Uh oh, I said that dirty little word, “submission”. In our culture today we, as a society, have really come to hate that word especially when it comes to relationships. *SIDE NOTE* When I use the word relationship I am only talking about marriage. Until you are married you are not in this submission role, unless to your parents.
We as women want to be respected, honored, taken seriously, and treated as equal; as we should! But I feel that we lose our role in a marriage because of what society is telling us. Women can do it all ourselves. We are just as strong as men. We are just as smart as them (totally agree with that!). We think just the same as them (do not agree with that). We are just like them in every way (with one small difference). Thanks to modern technology we can get along just fine without them. This is where we go all wrong. When we, as women, think that we can get along just fine without men, we are setting ourselves up for failure. God created men and women different, both physically and emotionally, for a purpose. We need them just as much as they need us. Today, we baggier men, degrade them, feminize them, and make their role feel so unimportant. There are commercials that make men look clumsy, lazy, carefree, irresponsible, and so on. What would happen if women were shown this way? Feminists would be having protests in the streets.
When we dilute the man’s role in the relationship, we lose the balance that works. Just like in chemistry when I had to even out the chemical compound formulas to make something stable (or cohesive), so too is a marriage. God has given us the formula for a balanced relationship, we just have to learn to abide by it. God relates the role of man and woman, to the role of Jesus and the Church. There is also a comparison to Jesus and God’s roles as well. It goes God, Jesus, then the Church. Jesus and God are equal in their relationship, just as man and woman, but God is head over Jesus for there to be structure and authority (again, another word society has turned negative). We as women have to remember that man is over us, and ultimately our home. We have to respect and honor that role. When we do this, we not only honor our husbands, but we honor God as well. Now, we are not to be led blindly down a path not set by God’s hand. As a wife, if we see our husband not leading his God created role, we are to tactfully speak up.
Why is it so important that we fall into these roles of submission? All through the New Testament we see Jesus submitting his will to God’s will. Jesus did this because he knew he was placed under God’s authority. He is God’s son, and they are one (John 10:30), but there can never be two heads. Jesus could go to God any time, he knew that he was equal with God and His will would be listened to. But ultimately the finally decision was given by God and Jesus had to let his will go and follow God’s. We see that ultimate submission to God’s will when Jesus asked God to “take this cup from me: yet not my will, but yours be done” in the garden (Luke 22:42). Obviously, God knew what had to be done (so did Jesus), and gave his own son up. Jesus submitted himself to the will of his father, and laid down his own life for the church. We should always reflect on that when it comes to submitting ourselves to one another in our relationship.
Ephesians 5:21-33 is titled “Instructions for Christian Households” It gives us the blueprints on how we are to run our marriage so that we can have a balanced marriage, life, and family. It tells both the roles of the wife and the husband. I am to submit to my husband out of reverence for Christ. I submit to my husband as I do to the Lord, in EVERYTHING. When I do this, it makes me holy, cleanses me, makes me radiant (without stain or wrinkle), and blameless. By just submitting myself to my husband, he sees me in this way. Not only does that show respect for him and God, but it also helps him to respect me as well. It shows great love to my husband. Now Ephesians continues on with the mans role, but I just wanted to focus on women.
So what do I take away from this “blog”? Well I wrote it mainly as a reminder to myself of the role I play in our marriage. I need to work harder at this. By no means is my marriage rainbows and butterflies. There are times when I don’t want to listen to my husband (stubbornness), or think what he says/wants is wrong (selfishness, not trusting), or just do not show him the respect that he deserves (rudeness). When I do this I am not gaining anything personally or helping our marriage grow. I need to remember the order in which God created and established man and woman, I need to show more love and respect to my husband. I need to let my husband be just that, a husband. He is someone who is extremely smart, witty, funny, a leader, caring, and loving. Yes at times he is rash, stubborn, aggressive, too assertive, and immature (who isn’t), but that is why God gave him to me. I help to smooth our his rough edges, just as he does mine. We are only here to help each other become better, and ultimately we are here to get each other and our kids to heaven.
So lets embrace our roles has wives. Let’s remember there are only 3 people in a marriage: you, your husband, and God. No more, no less. Let’s be strong, be smart, be playful, sexy, flirty, wise, be honest, and be so much more for our husbands. Lets always remind him why he picked us out of all the others! Make him feel like the man he is, and let him BE the man that he is. Now, go give him a big fat kiss 😉
*DISCLAIMER* I am obviously no relationship expert, or our marriage by any means (we are always working on it though). This topic was just on my mind while I was up at 4:30 a.m. waiting on James to get home so that he could fix our broken air conditioning unit. It’s so sexy when he does Mr. Fix-it stuff!!
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