When I think of training I know that means not doing what comes naturally. When I think of doing what comes naturally I think of five year olds playing soccer. Although the coach has tried to explain to them the different positions and rolls needed to play soccer the children still buzz around the field as a mass, wherever the ball goes the mass follows.
As wives if we try to love our husbands by what comes naturally we are about as affective as those five year old soccer players. But if we are trained and learn to play within our role, then the marriage flourishes.
God says, “my command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than to lay down his life for his friends.” John 15: 12-13
That doesn’t sound very much like Hollywood love or romance novel love. When you hear ”love your husband” is the first thought you have to lay down your life for him? That is why it says the older women must TRAIN the younger women. The kind of love the Lord wants us to show is not what comes naturally, but what comes out of response to God’s love for me.
To love our husband we must lay our life down for him. To lay our life down is serving them. “Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Matthew 20:28.
Again we need to understand what this service looks like. If we just serve our husband out of our own strength, it becomes laden with expectations. We start to get bitter, start to want something back. Our thoughts become a burden, “Why can’t he just say ‘thank you’”, “All I do is give, when will he do something for me?”, “I’m tired; can’t he see I need help?”
But, if we serve our husband as an offering to the Lord in response to what God has done for us, it becomes laden with thankfulness. Thanks for the privilege of being a wife to this man.
So, we are to love our husband by laying down our life to serve them. The walls of our home provide our greatest realm of influence. Titus 3:14 “Our (wives) people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good, in order that they may provide for daily necessities and not live unproductive lives.”
Providing daily necessities is a big part of being a wife. This verse is practical: do good, provide and be productive.
Now loving our husband and loving our children look much different.
As the Bible says, we are our husband’s helper (Gen 2: 18) and we are our children’s teacher (Proverbs 6: 20)
Our role as a wife is to help our husband be all he can be. Loving him is being his number one fan. Our role as mom is to teach, train, guide and instruct, too often us wives mix up these roles and we want to teach our husbands and help our children. Take a minute and think about this……have the roles gotten switched for you?
If it is truly about “us” then “I” want to help my husband by serving him.