I suggested yesterday that husbands have a tendency to make one of two errors. One error is to be overbearing and the other is to be underbearing. This time I want to address the error that is most near and dear to my heart -- the underbearing husband.
Many men tend toward the overbearing. They tend to the command and control side. There is another segment of male who is equally well known. There are unflattering terms for this side, but the concept isn't as bad as people tend to think. These men are "peacekeepers". They want to avoid conflict. They want to keep everyone happy. Don't push and you won't get pushed back.
Ah! See? There, now it starts to come to the surface. This kind of guy is just trying to get along. "I love my wife. I don't want to cause conflicts with her." It sounds so nice. "I just want to make my wife happy." That's it. See? So loving. "Besides, as long as I don't make her angry, she won't take it out on me." Ah, there it is! The truth. Too often the guy that holds up the "peacekeeper" sign is more likely the "self-protection" guy. That, my friends, is not loving your wife.
It can be a lot easier to be the "go along to get along" type. But "easier" is not always "better". And, in the end, this kind of "underbearing" husband is likely worse than the overbearing one. You see, he presents an air of "caring", an image of "loving". He isn't that unkind, self-centered type. No, he's much more considerate. He treats his wife with respect. That's good, right?
Husbands have a God-given role. They are to be "head of household". As such, they are given the authority and responsibility for the family. Husbands have clear commands to love their wives. They are mandated to "sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word" (Eph 5:26). They are commanded to nourish and cherish her (Eph 5:29). They are to understand their wives and grant them honor as joint heirs (1 Peter 3:7). They are to provide for their wives (I Tim 5:8). (So harsh is this command that Paul says, "If anyone does not provide for his family, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.") They determine the training and discipline of their children. There is a lot there. One thing you will find nowhere is "Husbands are to protect themselves from being threatened or hurt by their wives." Hmm, that's odd.
We who tend to be more easy-going think we are doing a good thing ... for ourselves and for our wives. We are doing no such thing. It isn't love or respect. It isn't sanctification. It isn't nourishing. It isn't understanding or honoring. It is certainly not providing for her needs. No, it is self-deception. I'm not talking here about those husbands who give up personal preferences in favor of what their wives might want. I'm talking about those who compromise principle. I'm not talking about the husband who takes into account his wife's input on a particular topic. I'm talking about the one who will not violate her input. She determines if or where they go to church. She determines who their friends will or won't be. She determines what he does for work and where they live. She may have demanded those rights or he may have simply given them. I'm talking about the husband who "goes along to get along" without regard to clear biblical principles, the commands of God, or the responsibility that God has laid on the husband.
Husbands like this are, simply put, lying to themselves. They see themselves as superior to those brutish overbearing types, all the while shortchanging their own wives with their lack of obedience to God's command to be husbands. God set up a structure for families. Christ is the head. Husbands are to follow His lead. Husbands are set as head of the wife. They have responsibility to love her, to provide for her, to sanctify her with the Word. They are to protect, nourish, cherish, and understand her. Husbands have a clear and definite role to play, and avoiding it doesn't eliminate it. In the absence of their operation in that role, the void will be filled by something other than what God intended.
It leaves no room for bullies, but neither does it leave room for doormats. Husbands who wish to follow Christ -- who call themselves "Christian" -- need to avoid both extremes. If your tendency is to dominate, learn to understand and honor, nourish and cherish. If your tendency is to avoid the role of leader that God has commanded, step into that role or suffer the consequences of your failure. Trust me, enduring her disappointment or anger is much easier than facing God. And we already know that one answer won't work: "It's that woman you gave me, Lord."
3 comments:
Well, this is perhaps difficult for me to relate. I suppose as a woman we think we would love a guy like in Error Part 2.
However, I confess, that is often through my husband's stronger personality tendencies that I find God refining ME! It is through those abrasive encounters that I come face to face with my own weaknesses or sins.
Not at the moment of conflict, but shortly thereafter. At the moment of conflict I am either busy defending SELF or working my peacekeeping skills for SELF.
However, as time has went on...God has shown me I am supposed to be more peaceful with my husband, not to preserve SELF, but so that my husband can see God's love through me. My purposes for what I do and say are supposed to be for God's glory, not just for the sake that I like a peaceful home.
I am learning to start praying IMMEDIATELY when conflict begins and to seek to serve Christ in it and every now and then the Lord is so precious to show me the fruit from it.
I guess it comes back to our heart motives. Is it all about me or Jesus? Is it about serving my husband's needs in Christ or is it about me?
We know the right answer, just living it requires sacrifice.
Great insights once again!
There is, in fact, a greater danger in this second version of husbands. The first one is understandably problematic. Most of us can see it's a problem. So most of us can address it. In the case of this second type, though, they appear so ... nice. What could be wrong with it? It all seems so easy to do. What's the problem?
This type of husband ends up leaving his wife out in the rain, so to speak. He removes his protective umbrella, denies his God-given responsibility, and lets his wife flounder on her own. She tends to step up to the plate, so to speak, assuming roles and responsibilities God never intended. And because it all seems so "nice", no one is the wiser that we've just created a twisted family structure in sheer violation of God's command and design.
When it comes to movies, we all know that pornography is bad. We often miss that popular love stories are pornographic. When it comes to music, most of us recoil at that evil "heavy metal" (or whatever). We generally miss that "easy listening" encourages more sin than "heavy metal". When it comes to husbands, one type is an obvious problem. We can easily miss that the other is just as bad.
Not sure I agree with your 'two errors' thing, but that is neither here nor there.
On my blog I asked something which seems to fall into your 'underbearing' list:
Whats with husbands and fathers nowadays?
A relative of mine was just served divorce papers, or whatever it is. That day his father in law met with him at a resteraunt and broke the news to him that he would ‘have to move out’.
Now, whats with this? First of all divorce is a horrible, anti-Biblical thing. One that the church and each Christian should resist at all costs.
But what I want to know is, whats with this ‘you have to move out’ thing? How is it that the wife can come to the husband and just say, ‘move out’… and these sheep do it? Am I missing some law? Is there a US law (not that I would obey it, but does it exist) that says if a wife comes to a husband and tells him to ‘move out’ he needs to find another place to live?
Can anybody help me here? Given similar cirucumstances I would have had a rather serious discussion with my father in law about proper Biblical jurisdictions, and gone home.
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