If He Leads, Will You Follow?
I remember the first time my husband and I danced, a couple of years into our married life together.
The music played, our hearts were full, our feet…not so light.
Ouch. “Sorry.”
Another step. Awkward shuffle. And pivot to avoid crushing toes…
“Oops!” I giggled, laughing more at myself than him.
Step. He went left and I went right.
That’s when Cliff stepped back and looked at me.
“Are you going to let me lead?”
That question from my husband has echoed in my mind often through various seasons of our marriage. In the last 15 years, we’ve made too many decisions together to count. Job changes. Big purchases like a house or a car. Little decisions like where to hang a picture (that took six months for us to come to agreement on but that’s a post for another time…)
I haven’t always let him lead. If I’m honest, most of the time, I liked to lead. I wanted to lead. I felt like I had to lead.
I wrote the other day about how I don’t agree with the 50/50 relationship. Someone has to lead. Now many argue that you can take turns leading, and maybe that’s absolutely fine – if you’re playing Follow the Leader with your kindergarten class.
But when it comes to your family? Your future? I think it’s easier on everyone when one person leads the dance and the other follows.
We see this demonstrated in lots of different ways.
Corporations have CEOs.
Communities have mayors.
Football teams have coaches. And even among the players, there are team captains. (Or is that basketball? I’m hit or miss when it comes to sports analogies, y’all.)
Restaurants have Executive Chefs who run the kitchen.
Schools have principals and classes have teachers.
Churches have a pastor, committees have a chair. Nonprofit ministries have a leader.
Someone must lead. For order, for vision, for consistency.
So why, if we expect and trust leadership in just about every other area of our lives – why do we struggle so as to who leads in our marriages?
Who leads the dance?
I know the arguments well because I’ve used them.
“But my husband isn’t the leader type – he’s type B – I’m type A. It’s more natural for me to lead.”
“I don’t believe in the head of household thing – you will never see me as the little wifey, fetching slippers and sweet tea for my man. Let him get it himself. Or better yet, get it for me once in a while.”
“I don’t believe in biblical submission.”
That last one was me. Because while I never said it quite out loud, my actions reflected it.
But here’s where I got tripped up.
I believe in God. I believe in His Word. I believe His Word is a LIVING Word – and what I mean by that is that the Bible is not some old book that has old dated dusted off stories in it that people mistakenly hold onto – but it is a living, breathing way God connects to His people and helps us and points us and yes, often convicts us of things we’re doing and choices we’re making that do not honor Him.
And if I believe God has input into my eternity – why in the world would I think He does not want input into my marriage?
So I go back to that section so many of us avoid like the bad part of town we never risk driving through…
22 Wives, submit[a] to your own husbands as to the Lord, 23 for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of the body. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so wives are to submit to their husbands in everything.25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing[b] her with the washing of water by the word. 27 He did this to present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless. 28 In the same way, husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hates his own flesh but provides and cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, 30 since we are members of His body.[c]
31 For this reason a man will leave
his father and mother
and be joined to his wife,
and the two will become one flesh.[d]
32 This mystery is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 To sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to respect her husband.
Take a deep breath. I know. When you read that, if you have the sound of culture in your ear than every year that women have worked to earn the right to vote, to earn the right to work, to earn the right to have equal wages and equal respect feels like it just got thrown out with the dirty diaper we suddenly feel like we’re expected to change, and that’s the only thing we’re told we can do.
Wait.
Because the fundamental difference that hangs on this word is interpretation – whose interpretation will you apply? Society’s definition? Or God’s definition? Because society has twisted this understanding in such a way that even believers who love the Lord and desire to follow Him struggle with this idea that God has said for husbands to lead their wives.
I know this to be true because I’ve heard from women who loved reading about my experience looking at biblical submission but are afraid that if they share anything from the book on their FB page, they’ll be laughed at by friends who think they’ve gone nuts. I’ve also heard from women who have shared with their friends, and have been laughed at and put down and labeled old-fashioned or crazy or worse.
I like what Candace Cameron Bure said in her interview with Huffington Post – biblical submission is not about being weak – it’s about being meek – and meekness is not a bad trait, y’all! There is strength that’s required to be kind when you don’t feel like it. There is strength that is required to show respect and love towards someone who is saying something you don’t agree with or you really wish he would just see it your way.
See, following a leader doesn’t mean you sit in a boat and just coast for the ride. You are not oarless (if that’s a word). You are just as big a part in making the boat move across the water as the one who is in charge of saying where that boat is going. And a good captain knows to listen to his first officer. A good CEO knows to listen to his COO.
So let him lead. And be willing to follow. You may be very pleasantly surprised of where you end up.
Still confused? Still not sure about this? Join me next week as we talk about 50 Ways to Follow Your Husband, and 50 Ways to Lead Your Wife (that’s right, it’s time we talk to the husbands!)
Want to know how this whole pursuit of a biblically submissive marriage got started for me? Read my story of what happened when I decided to try and be more like the Proverbs 31 wife… and how nothing turned out like I thought it would.
