Nancy Wilson's Blog, page 16

But what if he is a toad?

When ever the topic of submission comes up, the standard objection is “But where do you draw the line?” This is a good question which we ought to consider.

We live in an egalitarian society, where any kind of hierarchy is considered to be bad. But our Maker has established a chain of authority and submission for His people, and we ought to give His instructions our attention. God’s Word is for His people. I do not expect an unbeliever to understand or apply God’s standards that He has given for own His people to follow. These are house rules that are ours, and we do not impose them on our neighbors. But we also tend to run to the hard cases (read Rachel’s post The Human Shield) to create an argument against the easy cases. Were there no abused women in Ephesus when Paul wrote his words about submission to them? Of course there probably were, and wise pastors would watch out for them. But . . . were there no quarrelsome wives in Ephesus either? Paul was addressing the latter, and we still need to hear this today.

Submission is a holy thing. Why do I say this? Because Jesus submitted to the Father. Submission is seen and lived out for us in the very Godhead. “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:5-11).

Submission is emphatically not women to men. It is wives to husbands, and, as I said in the last post, it is up to wives to be submissive, it is not up to their husbands to enforce it. But what if a husband becomes a little tyrant? What if he is not a believer? What if he is abusive to the kids or to the wife? What if he is an all out toad of a husband?

First, if you married such a man, you might need to start with repentance. You freely made an unwise choice. It is actually helpful to acknowledge this to God before you move forward. Abigail did this when she told David her husband was a fool. You don’t have to pretend your husband is wise and loving if he is not. Abigail intervened when her husband was being dangerously foolish, and the Scripture commends her for this. We ought to follow her example if we are in a similar situation. For many years, as we have taught on submission, we have also held up Abigail as an exemplar.

Second, you are a free woman in Christ. You are not a second-class citizen like a Muslim woman in an Islamic culture. Christianity is radically opposed to such things. Men and women are co-heirs and equal in their standing before God. Children are equal to their parents in the same way; employers are equal to their employees; students are equal to their teachers. But we still expect obedience and submission in such relationships (though we may not call it that).  But this does not mean you have to do anything your boss or teacher or parent tells you to do. I will point again to Abigail.

If a husband is misusing his authority as a husband and father, he can be held accountable. He is not an absolute authority any more than a teacher or an employer is. If an employer asks the employee to lie or cheat, it’s time to pull the plug and move on. If a teacher requires something immoral of her student, the student should refuse. If a church oversteps its authority (arranging marriages, demanding financial gifts), then it’s time to leave. If a husband is pushing the limits in a similar way, a wife should not submit to him. His authority is limited. God’s authority outranks his by a long shot. If you cannot submit to your husband “in the Lord” than you may not submit to him, period. God’s Word guides us, not a fallible man or institution.

So what does this mean? Here are a few examples. If a husband leaves the Protestant faith to join an apostate church, a wife should not follow him. She should stand firm on this and absolutely refuse. If her husband is asking her to do ungodly things (like pose for nude pictures that he can put on his phone), then she should utterly refuse. If he hits her or threatens to hit her (or anything else that might fall into the violent category), she should not hesitate to call the police. If he is being a jerk at home, she should call her pastor for help.

Now some wives may think that calling for help or calling the cops or just telling her husband no is disrespecting her husband. I think it is the reverse. She is holding him accountable. She is affirming that she is under God’s authority, and she obeys Him first. She will not lay aside her primary loyalty to God to obey any secondary authority. If she simply puts up with such ungodly behavior, she is disrespecting herself, her husband, and everyone else who is directly involved. It certainly takes courage and faith to draw the line and tell your husband, “No.”  Women often want to protect their husbands from the consequences of their (disobedient) behavior. But that is not what they need. Why do so many battered wives (or girlfriends) in our country stay on for more bad behavior? No one is making them stay, and yet they would rather take it than leave. This is terrible, and we ought to help any women we know out of such a situation.

So now that I’ve addressed some of these things, I’m sure you can think of more. I will say it again: a husband’s authority over a wife is not absolute. But it does not follow from this that he has none at all.

 

A Marriage Refresher

One of the temptations after twenty or thirty years of marriage is to start letting things coast. But rather than slacking off on our duties, we ought to be hitting our stride and getting really good at this. “Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies” (Prov. 31:10). A godly wife isn’t just a real find when she’s twenty years old….she’s still worth a fortune when she’s in her sixties or seventies or eighties.

