Have you ever noticed that where fear is, lies are not far behind?
Think about it and think about your marriage.
- When you FEAR that your husband will make a bad decision and steer you and your family in the wrong direction, you simultaneously believe THE LIE that says, “God couldn’t possibly be in control when you submit to a decision of your husband’s that might in fact be wrong.”
- Those times when you FEAR that if you give into any/all of your husband’s decisions you wont matter or have any worth, you simultaneously believe THE LIE that to loose your life (outwardly by not getting your way) is to loose everything. On the contrary, God’s word says that if you desire to be great, you must a servant to all (Matthew 20:26).
It was love on the first ride
I love mowing the lawn. I mean, absolutely LOVE it!
When my husband changed his job and we moved to support his 60-hours-or-so work-week, I took it upon myself to take over the job completely. There are just not enough hours on a Saturday for him to rest, do the other things needing done around the house that I cannot do PLUS mow the yard.
I can’t pinpoint what I love so much about it. There are so many reasons!
- It is a job that I can complete start-to-finish. “Me time” when I get to be alone with my thoughts is a very precious commodity in this season of my life.
- I get to take in the sweet senses all around me and feel the rush of pride in all my husband and I have accomplished in buying our new home.
- It is a very simple job, one that doesn’t require much on my part. Follow a straight line, then do it over and over again. (This is by far my favorite reason for loving it so much!)
- I do my BEST thinking while mowing the lawn.
Do you want to know what the one hard thing about mowing the lawn for me was? The ditch. It scared the daylights out of me, which was why it took me so long to even attempt to try it. I thought I would tip our mower and possibly end my life while doing it.
When I tried it, fear vanished
I was scared—that is—until I tried it! Granted, I don’t do it the way my husband does which is horizontally. That still is terrifying to me. Oh no, I go straight up..turn around..and go straight back down. It gives me a rush and it has now become my most favorite part of mowing our yard.
My fear of obeying my husband was like this one thing!
I do my best thinking while mowing actually and is yet another thing I love.
I got to thinking about this journey of submission and obedience to my husband (as unto God) that I’ve been on for some time now while mowing not too long ago. My fear of obeying and submitting to my husband was a lot like my fear of mowing the ditch.
Just like I feared mowing the ditch, there was a time when I used to fear submission and obedience to my husband. But now it has turned into one of my most favorite parts of marriage.
It is those moments that I am gifted the opportunity to offer God my sweetest sacrifices of praise and do it over and over again in a practical way.
Now, don’t go thinking that I am perfect by any means. I am still very full of the wrong kind of piss and vinegar and get myself in trouble with God pretty much everyday. But there is an abundance of grace and I am still learning—always will be.
But I am here today to tell you that the little F word that you might be struggling with as a wife—Fear. It has another name. The other name that it goes by is Liar, and Fear lies to you over and over again.
Now that you know that, let me tell you what Fear says when she lies to you!
Fear makes you think that you cannot do something you’ve never done before
When I first started mowing, it didn’t even dawn on me that I might be capable of mowing the ditch. All I saw was heights on a large piece of machinery.
I never mowed any ditch before, and just figured I would have to leave it for my husband to do. Truthfully, I was inexperienced on our type of lawn mower and didn’t think I had any business risking what might happen if I tried it.
Fear’s LOVE RELATIONSHIP WITH AUTHORITY
You see, Fear likes to assume authority over you and put you in your place.
“You’re a woman. How dare you assume men’s work and think you’ll succeed,” Is what Fear said to me?
“Yes, but I’m my husband’s helper…” I eventually replied back to Fear. “My husband has entrusted this job to me and has no time to tinker with mowing the ditch.”
I knew I needed to buck up and get a backbone when it came to that ditch. But Dearest Wife, have you begun putting this ditch-concept together in your own life in the context of your marriage?
Fear says, “You cannot submit to your husband. You cannot give him an inch or he will take a mile.” If that’s not enough to scare you away from the thought, she’ll continue, “If you don’t fight your husband on this issue, he will steer you and your family right into the gutter. Your family needs you to ride him and so that you can make the good choices that he refuses to make.”
Beloved, Fear is lying to you!
You want to know how I know? Because God has not given you a spirit of fear (2 Timothy 1:7), and that means that the fear that is lying to you is coming from the father of lies. The father of lies—the devil— can only do that which he is because there is no truth in him (John 8:44)
On the contrary, let me remind you of what your Heavenly Father says! He says that you can do all things through Christ who gives you strength (Philippians 4:13). He reminds you by His word that you are more than a conqueror (Romans 8:37), that He will strengthen and help you and will uphold you with His righteous right hand (Isaiah 41:10). If God is for you, who can be against you (Romans 8:31)?
Fear tells you that you don’t need to take responsibility
Ok, so maybe mowing the lawn is not the best analogy here and it’s because my husband really would mow the ditch if I absolutely refused to. My husband didn’t swoop in though to my rescue when I first told him about my fears. Instead he reassured me that he believed I could do it if I tried. I needed to master my fear of being controlled by it.
Mowing the ditch is a part of the job. Was I going to do the entire job or insist stubbornly that I couldn’t?
