To Submit or Not to Submit a quick look at Eph 5:22

I have had a few requests lately for specific Blog topics so there will be a few more blogs than usual coming in days ahead so that I keep up with the demands of my audience. Ha!

One thing that I have really been thinking about lately is the role of the wife in a marriage. I know, I've been married five years now so it's more than time I figure this out right? However, in the beginning our marriage I felt very conflicted over this. I was a very independent person before I married my husband. I lived alone, I had a college degree, a great teaching job, and paid all my bills on time. I was always told by my loving parents that I had a lot to offer and that I should speak up, and be heard because I was intelligent and had good ideas. This was a recipe for a great and very successful single life, but had me a little confused when I first faced the idea of marriage and what a Biblical marriage looks like.

During our marriage counseling I read a book that about sent me running in the opposite direction of being a submissive wife. I dreaded hearing about submitting to my husband, and to this day have wondered what that really looks like. Anytime that I've heard someone mention a wife being submissive it has always been in a situation where a husband thought one thing and the wife thought something different and the husband decided to play the "submission card." So wives don't get to have an opinion? "Is my husband always right, even when he's wrong?" "So all I'm good for is being barefoot, pregnant, cooking and cleaning?"  These are all things that I've wondered about when confronted with the issue of  submission.

Recently I've been going through Barbara Hughes book "Disciplines of a Godly Woman," and it has helped to offer me some great insight into this much debated topic. The verse that is most often quoted when we think of Biblical submission is in Ephesians 5:22 "Wives, submit to your husbands..."  I don't know about you, but anytime this has come up in my home it has gone something like this: "The Bible says that you're suppose to submit to me." "Yeah, well the Bible also says that you're suppose to love me like Christ loved the Church!" and around and around it goes and nothing is accomplished.

Let me put it like this, Submission is not situational, it is relational. Submission is not when your husband wants to do something his way and not your way and say fine I have to be submissive to you because I'm merely the wife. That is submission isolated to a particular situation. Submission should be the theme to your relationship with your husband. You should always be following his lead. You should be your husbands helpmate just as the Bible calls you to in Genesis 2:18 "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." In Barbara Hughes' book she write, "No one wants to play second fiddle. But that fact is, without a second violin there is no harmony." I love that line! In fact I love it so much I wish that I had come up with it!  I long for harmony in my home, harmony is a beautiful thing. To get that harmony someone has to play the second violin's part. It's genius, the second part is just as vital to the perfection of the sound as the first violin's part is, but it's a different part. If both were to play that first part it wouldn't sound as good. This makes complete sense to me coming from a somewhat musical background.

The main reason for my fueled interest into this topic lately has been because of what I call the "husband puppet." My husband and I recently encountered a situation in which a man aired a million complaints and suggestions mixed with tons of emotions and by the end of the conversation it had become clear that this man's wife was very upset at home and really given it to him and now he was airing all of her complaints and thoughts in a very puppeted way. When I walked away from this situation I thought to myself, " I hope that I don't make my husband look that ridiculous." My intention has never been to get my husband to do whatever I want, but I don't think that man's wife started out with that intention either, but when I saw him it was as though he were just a puppet and she was at home pulling his strings. I don't want to be my husbands puppet master, or wear the pants, or boss him around. I don't want my strong intelligent husband to look foolish because of my inability to be a biblical wife.

I have a million thoughts on this topic and could write an entire series of blogs on it if I wanted to, but I want to make one point in all of this. You can be a strong woman, and intelligent woman and a successful woman and be submissive. Aristotle said that gentleness is the mean between excessive anger and excessive angerless. Meekness/Gentleness is strength under control. If you have ever cringed or winced at the thought of submission take another look. It's not what you've always thought.