By Berni Dymet
The apostle Paul, writing to the church at Ephesus, laid down some very good guidelines for husbands and wives. To the men he said, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it" (Ephesians 5:25). To the women he said, "Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord" (Ephesians 5:22). That kind of relationship brings about a lack of tension in marriage.
The husband should be willing to sacrifice himself for
the wife's good. If he loves her enough that he is willing to give himself for
her, even as Jesus did for the church, then the wife will be willing to submit
to his leadership. She will know that he is always looking out for her good and
always willing to put her interests ahead of his.
By the same token, a wife has the ability to make her
husband the head of the household by urging him to take his proper role in the home. She should encourage him to seek God, to find out what God
is telling the family to do. She can build her husband up and, by being willing
to submit, give him a sense of responsibility so that he will assume his proper
role.
The one who always insists on "rights" will
destroy the marriage relationship. If the husband says to the wife, "You
must obey me because the Bible says so," he is going to alienate her. At
the same time, the wife who refuses to submit to the husband and fights him all
the time will make him apprehensive about following the Lord. He will start
thinking, What if I get a message from God? All I am going to get is opposition
from my wife, so I might as well just follow my own desires and let her follow
hers. Such attitudes will pull couples apart, whereas God's standards should
draw them together.
It is important to remember that husbands and wives are
partners. Someone has rightly pointed out that woman was taken from the side of
man, not from his head or foot. She is not to dominate her husband, nor is she
to be supine and let him walk over her as if she were a doormat. A husband and
wife are to be partners in life and are to share a living relationship that
acknowledges that the man is the head of the family as long as he is submitted
to Christ.
In the United States almost 50% of all marriages end in
divorce. It may be likely because many marriages including marriages
between Christian people are a 50/50 approach is yielding a 50/50
result. In marriage a 50/50
arrangement looks something like this: Well, he’s watched the football on
TV all afternoon so tomorrow I get to go shoe shopping. Or – She’s just
spent money having lunch with her friend so I’m going to get that new cell
phone. Or He should have cared that I was feeling down, it’s not fair
that he didn’t notice, he owes me.
Those responses are based on the 50/50 principle. If
the other one gets something, then I have to get something too – that’s only
fair. It’s about trade offs all the time. But underneath there’s this deep
destructive thing called the 50/50 mentality. Her 50 becomes conditional on his
50, his 50 becomes conditional on her 50. This is a relationship based on
conditional trade offs. It’s a relationship based, let’s be blunt about it, on
what I get out of it. 50/50 is about saying, I’m entitled to my cut
of this relationship, I’m entitled to my 50.
How different would your marriage be if you accepted your
husband or your wife for who they are? How different would your marriage
be, if your main goal was to make your wife or husband happy, and if their main
goal was to make you happy?
How different would your marriage be if your soul-goal
was to make sure that your soul-mate got 80, 90 – even 100 – no matter how well
they ‘performed’ and no matter how little you feel that you’re getting?
Do you know what that’s called? It’s called love.
Unconditional love. Precisely the sort of love that you promised your life long
soul-mate on the day you married them.
Likely on the day you married you heard exactly what you
promised to do.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or
boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not
irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the
truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all
things. Love never ends. (1 Cor. 13:4-7)
(reprinted from ChristianityWorks
(reprinted from ChristianityWorks