“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” (vs. 11-12). All the days, not just the first couple of years. How ever many days the good Lord gives, a wife is preoccupied with doing her husband good.

“Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised” (vs. 30). It’s tempting for older women to chase after beauty via hours at the spa or the gym, expensive cosmetics and treatments, diets and exercise, bleaches and tans. There is a whole industry or two devoted to this. And older women may have more money to spend than they did when the kids were little, and they may have more time on their hands. But this is a race we can’t win (or buy). Beauty fades. And at some point, you’ve just got to let it go gray. When you hit eighty and you still have jet black hair, you’re not fooling anyone, and it starts to look just plain weird. A woman who fears the Lord is (obviously) God-centered. She’s able to see the beauty pass without mourning its loss because she has bigger things to do and she always has had bigger things to do.

What are some of these bigger things? Sticking with our basic marital duties. The first duty is submission. I found a lovely, simple definition of this the other day: the grateful acceptance of your husband’s care and leadership.* It is common for wives to complain that their husbands are not leading and for husbands to complain that their wives are not respecting. This is because wives want to show their husbands how to lead. “Just give me the wheel and I’ll show you how to do it and where to go.” And when this happens, husbands often quit trying to lead. It’s just not worth having a showdown. And so the cycle goes.

Wives are the ones given the command to submit; it is not the husband’s responsibility to see to it that his wife submits. This is our job. We are to see that we do this ourselves. Wives are to submit to their own husbands, not to men in general, not to other husbands. Just the one that you said yes to. That one. The one who put a ring on your finger.

Here’s an example of steering. Your husband decides to buy an apple tree, and he heads out to dig a hole. Are you there at his elbow coaching him? Are you suggesting a different way or a different spot or a different shovel or a different time or a different idea all together? But, you may argue, I know more about apple trees and shovels. Ah. I think we have gotten to the center of the trouble. But if we are God-centered and not me-centered, we will know this is foolishness. No wonder a husband might think twice before buying an apple tree. It’s just not worth it to him to undergo the badgering.

So wives can chase their husbands away from leading all the while wishing he would lead. And if you’ve been repeating this procedure for twenty years or more, no wonder you are feeling like things aren’t that great. “We just don’t communicate,” you may say. Well it’s not too late to freshen things up.

This temptation may be greater for older women because their children are gone, they have less to keep them occupied, and so they can busy themselves with trying to steer or manage their husbands. You know the old saying, “As busy as a hen with one chick.” But what a disaster if the one chick is actually the rooster!

When we allow our husbands to lead us, we are actually obeying God. Consider this quote from a Bible commentator: “Wives do not submit to show how godly they are, nor to avoid conflict, nor to impress neighbors, nor to manipulate their husbands, and not even because she thinks he is wise. She submits because of her relationship with and trust in God.”*

Submission is not really about your husband at all. It’s about you. It’s what you promised to do at the altar all those years back. And God has laid out His design for marriage. If we want our marriages to prosper, we have to follow His directions.

Now some wives may not want to go first. You may be thinking that you would back off if he would step it up. And he may be thinking that he would step it up if you would back off. But you can’t take responsibility for your husband’s disobedience; you are only responsible for your own.

Does your husband safely trust you? Are you bringing him good? Start with your own duties and let God sort out your husband’s duties. Be done with old patterns of misbehavior. Be done with fussing over him and grabbing the steering wheel. Rather, enjoy the ride. He will be surprised with the new freedom, and you will be surprised at your own peace.

*Quoted by T.R.Schreiner in his commentary 1,2 Peter, Jude (Vol. 37). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

Fit to Burst (with reviews and giveaways)

Thanks to Marci Ferrell over at Thankful Homemaker for another review and give-away! Pop on over and enter to win!

Canon Press Fall Book Sale

Canon Press is having a big jolly  sale….so stock up!

Learning our Lines

I’ve heard older women say that they wish they could be of help to the younger women, but that the younger women don’t seem interested. And I’ve heard younger women say that they wish there was an older women who could come along side and help out, but they don’t know how to connect with any older women because they all seem so busy.

Yes, Titus 2 says that the older women are to teach the young women. But we older women often jump to verse 4 (“that they may teach the young women…”) by leap-frogging over the three verses which precede it.

