just like wives need love, husbands need respect. God created men with a need to have respect from their mate. husbands desire respect while women desire love. men need to know that they are adequate, that they are enough and that they are worthy of our respect. how often do we truly show our husbands the respect they desire?
God’s design for marriage is laid out in Ephesians 5. i recently read it explained this way... God’s highest purpose in marriage is to showcase the intimate relationship between Christ and His people. we are acting out a living parable where husbands represent Christ and wives represent the church to bring glory to God and to help our children and others around us grasp what God is like in a more concrete way. does that change the way you look at marriage? it sure did with me. God intended marriage to mirror His relationship with the church so that we could basically be a testimony to others and SHOW them what God is like.
Each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Ephesians 5:33
i've read this verse over and over again. it doesn't say respect your husband only when you feel he deserves it, it doesn't say he has to GIVE respect to GET respect and it's certainly not up to us to deem when he is worthy of it. God was pretty clear with this verse, the wife MUST respect her husband.
so, i know this girl who has a hot, quick temper and a big, fat mouth and she can cut to the bone with words. and
i'm she is pretty good at pointing out her husbands faults and failures. and can pick up on disrespect lickity-split when it's coming from someone else but can't see when she is being totally disrespectful to her husband. if it takes you a while to catch on like
me her, sometimes it makes it a little easier when you can read a list. so i've composed a little list of things men see as disrespectful.
- nagging
- not spending time with him
- speaking badly about him infront of others and belittling him
- yelling at him
- undermining his authority
- withholding sex and using it to manipulate a situation
- cutting him off mid-sentence
- shifting blame to him
- body language - sighing, frowning while you talk and eye rolling
- criticizing him
- not giving him the attention he craves
- putting yourself first rather than him and your family
- not having confidence in his decision making
every man has his own definition of disrespect and what actions show him that. there are some things that basically every man would find disrespectful and some things that are just specific to your husband. what matters the absolute most is what your husband finds disrespectful. ask your husband what actions these are and make a mental note of them, or write them down in your journal. ask him what actions really speak respect to him also. you'll know which actions to phase out and which ones to increase. pay attention to all his answers.
as wives, we have so much power to destroy our husbands or to build them up. we need to learn to be respectful wives who value our husbands’ leadership. we need to honor Christ with every word and action! i would bet if we showed them more respect they would show us more love. when a wife respects her husband it deepens her love for him. so really, it's a win win situation for everyone :) lots of respect and lots of love, sounds pretty amazing to me. our men need our encouragement, respect and love.
out for now
~kisses
Labels: marriage
