GPS to a Joyful Marriage

Okay, back to submission (you may have hoped I’d avoid it). No wonder ‘submit’ is a four-letter word to women in our society. There is no set rule for families anymore. We don’t know how to behave or what we’re supposed to do. With all the divorce, there aren’t many solid role models for marriage in our lives. Sadly, as with most other aspects of our society, we’ve turned away from God and have tried to do everything by our SELVES. I believe the idea of submission only comes naturally in Godly relationships. If you’re not following God, you’re following SELF (with encouragement from the devil of course.) Submission and SELF cannot co-exist. Submission is giving up SELF as we are called to do in our relationship with God and our relationship with our spouse. Submissive wives may still be found in secular marriages. They are usually influenced by the relationship of their parents or their own personality. It would be a much more difficult path to follow without God. A Christian wif

The roles God set for men and women when he passed judgment on Adam and Eve are engraved in our souls; they’re biblical. I believe most women, (there may be some exceptions), desire to stay at home with the children and take care of the house and husband. Most men love coming home to the comforts of a wife who’s been anticipating his return, regardless of the chaos she faces in taking care of children all day. We have been so brainwashed to think differently about these roles, and I’m sure many of you scoffed at my thoughts about them. Think about if for a while, especially if you have children in your house. Is a career really more important than time with your little ones? Is the extra income a necessity or there for pleasure? If you are honest with yourself and listen to your heart, you may find yourself in agreement with me. Another area of confusion in our roles comes in taking care of the house. With the vast amount of women working, men need to pull their weight at home.

Since the influence of Women’s Lib, the roles of men and women have changed greatly in our culture. I agree that women should be paid equal wages to men. We are capable of doing the same work, unless it involves heavy physical labor that may inhibit some women. My question is, do all women want to be out their working and establishing this supposedly "amazing" career that we’ve been conditioned to pursue? I went to high school and college in the 70’s, a time when women’s lib was powerfully voicing their ideas. We were programmed to believe we should have a career. Staying at home with children as a housewife was a degrading, worthless job (in their opinions). When I had my own children, I struggled greatly whether to work or not while they were young. My heart desperately wanted to stay home with them, but my mind, and society, told me I should go to work. I worked part-time in the evenings for a few years while Rick stayed home with the kids. I would not recommend th

We know Eve falls to the temptation of the serpent (i.e. the devil) and eats the forbidden fruit, dragging Adam down with her. God has to apply disciplinary action and passes judgment on Adam and Eve after cursing the serpent. Women have Eve to blame for childbirth pain (and probably PMS) according to verse 16 of Genesis 3. Verse 17 of the same chapter says, “ Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” You see, God passed this ruling on Eve, and women still struggle with it today. This is where God “individualized” man and woman and gave them their assignments on Earth. Prior to eating the fruit, everything was fabulous in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve walked side by side, pretty much doing whatever they wanted, together. They didn’t have to think about what to wear, (they were naked…) what to eat, or who would do the dishes and take out the garbage. There was nothing for them to worry about or fight about. After the fall, Adam and Eve were assigned

What about women? What does God’s word tell them about how to treat their husbands? The only time it is suggested for the woman to love her husband is in Titus. This passage talks about older women being an example to the younger women in order to train them to love their husbands and children, hardly a call for wives to ‘love their husband’. Women are not told anywhere else in the Bible to ‘love’ their husbands. So what are wives supposed to do, according to the Bible? Eph.5:33 says, “Each one of you, (husbands) also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” The number one emotional need of men is to feel respected. Love is secondary to them as long as they know their wife respects them. Women are called to respect their husbands. Even more than respect, in Ephesians 5, Colossians 3, and I Peter 3, wives are called to submit to their husbands. Respect and submission go hand in hand. According to my Word dictionary, respect means, “a

Ephesians 5:25-30 says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church.” These are very powerful verses that strongly suggest the utmost devotion to one’s wife. Nothing (but God Himself) should be held in higher esteem than a wife. These verses compare a husband-wife relationship to that of Christ and the church. Jesus gave Himself up for the church, in death, that we could be blameless. Giving one’s life for another is the ultimate sacrifice, the ultimate love, as Jesus showed us. This expresses God’s amazing love for us, and Ephesia

The best explanation of love in the Bible is in I Corinthians 13, also known as the Love Chapter. It starts out saying “if you have not love, you are nothing, you have nothing.” It then goes on to explain what love is. I Corinthians 13:4-8 “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” If we would keep these guidelines for love in our marriage relationships, we would not have divorce. If we practice these principles, we will always feel that romantic, “can’t live without you” love we experience in the beginning. Most of us lived up to these standards while we were dating our spouse. I Corinthians 13 is a prerequisite to true love and needs to be continually carried out in our marriages. We are exhorted t

We are not accurately taught about true love in our society. Our parents supply our main source of learning about it. Many of us come from broken and dysfunctional homes, and so our perception of love is very distorted. We learn from our friends, who share equally painful understandings of love. Most of us have experienced heartbreak while dating, causing pain and cynicism toward love. Movies, magazines, and books only talk about the initial “head-over-heels” stage, leaving us clueless as to what lies beyond.The world in which we live tends to show this ‘early love’ as the only kind of love. Movies are always romantic and exciting, usually expressing this beginning stage of love. They tell us when that love disappears, it’s time to move on to another relationship, or maybe have an affair to fuel that fire again. Many of America’s worldly idols, Hollywood stars, live their lives this way. These Hollywood ideas about love greatly influence the minds of most people. No wonder we

In our society today, the word ‘love’ is highly overused and abused. We don’t take it seriously. “Oh I just LOVE pizza! I LOVE Elvis! I LOVE the way that dress looks on you!” I’m sure you get the idea. Love is a word we too eagerly express when influenced by our emotional mood. It is thrown around casually in many relationships and then easily discarded if the emotional mood doesn’t “feel” right. We start out with every intention of loving our spouse, forever. Why do we struggle with the “forever” part? I believe God initially supplies the attraction, the giddiness, and overwhelming feelings of love in the beginning, to bring couples together. This kind of love is a shallow, physical love that motivates us to want to go deeper and learn everything about each other. It causes us to want to spend every moment together, to marry, and to share the rest of our lives. Marriage cannot thrive on this kind of love alone. Because this is such an exciting aspect of the love relationship t