same as Christ Jesus, who being the very nature of God did not consider equality with God (Philippians 2:5-6). This is an example we should follow.
Being a wife does not give a woman the equal right or the ranking of her husband’s leadership and authority, no matter what his weaknesses are. Stop emasculating your husband and lay aside what you think he should be in order to fulfill his role. Let go of your expectations of him to change before you do your part. God has already decided the kind of wife you were called to be, and that is to be respectful and honorable your husband. He does not have to fill out a resume and apply for the job. He has already been hired, even if his qualities are not perfect, he still qualifies for the job. It is not your job to judge if his abilities live up to God’s standards. Stand back and allow your husband some breathing room to grow in the Lord without you telling him how to do so.
I have tried to help mentor many women who are way too focused on expecting their husbands to change for their benefit. This selfish attitude almost always backfires on them. They have spent years damaging their husband’s ego in their attempt to try to change them by emasculating, belittling, and nagging them to the point that their husband rebels and stops loving them. A wife like this can get so wrapped up in the negative aspects of her husband that she can no longer see any good qualities in him. It becomes nearly impossible for her to respect her husband, and easy to forget about submitting to him. These women focus on only negative things, instead of looking for the positive qualities that most every husband possesses. The glass is always half full in their eyes, and they become discontented in their marriages. It becomes difficult to be grateful for anything concerning their husbands.
No Sign of Respect
I can already see the problems that lie ahead when I ask a woman to name a few things that she admires about her husband, and the conversation falls silent. She has no idea how to answer me because she has spent so long thinking about how she deserved so much more from him. He has failed to live up to her expectations, and entitlement has become her first name. When a woman sits around thinking about all that her husband has failed to do for her in a day, she will only have the attitude that he owes her big time. There is no room for appreciation with a self-righteous attitude like this. I am sure these husbands can list a whole slew of things that their own wives have failed to do for them too, but most husbands are only concerned about trying to make their wives happy. Men are easy to please when their wives are simply willing to show some signs of respect for them.
I can just hear some of you reading this now thinking to yourselves, “Well I would be easy to please too if he would just show me some sign of respect”, but you see that is exactly the problem! Did you just hear yourself say the word “Me”? Why are you so busy looking at what you think you deserve from him all the time? “Give me, give me, give me, what about me”, is all I hear in that kind of statement from a woman. Why are you so busy expecting your husband to do things for you, instead of only being concerned with doing your own part and serving him like Jesus said to do? God says to be content with what you have. He has said that He will never leave you or forsake you in Hebrews 13:5. Stop comparing yourselves to your husbands. Marriage is not a competition, nor is it about having an equal share in everything. Your constant “what-about-me” attitude isn’t going to change him and is probably going to make both of you miserable. Sometimes, both can put their full effort into the marriage, but at other times, one will have to give so much more than the other. Trust God when He says that our joy and blessings are in the giving, not the getting (Acts 20:35).
Once you stop expecting your husband to be someone he is not, you will both find so much peace and freedom to be yourselves with one another. Quit expecting an orange to be an apple. Trying to revamp your husband will only exhaust you and frustrate him. We all have differences that we need to learn to accept, including our habits. Do you spend most of your time with your husband nagging him about what to do or thinking about what he hasn’t done for you? Maybe you have been thinking about his quirky habits so much that you’ve piled up in your mind a mountain of things he does that only annoys you. It will take effort on your behalf to get over that type of negative mindset.
It is sad, but I know many wives who would be hard pressed to list their husband’s good qualities. However, they would have no trouble when I asked them to make a list of her husband’s bad habits. Chances are they would rattle off every single one of them in record timing. When they are confronted with this disparity, a common response that women have is to say to me is something like, “I know that I am partially at fault too for not doing certain things for him, but…” What do you mean “but”? Do you value your marriage enough to quit making excuses for yourself or not? I am hopeful that some of you who are reading this do value your marriage more than keeping a record of all your husband’s faults and the things you think you deserve.