SPIRITUAL THAN THOU
NOVEMBER
by Lisa Maki
I became intimate with Jesus the very day I was reborn. Perhaps it was because of my severe hunger for true love. Maybe it was because of my utmost gratitude for finally finding the way. It could also be that I was seeking for more understanding of who He is. Whatever it was, our Savior surely captivated my heart and I stuck with Him like glue.
The very next day after I got saved, I was locked in my room for at least two hours, weeping as I turned the pages of my Bible. I was so overwhelmed with joy at what I was learning. The more I discovered Jesus, the deeper I fell in love with Him. That first day turned into an everyday routine of spending undivided time with God at least two hours a day. This went on and on for years, and extended to my marriage. However, it was during my marriage when this intimacy with the Lord was challenged.
Over the years of establishing a very intimate relationship with Jesus, I became very possessive of my time with Him. I didn’t want anyone interrupting me or even sharing it with me. It was my own private time with the Lover of my soul. I didn’t know that in marriage, this intimacy with God changes, not in a bad way but just in a different way. I had no clue!
So there I was, newly married, and instead of spending time in prayer with my husband, I would spend my own quiet time with God. And since he didn’t spend it the way I did, I thought he was being disobedient to God. So many times he complained to me that he felt I was isolating him. I thought he was just getting jealous and even envious of my relationship with God. There were even times when he challenged me about reading the Word too much. I cried out to God about this and thought that my own husband was persecuting me. My quiet time was threatened! And while I used to spend undivided time with Him freely, now I have to spend stolen moments with Him. All the while I thought my husband was the one at fault.
As I kept growing in my knowledge of the Word and intimacy with Jesus, I felt I was outgrowing my husband. At times I would share to him God’s revelations to me and he would just stare at me like, “what are you talking about?” And he got frustrated with me several times, which made me feel so offended and hurt. Little did I know that I was already acting “spiritual than thou” with my own husband, the man who was my leader and covering.
Wives, before I proceed, don’t think for a moment that I am telling you to stop being intimate with Jesus. What I am trying to tell you is that when you got married, your main responsibility is to fulfill your roles as a help-meet. This is now your main concern, and your time alone with God should not get in the way of this calling.
1 Corinthians 7:32-35 explains this so clearly.
I want you to be free from the concerns of this life. An unmarried man can spend his time doing the Lord’s work and thinking how to please him. But a married man has to think about his earthly responsibilities and how to please his wife. His interests are divided. In the same way, a woman who is no longer married or has never been married can be devoted to the Lord and holy in body and in spirit. But a married woman has to think about her earthly responsibilities and how to please her husband. I am saying this for your benefit, not to place restrictions on you. I want you to do whatever will help you serve the Lord best, with as few distractions as possible.
God will not take it against you if you can’t spend undivided time with Him anymore the way you used to. He will take it against you if you neglect your responsibilities to your husband and children. God will be with you every single minute of your day, without you having to spend the same luxury of time with Him as you used to when you were single. You can talk to Him while doing chores. You can pray to Him with your husband or children. You can read the Word with your husband and/or children. And if you want to do your own private study, you can do so during your free time.
It took me a while before I finally understood this. I didn’t realize that I was projecting an image to my husband that I was holier and more spiritual than him. Without me and my husband realizing this, it weakened him more than it strengthened him. Why? Because I was out of order. And when things are out of order, the man can’t exercise his full authority and therefore becomes weak.
I have seen marriages break up only because the wife was more spiritual (or so she thinks) than her husband. I have seen wives who became church leaders and pastors while their husbands remained hidden behind the scenes, most of them not even in favor of what their wives were doing but could not do anything about it. This is totally out-of-order and the reason why the husbands probably never achieved a spiritual stature higher than their wives.
Wives, it is our role to subordinate ourselves to and adapt to our husbands, even when it comes to our spirituality. Even if your husband is weaker in faith than you, you still have to subordinate to him, meaning, allow him to be higher than you. If he is unsaved, the Bible still tells you (1 Peter 3) to live godly lives so he can be won through your actions, not by your words. You are still required to submit to him. Of course it is a different story if your husband tells you that you can’t pray or read your Bible. This is the reason why I warn single women never to settle for any unsaved man or any man who is weaker in faith than them.
My husband used to complain to me that when he prays, I always want to say something too. Looking back, I now understand why he felt that way. I was trying to compete with him, which should never be the case.
Do you want to see your husband become the man that God created him to be? The key is for you to let him be ... for you to give him that room to exercise his authority in God over you ... for you to let him be your spiritual leader and covering.
Let me give you some tips on how you can do this.