If we back up and look at verses 1-3, we will see that we actually have a few marching orders of our own before we move on to instructing the younger women. I think it might be helpful if we think of these things as prerequisites. We can’t just skip over our own qualifications and look around for a young woman who looks like she needs some teaching.

First, we are to be reverent “as becometh holiness” (vs. 3) The older women are to be, in a word, holy. That will steady us up a bit, but it shouldn’t stall us out all together. Holy means separated from the world or set apart. We are “saints” or “holy ones” if we are in Christ. It does not mean that we are totally sanctified or that we have achieved moral perfection. But it does mean that we live in a way that is consistent with our profession as Christians.

So we aren’t going to barge into a young woman’s life, uninvited, and start offering our own opinions or ideas about how she should dress or how she should bring up her children or how she should do anything else. (This is called, “How to make all the young women run when they see us.”)

Second, in the same verse Paul tells Titus that he should teach the older women not to be “false accusers” or “slanderers.” What! Us? Why would older women be singled out for such a thing? Well, obviously, God thought we needed a pointed reminder. Older women can be very opinionated (have you noticed?) about many things. Along with strong opinions can come unguarded words, criticisms, conclusions, or outright slander. I can just see that older woman now (can’t you?) saying, “I just speak my mind.”

Next we have the warning to older women not to be “given to much wine.” Again, we might wonder why we are singled out for this. Wine? Really? Yes, really. Like slander, this requires self-control, self-discipline, and wisdom. Older women may not have anyone who will tell them to pipe down or enough with the wine, so we must monitor ourselves. Rather a little less than we want than a little more than we should. What could be worse than a tipsy grandma? (Not much!)  We certainly should not need a designated driver to get home.

And I’m just going to add for good measure here: we older women shouldn’t joke about drinking too much wine either. If God doesn’t think it’s funny, neither should we.

Older men are instructed (in verse 2) to be sober, reverent, and temperate. Then in verse 3, Paul says “the older women likewise…” So we can deduce from this that the older women are to be sober, reverent, and temperate too. This means that as we get older, we must stay on track. We can’t lurch into over-indulgence in any area, but be steadfast, wise, and self-governed. After all, we’ve been at this now for some time, so we should be getting good at it.

Matthew Henry says this: “Aged persons are apt to be peevish, fretful, and passionate; and therefore need to be on their guard against such infirmities and temptations…” We know this stereotype all too well…and we don’t want to be that person.

If we want to be the kind of older women who are a blessing to the young women, then we must absolutely rein ourselves in where needed. Then, and only then, can we start praying for opportunities to teach and help the younger women. We have to learn our lines! And we’d better hurry up about it, because we aren’t getting any younger, and if we wait too long, they will have become the older women themselves,  and they’ll be doing our job for us.

 

 

More on “Fit to Burst”!

A couple more reviews, plus a give away for you all if you are interested….

Here Natalie Klejwa gives a very generous and sweet review of Fit to Burst (Thanks Natalie!). You can follow that up with another review and giveaway (ends this Friday), at The Legacy of Home. Thanks ladies!

Gel-Pen Faith

Not too long ago a young woman was over at my house for some reason that I cannot remember. Now on a typical day  at my house you would find dishes in the sink, junk on the floor, a baby unloading a drawer, laundry on the stairs, and about 410 things on my to-do list. Children are always coloring, wielding scissors, and gluing things on the window when I’m not looking. Hopefully, you would also find me running around in the midst of it, because long experience has taught me that giving up on it won’t get results. I don’t remember what exactly was going on when she came by, but at some point she commented that she was the sort of person who liked things to be really orderly. It wasn’t a criticism and it wasn’t offensive, although it did make me laugh. Because, lo. Me too.

The thing is, when I look over my past I feel that God has written it on the wall here, there, and everywhere that He doesn’t care about that. That part of my personality that used to seem like a positive attribute  is something that God didn’t treasure. He has asked me to put that on the altar. When push comes to shove and it is either the house or the kids, God choses the kids, and He tells me to. When it is the laundry all done or the kids all loved, it had better be the kids. When it is mom as an uptight dictator about the shoe placement or the mom who is laughing at the huge spill in the kitchen, I know which one God wants me to be.  He wants me to be  joyful, hard-working, full of gratitude, laughter, and above all He wants me to have spit-spot closets. Wait. Does He? All but that last bit.

