Husband’s Role

1. Are you Born From Above?

Men, the first step in having a strong and healthy marriage is to first make sure that you have been saved from your sins and that you are following Christ.

There are many things that will come up in your marriage: finances, children, decisions, etc.  You and your wife will have differences of opinion on these things, but if you have the same Lord and Savior, you will be able to rally around and look to Jesus for the answers to the tough ones.

I cannot begin to stress how important this point is.  Without Jesus as a foundation for your life together the two of you will be disagreeing about ideas, with nothing to turn to.  You may have struggles or feelings of hurt, and you will have trouble resolving them.

Your life should be evidencing fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance.  You should have a desire to know God and not find the things of God boring.  You should have a desire for your wife, children, and your friends to know God.  You should hurt for those that die without Christ.

2. Are you the spiritual leader in your home?

Are you filled with glee when you read those passages that tell wives to submit to their husband? Those verses should cause you to think soberly about the fact that God has entrusted you to care for someone the way you have been called to serve your wife. Coupled with this is the fact that God says you will be held accountable for how you lead, there is a lot at stake in the way you lead her and your family.

Don’t think that her submission is easy and don’t think that it is just to serve you.  She’s doing it to serve the Lord, to glorify him, and to show her love to you.  You, in turn, are entrusted with her being, and you need to take that trust seriously.

If you’re not leading like Jesus in your home, you need to step up to the plate and begin to lead with humility.  Being a humble man, caring about your wife as a weaker vessel (read more valuable and fragile, not less capable or cheap), leading from the bottom rather than from the top takes time and a great deal of wisdom.

Also, keep in mind that Christ’s ideas of leadership and the worlds are very different.  The world sees the leader as the one with all the perks– all the underlings and all the privileges.  Christ sees leaders as servants– seeking the best of those that follow at the leader’s own personal cost.  Remember that Christ’s leadership had him washing the disciple’s feet as an example. Are you washing your wife’s feet? List 10 ways in which you serve your wife.

Men, we’re responsible to lead our home in love.  We’re commanded to cherish our wife and to meet her needs.  We owe her a lot for her submission so we must be on the lookout for how we can demonstrate our love and direction in ways that would be pleasing to God.

3. Is she your helper or your slave?

Remember, men, she takes pride in the way she keeps the house and suffers emotionally if she cannot be the helper she wants to be.  Do you take notice and compliment the daily things that she does?  Do you encourage and take part in helping where you can?  Are you reasonably proficient in the areas of the house so that you can lend a needed hand when someone is sick, tired or otherwise?  Do you provide an outlet for your wife, so that she is not always bound to the home?

Men, we need to treasure our wife like the fine being she is.  We need to encourage her, and help her to fulfill her God-given role the best we can.  That may mean ceasing to think of her as your slave and beginning to think of her like the treasure she is.

4. Are you her protector? How do you protect her? What do you protect her from?

One of the biggest needs your family– especially your wife– will need is that of a Protector.  As more emotional beings, our wives have the need to feel protected physically and emotionally. This means, guys, that you should be providing things to make her feel protected– and guarding her privacy.  It starts with the ability to lock the bedroom door and extends to making sure you have a secure house, that you have a safe vehicle, and that she can trust your heart to be only hers.

We need to be active in showing our wives that we mean business when it comes to keeping her safe and protected.  She needs to feel safe in our arms and secure in the fact that we will protect her until our dying day.

Does your wife have this feeling of protection from you?  What ways do you think that a man can show his wife that he is protecting her?

5. How well do you know your wife?

In 500 words, describe your wife in a way that if she were to read what you’ve written, she would say, “Yes, you do know me.” To some degree, we have to know our wives. They’re probably the person that we’ve spent the most time with on a daily basis (I guess, though, most of that could be sleeping!).

But how can I really know my wife (you’re asking)?  I mean, women are from Venus, and they think differently, emotionally or whatever.  Just when I think that I understand her, she changes.  It’s like a never ending guessing game.  The interesting thing is that God, through Peter, told us that it is possible for us to live with our wives according to knowledge:

Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered (I Peter 3:7).

This verse is interesting.  It follows immediately after the praise of Sarah for calling Abraham lord and admonishing wives to be under the subjection of their husbands.  We like to emphasize that part– whether it’s because of insecurity, arrogance, or just liking that we’re finally in charge.  What we miss is the “likewise”.