When Fear comes to you as a wife, she likes to make you think that there are no consequences if you do things your way as apposed to God’s way
Let me explain. For every action there is a consequence, and for there to be a consequence that means someone is responsible for the action that was made. Hence the responsibility I am speaking of.
You see, Fear came to me when I first started mowing our yard with a list of reasons why I couldn’t manage the ditch on my own. Of those reasons, one was that the real responsibility and maintenance of the yard was that of my husband. Now is that really true? My husband and I are married and equally own our property, so I am just as much responsible for its management as my husband. Nowhere does it say that I cannot and should not mow the yard, including the ditch.
My love of mowing set aside…
As a wife I am called to help my husband. The Bible doesn’t specify how I am to help my husband. I have come to find that our role as a wife is a fluid one and we are to look to see where we are needed (and if it’s unclear, ask.) For me in this very basic example, it is mowing. My husband needed my help mowing the yard, but because of fear of mowing the ditch, I believed briefly the lie that said, “It’s not really your job.”
The task is actually quite irrelevant actually. It IS my responsibility, as my husband’s wife, to help where I AM NEEDED. If you look closely, responsibility is actually related to ownership. Responsibility acknowledges my accountability to any given thing.
As wives who have bucked God’s perfect system and have reaped a harvest of fighting in our marriages, we can actually think that we are not responsible for the job that God has required of us
We are given the purpose of helper in Genesis and then turn around and deny any ownership of the mess (consequences) we have made BECAUSE of our poor decisions. The fighting that can ensue in marriage is directly linked to our responsibility/lack of accountability to the purpose we have been given.
Fear tells you that you cannot try again when you fail
Fear likes to lie to you and make you believe that you cannot learn to discourage you from trying anything new. Think about it— what does a student of any subject do when first starting out? They make mistakes, right? And when you try and perhaps fail (and undoubtedly will on this venture), Fear labels you Failure when you don’t get it right away. Fear is eager to try and create a poor sport out of you to discourage you from trying again.
Stop and listen to me if this is you as a wife who is afraid of trying and is discouraged to try again!
Fear is lying to you!
So I was afraid of mowing the ditch, right? There was a voice in my head that said even before I tried, “You might mess up.”
So what if I messed up?
The truth is that I could try again and again until I got it! Nowhere was it written in any mowing-the-lawn-holy-grail, that I could not keep trying until I mastered that ditch. The same with these perhaps-new to you concepts of obeying and submitting to your husband as unto the Lord. Nowhere in any book does it say that you cannot try and try again when you mess up. This is new and we are students of our Heavenly Father. We will mess up but we can try and try again.
Fear reminds you that you no one else is doing it, so you shouldn’t either
If you haven’t noticed, you and I live in a culture where these truths, are NOT mainstream. God’s kingdom and these truths of obedience and submission to our husbands cannot be understood by unbelievers. They are actually unable to understand these things as 2 Corinthians 4:4 states that the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
Our culture screams at us everyday to fight for our rights. Never EVER to submit to anyone, it claims. Especially to our husbands, and to live by our own conscience (better known as, what seems right or wrong.)
Remember Proverbs 14:12 that says, There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.
God’s kingdom is not of this world nor His ways our ways when we realize that what we think is right can in fact be WRONG, and vise versa.
When Fear comes it reminds you of the obvious: No one else is doing it, why should you? This is the thing though. A marriage can exist without God’s truths outlined in His word and they do everyday. Will they be healthy, life-giving marriages? Will they last? Certainly not and not as long as God intended. A marriage without Christ and these truths might not necessarily end in divorce at the end of it as two people can co-exist in two bedrooms in the same house for years and years for various reasons, but the health and life that God intended can certainly be absent.
Fear tells you that you’re going to get hurt and will never recover
This is a huge lie that Fear brings to the forefront of your mind and actually it is part true. When you are learning and doing something new, you may actually take a few tumbles in the beginning that may cause a little pain, but the thing is you will make less and less the more you practice any given thing.
The same is true here. For many of us, myself included, these concepts of submission and obedience to our husbands as unto the Lord are new and don’t feel natural as they often require a dying of our selfish ambitions. You are going to take a few tumbles, I will be the first to say it, but how Fear lies to you is when she makes it sound like that is the end of the matter. The truth is, yes your pride and sinful nature will feel pain, but you are going to grow and you wont stay in the same place because God is involved.
He promises in His word that He will never leave you nor forsake you (Hebrews 13:5) and that He works everything together for good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28.) This transformation isn’t promised to not be a painful one, but God promises that He will use it and believe me it is true.
Your husband and your children are going to be affected by the decisions you make today for Christ.
In conclusion
As humans, man or woman, it is only natural to feel nervous or a bit fearful when we do something that we haven’t done before. As women and wives who are the very heart of our homes, there is so much more at stake when we let fear grip us out of following what God has asked of us. That is the thing—God asks these things of us, He will not force His ways on us. It is our choice and one we need to make daily and then over and over again. Will we believe the lies that Fear brings when she comes knocking on the door of our heart? Will we be controlled by it? The future is at stake.
Say, “No” to Fear today, and, “Yes” to everything your Heavenly Father has for you!