My Noble Effort

I heard a woman talk about how her past has shaped her present Monday night. Much of the past was unpleasant, difficult and kept her from expereincing all that God had for her. She has found victory over her past through her relationship with Jesus Christ, but she still struggles sometimes over the hurt and pain of those past experiences. After she spoke, I had some time to sit with a few other women and talk about things from our past that we struggle with today.

I have really been battling my marriage relationship with my husband. I sense the past from both of our lives creeping in to cause trouble in the present. Since I like to fix things and find solutions (sometimes forcing solution then getting frustrated when the other person doesn't want my solutions), Tyrone and I butt heads on some issues. It's not that we don't love each other or that we don't want to spend our lives together. It's just that we don't see eye to eye on how to handle everything. Our past experience and individual opinions get in the way of allowing God to have his way in our marriage.

Well as I prayed and agonized over this last week, I realized I am not accepting God's love when I try to "take control" of my marriage. I am, in fact, rejecting God's love in my noble effort to fix our relationship and make my husband into the man God wants him to be. Oops...maybe the man I want him to be. Although "husbands love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her" (Ephesians 5:25) is the instruction Tyrone is supposed to follow, my obedience to God and submission to my husband is not conditional on how good of a job I think Tyrone is doing. My job, the only thing I can control, is a few verses earlier in Ephesians 5:22-24. "Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything."

If I focus on accepting God's love and resting in Him, I can be the wife I am supposed to be. Not the worrisome and manipulative wife I become when I don't trust God. He is working in Tyrone just like he is working in me. I don't have to police their relationship as though I have something to offer that God has not already thought of. I can be the wife and helpmate my husband needs when I "speak the truth in love" (Ephesian 4:14-16) which only comes out when I am following God's lead. I confess I try to jump to the front of the line all too often.

It's amazing how much more peaceful life is when I am trusting God for my marriage relationship. Sure we still have disagreements, but the shed blood of Jesus Christ is enough. The love of my Heavenly Father and Husband is enough when my earthly husband falls short of my expectations. God's discipline will pull me back in when my expectations are not realistic and unreasonable. God's forgiveness and grace cover my poor choices and give me eternal hope.

And as Paul prayed for the Ephesians, I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen [me] with power through his Spirit in [my] inner being, so that Christ may dwell in [my] heart through faith. And I pray that [I], being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that [I] may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God(Ephesians 3:16-19).