Take a look at this.  We’re to dwell with our wives according to knowledge– we’re to know them.  This will take time and work– because, as I said earlier, they seem to change a lot.  We need to spend time talking with them, seeking their interests, their desires.  We need to develop good communication– and that means that sometimes we have to turn the computer off and stop blogging and talk to them.

Ok, so maybe for you it’s the television or something else that you’re doing by yourself.  If you look at your day and a majority of it is a one person entertainment extravaganza and you’re not spending time talking with your wife, you have to change!

Notice the warning at the end of this verse– if you don’t dwell with her according to knowledge, and don’t honor her as the weaker vessel and as being heirs together of the grace of life your prayers will be hindered.  Did you see that bold text?  Your prayer life– your very communication with God– depends on how you deal with your wife– how you know her, how you honor her…  it’s big stuff.

6. Do you nourish and cherish your wife?

One of the final commands to the husbands in Ephesians 5 contains two words: Nourish and cherish

For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord the church (Eph 5:29).

These two words are seldom linked to things that men are typically used to doing. Nourishing has the idea of feeding– and we tend to look at this as something that wives and mothers do. Cherishing just seems foreign to us, so what do these words mean in the context of marriage, and what are we to do?

Nourish means “feed, raise, to bring to maturity.”

Maturity comes through a variety of ways. One way is through the humbling of oneself and putting another first. By the very fact that you are your wife’s husband you have introduced someone into her life that she has to reach beyond to love and care for. Are you making this easy for her or difficult? List five ways you can change so that her life will be a joy.

Another way to bring to maturity is through instruction and experience. Things happen in our lives that we can either have plans for or we can consider a crisis. How we plan and lead our families shows our wives how to handle things in a godly fashion. Are you demonstrating a mature life to your wife?

Maturity also comes through instruction. By being faithful in the Word and sharing with our wife those things that we learn, we are able to grow her in the knowledge of the Word. Are you giving her opportunities to grow? List five ways you are encouraging your wife to grow in a way that she appreciates what you are doing.

Cherish means “to tenderly comfort.”

Cherishing is something that every woman wants and desires, and is different for every woman. Your wife wants special attention. They want to be recognized. They want to know that they are special to you. Are you reminding her of that? Give five examples of ways you recognize your wife to your kids, friends, God.

But going beyond that, do you make a special time to communicate with your wife? The problem with most men is that they have the attitude that they have a list of things to get done and taking time for talking, cuddling, etc. isn’t on their list unless it somehow leads to “the main event.”

What are you planning to do today to cherish your wife? Make a list of 10 things you are going to do to nourish and cherish your wife this week.

7. How is your thought life?

You may think that what goes on inside your head stays inside your head, but God created the world in such a way that nothing stays hidden, at least not for long. One way your thought life will pop out is that you sons will be just like you. If you have a sinful, lustful thought life, your sons will grow up thinking like you think.

You see, we live in a society and culture today that is bombarding us with sexual images.  Part of the admonition to the wives as far as intimacy is to know the reality of the way that men are wired and to help keep us from temptation.  But this is not solely the wife’s job.

Men, it is important for us– yea, imperative– that we work hard at avoiding things that could even be near the line of those things that are unacceptable for us to be allowing into our mind.  The mixture of our chemistry and our mind can mean that we store and replay things that we shouldn’t– and that our wives would have no problem forgetting.

This means that you must make a conscious effort to guard your mind and your eyes. List five ways you do and can guard your eyes.

8. Do you speak your wife’s language?

To me, there’s nothing that is more frustrating than trying to communicate with someone and not using the same terminology or where things have different meanings.  Precision in our communication is important if we are to communicate our needs, wants, and thoughts.

Since you and your wife are two different people with two different ways of looking at things, it is important, if you are going to minister her fully as a leader and a Christian brother, that you communicate carefully with her.

Taking care with precision is much more difficult than one may expect.  Men typically deal with two main groups of people: Those at work and those in the home.  This being the case, there are two sets of languages he needs to know. And he needs to keep in mind that neither group knows or understands the other’s context of life.

If we don’t pay attention to being precise, we may have the possibility of becoming agitated that our wives don’t understand all that we’ve been through, or what we are saying.  In reality this is our own fault!

There are two main reasons we need to be precise:

To promote harmony, communication, and prevent aggravation

To be able to communicate our needs to our wives as our helpers.

So, men, it’s up to us to navigate our different “worlds” and communicate to her in love.

List five ways in which this has been a problem in your marriage. Give two suggestions for ways to avoid each of these in the future.

I borrowed much of this from someone else. However, I can’t remember who nor how much. If it was you, please let me know and I’ll be sure to give you full credit.