Please tell me you pronounced that title like it was said on “The Princess Bride”!? In all actuality I was wanting to stay in my horse world with horse thoughts, but I’m doing a zoom Bible study with a group of women about combatting lies we have believed with the truth found in the Word of God. This week was about???? You guessed it MAWAGE, or in case you haven’t seen “The Princess Bride”, (shame on you! LOL) marriage.

Coming from a broken home in a society where divorce is the norm I really never understood the symbolism of marriage. I understood that it was an important commitment to be taken seriously and except in cases of extreme exceptions, marriage is lifelong. I didn’t start to truly grasp the Biblical imagery of marriage until well over a decade into my marriage. Additionally, I carried and still catch myself carrying some unhealthy or incorrect thoughts, fears, and ideas about marriage. It is always when I come to the Word of God that I am able to see those imperfections and allow His Word to correct them and then act on them.

We understand the concepts of monogamy, and faithfulness that are true of a marriage, in Genesis 2:24 “husband and wife are joined together and become one flesh.” We even see the Old Testament prophets (specifically Hosea)compare God’s people to a wife cheating on her husband, God.

Often, we incorrectly think marriage means one or the other spouse loses their individuality. This was especially true in my case when well-intentioned people taught me what is required of me to be a Godly wife and explained the expectation of submissiveness citing Ephesians 5:22. Under their tutelage my life would now revolve around my husband and I would care for his every need, clean the house, wash the clothes, raise the children, make myself available to him and serve him. Under instruction like that, I was basically walking rebellion looking for a place to happen. If you look at that entire passage and unpack the rest of it and back up to Ephesians 4:15-16 as well, you understand that “as husbands are to be the head of the wife as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything,” we are really talking about leadership and so much more. Unpack that whole passage from Eph 5:22 down to verse 33 and sprinkle in Eph 4!

Ephesians 5:22-33New American Standard Bible 1995

Marriage Like Christ and the Church

²² Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. ²³ For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. ²⁴ But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, ²⁶ so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, ²⁷ that He might present to Himself the church ^[a]in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. ²⁸ So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; ²⁹ for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, ³⁰ because we are members of His body. ³¹ For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. ³² This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. ³³ Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she ^[b]respects her husband.

Understanding God’s attributes also helps us to better understand the relationship between husband and wife as we submit to the authority of God. We know that God is needless, and is not served by human hands according to Acts 17:25. We also know that according to Psalm 145:8-9 that He is gracious, merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and good to all. In the passage in Ephesians 5 above, we see evidence of the husband’s responsibility to exhibit characteristics of these attributes, and trust me, a man like that is easy to follow! The body of Christ has Christ as the head, the leader. So a wife should be inclined to follow the husband’s leadership. John Piper uses “the inclination to yield or a disposition to follow because no subjection to another human is absolute. The husband does not replace Christ as the woman’s supreme authority.” Humans, including our husbands, are sinful and we should never follow them into sin. This is certainly building the picture of a relationship between husband and wife that because I love and trust him, I want to follow him while understanding we are both in subjection to God as we together follow Him.

Interesting, now we’re getting somewhere I’m on board with going. This is painting a picture of God’s relationship with His people, the church, believers in Christ Jesus as Savior and Lord. Just as God allowed the use of the different individual writing styles of the men who penned the 66 books of the Bible as the Holy Spirit led, being in submission to God or our husband’s doesn’t mean we lose our individuality nor are we becoming their nanny as if they aren’t capable of doing anything for themselves. We are all members of one body, but all do not have the same function, yet all are needed for the body to be complete and effective. Just as members of the body are gifted with certain spiritual giftings to be used to serve and make the body of Christ stronger and more effective, I also have individual and specific traits that when paired with my husband make our partnership better, capable of more than we could each achieve separately. The hand may bring food to the mouth, and the mouth may chew, but the nutrients never get used in the body without the digestive system. All of these parts are needed to work in their individual ways collectively to accomplish a main goal. While I have had the great privilege of being able to stay home with our kids and start my own business while my hubby works outside the home, I do end up doing most of the housework, childcare, and a lot of the cooking, but make no mistake, my hubby is capable of doing all of those things too and does as do our kids. He doesn’t do them to “help me out,” he does them because he lives here too, and we together had children and we all collectively make the messes so we all collectively clean them up.

For years I compared myself to women I held on a pedestal of being the perfect submissive wives with their clean houses and washed folded, and put away laundry, their organizing gadgets, and their calm, gentle and quiet ways with everyone. I tend to be a little louder, and sometimes too opinionated, I don’t think mating socks should ever have been a thing, and I like tidy, but I also prefer our home look like we live there, and you can feel comfortable relaxing there too. I have always been what others previously called a tomboy, I prefer the outside to the inside and when I am inside, I like to bring the outside in with me, so it doesn’t feel quite so inside. I love so many of the things the boys love, hunting, fishing, muscle cars and tough trucks, baseball, shooting, and don’t mind competing with them to prove it, since birth ya’ll. All of these things together made me feel like I’d never be the perfect organized, decorative, clean freak, soft-spoken, timid, servant and prayer warrior of wife that I thought I had to be. All I can say now is, THANK GOD I’M NOT what I thought I was supposed to be. Those women are absolutely what THEIR husbands need, and they are slaying what God called them to do inside THEIR giftings for THEIR families.

My husband needed all of the things I thought were wrong about me as well as being a servant of Christ and prayer warrior! He’s needed an actual warrior at times to stand beside him and wield a sword and he’s needed me to stand in front and shield him when he’s needed to catch a breath. My kids, all believers, have been made Holy through the blood of Christ, but they are also a little hood! So sometimes I have to break out my hood side and set things straight! We’re a little hood and holy! I honestly think if I was less Jael and more Esther or Naomi like, that I wouldn’t have been capable of being up to the task of being Shaun’s help mate! The way God made me wasn’t a mistake and I’m not some rebellious jezebel, which I have actually been called, bless her heart, I know she meant well. I’m definitely a sinner who needed a Savior and I’m in definite need of staying in the Word of God and asking forgiveness when I realize I have behaved in a way that is contrary to God’s will, but I was uniquely made by Him for MY race and MY family so I have different strengths and talents than other women who need what God gifted THEM with for THEIR families and THEIR RACE.

You may be feeling some of these same things too. I’ve talked with many a woman who doesn’t understand why she was made a certain way instead of like some other lady whom she clearly admires. I can assure you; I’ve been there, and comparison is a joy thief and, in this case, a great way the enemy attacks and whoops up on us or lets us whoop up on ourselves! I can also assure you that God does not make mistakes, He is perfect the Bible says so in Matthew 5:48. As long as you are following Him and yielding to His leadership your fierceness, timidity, or insert any adjective that obviously does not contradict the word of God, meaning it is not sinful. Those qualities about you are exactly the way you are supposed to be for YOUR race as you pursue Christ and use your uniqueness to help both the body of Christ be more effective as well as your marriage while you use them in your role as wife and bondservant of Christ!

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