Of course God is honored when I am combining joy with closet organizing. Laughter with clean floors. Gratitude with getting all the dishes done. But you know what? If something has got to go around our house, it better not be my attitude. Because that is the one thing that God actually told me to keep track of.

As I look back at my life I can see that almost every time that there was something that I felt good at, or capable of, or confident in, God would give me a wonderful opportunity to lay it down. There is a way of looking at it that says, “God just keeps not letting me be happy! He just makes the conditions perfect for me to be miserable! He knew that I need a certain amount of alone time every day and He keeps not giving it to me!”

But this is the way that I see it. Those things that I consider part of my personality – loving to decorate, loving to cook, wanting things to be beautiful and organized and perfectly crafty and satisfying. I believe in these things. But I believe in them as things that I can use to honor my Creator. Back in the days when I wasn’t being challenged, these things came naturally, and I believed in them because I could cobble together reasons that they were good. But they primarily came from my own strength. I could be that way without really any pushback. So God brought the push back. He made it take more than the capacity I think I have to do these things. He said to me, “I know you like it, and you think you believe it. Now I’d like to see you do it without yourself.” God isn’t interested in my strength. He is interested in my obedience in weakness. Do you hear that? God said enough with my hobbies and my preferences. Lets see about her obedience and her faith.

When we believe something, we can sign our cute little names on the dotted line. Children are a blessing? Check! You should be full of joy? Check! You should honor your husband and love your children? Check! Enjoy all the days of your life? Check! Watch me go with my cute little gel pen in my journal!

So then God gives us those children. And now we believe something that He has told us, but we are not dancing around ready to sign our names on it anymore. Why not? Well because we feel like fussing about the laundry. Because it is messing us up to believe this, because now our faith about this is not abstract. So we feel broken. Like the things that we believe aren’t coordinating with our emotions anymore. Like we can’t find ourselves. Like the old us with the journal and the gel pen had a much better grasp of motherhood than this weird lady we have suddenly become.  Why so much brokenness? Doesn’t God love us?

God has brought me through this time and again. It is like He holds up my little statement of faith from my youth and says, “cute.” But He doesn’t want me to sign my name on it.  He wants me to put myself on the altar. Enough with this chit chat. God wants to see action. Take that belief, and live it. Not when you have all the emotional strength to do that, but when you don’t.

Do it when it must be all His strength. Do it because you believe, not because you feel. Do it in faith.

This has been happening to me long enough now that I can see His hand in it. I can see the tremendous mercy that it was for me (the wedding coordinator for other people) to be the sick bride. I remember standing at the window in my parent’s room looking out at all our wedding guests arriving. I didn’t want my dress on because it would make me throw up again. And as I saw them all coming, I could also see that God was giving me a chance to walk in joy down that aisle. I knew I believed that the wedding was just about the vows, and about honoring them for the rest of my life. That all the rest was just superficial. God didn’t want me walking down the aisle in superficial joy. He didn’t want me to be buoyed up by the fun, and the dress, and the flowers. He wanted me to take His joy and walk with it. And if that was all I had, it would be enough.

This is a pattern. I felt capable of being a mother, back before I was. God gave me more to handle than I could possibly handle on my own strength. I felt capable of keeping house. I’m sorry. I don’t know if I can stop laughing about that. Anything that I felt capable of doing,  God will both make it seem impossible and simultaneously ask me to do it. And there I am – in the sweetest place you can ever be – relying on Him. Walking in faith. Living in joy.

This broken feeling is only broken if it stays there. If it stops in self-pity. If it wallows in grief about the lost emotions of our journaling days. But this is richer. When we seek His joy instead of our own, when we lay our best on His altar, and we have nothing left for ourselves, that is when we are truly accomplishing His purpose in our lives.

We are not broken. We are being healed. We are not alone. We are in His hands. We are not overwhelmed. We have a champion. We are not stupid. We are being made wise. We are not weak. For He is not weak. We are not hopeless.  For we are His.

More Touring!

Kara Haschke’s has kindly hosted the next stop on the blog tour over at her blog Home with Purpose. Hustle on over there and check it out. Don’t forget to enter the giveway! Thanks Kara!

Fit to Burst (blog tour and give-away)

Head on over to Christina Fox’s blog for the first installment of a Fit to Burst blog tour (and give-away!) Thanks to Christina for her review, and Q&A!

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