1. Ask him to pray for you.
Approach him in a very gentle way. You can even sit on his lap. Tell him that you need his prayer. You can be specific about the prayer you need. The most effective is a prayer for you to be a more effective wife to him.
2. Ask him to explain a certain Scripture to you.
Do this sincerely and not just for the heck of doing it. Don’t come to him with some revelation about the Scripture or some real good explanation about it. Come to him because you really want to hear how God is going to speak through him.
3. Invite him to read the Word with you.
Be sensitive about this one. Some men don’t want to be told what to do. My husband used to resist me when I tell him to read the Word with me. Then one day he told me that we are going to read the Word together for a year. We started this January and we’ve been doing it since then, including our 16 year old son.
4. Fellowship with him but let him talk more than you.
Ask him about certain issues or about a preaching you heard or about anything that you know he will be interested in. Let him minister to you while you are fellowshipping.
5. Pray for him while serving him.
I have discovered one of the best secrets to praying for my husband, and that is ... praying for him while giving him a back rub. He loves it! And I love it because I know how pleased my husband and God are. It also allows me to pray for his whole body, head to toe, while I give him a full body massage. This also opened doors for us praying together, which we’ve been doing everyday now for the last months.
It makes me cry thinking of how I’ve unintentionally belittled my husband just by feeling “spiritual than thou”. All those times that I lost respect for him were due to my own puffed up spirituality. No wonder there were times when I felt that God Himself was hindering me from spending quiet time with Him. He wanted me to pull back. He wanted me to realize that by serving my husband and fulfilling my role as a help-meet, I am being more intimate with Him.
I am holding back my tears as I am typing this article. God is so good for revealing all these to me, which is now being revealed to you. I’ve never felt so close to God in the many little things that I do for my husband, more intimate than those undivided time I’ve spent with Him when I was single.
God has surely taken me to a higher level of intimacy ... a level of intimacy that is only achieved through utmost servitude and obedience to His perfect will. For us married women of God, our being a help-meet is God’s perfect will for us.
The very next day after I got saved, I was locked in my room for at least two hours, weeping as I turned the pages of my Bible. I was so overwhelmed with joy at what I was learning. The more I discovered Jesus, the deeper I fell in love with Him. That first day turned into an everyday routine of spending undivided time with God at least two hours a day. This went on and on for years, and extended to my marriage. However, it was during my marriage when this intimacy with the Lord was challenged.
Over the years of establishing a very intimate relationship with Jesus, I became very possessive of my time with Him. I didn’t want anyone interrupting me or even sharing it with me. It was my own private time with the Lover of my soul. I didn’t know that in marriage, this intimacy with God changes, not in a bad way but just in a different way. I had no clue!
So there I was, newly married, and instead of spending time in prayer with my husband, I would spend my own quiet time with God. And since he didn’t spend it the way I did, I thought he was being disobedient to God. So many times he complained to me that he felt I was isolating him. I thought he was just getting jealous and even envious of my relationship with God. There were even times when he challenged me about reading the Word too much. I cried out to God about this and thought that my own husband was persecuting me. My quiet time was threatened! And while I used to spend undivided time with Him freely, now I have to spend stolen moments with Him. All the while I thought my husband was the one at fault.
As I kept growing in my knowledge of the Word and intimacy with Jesus, I felt I was outgrowing my husband. At times I would share to him God’s revelations to me and he would just stare at me like, “what are you talking about?” And he got frustrated with me several times, which made me feel so offended and hurt. Little did I know that I was already acting “spiritual than thou” with my own husband, the man who was my leader and covering.
Wives, before I proceed, don’t think for a moment that I am telling you to stop being intimate with Jesus. What I am trying to tell you is that when you got married, your main responsibility is to fulfill your roles as a help-meet. This is now your main concern, and your time alone with God should not get in the way of this calling.
1 Corinthians 7:32-35 explains this so clearly.
I want you to be free from the concerns of this life. An unmarried man can spend his time doing the Lord’s work and thinking how to please him. But a married man has to think about his earthly responsibilities and how to please his wife. His interests are divided. In the same way, a woman who is no longer married or has never been married can be devoted to the Lord and holy in body and in spirit. But a married woman has to think about her earthly responsibilities and how to please her husband. I am saying this for your benefit, not to place restrictions on you. I want you to do whatever will help you serve the Lord best, with as few distractions as possible.
God will not take it against you if you can’t spend undivided time with Him anymore the way you used to. He will take it against you if you neglect your responsibilities to your husband and children. God will be with you every single minute of your day, without you having to spend the same luxury of time with Him as you used to when you were single. You can talk to Him while doing chores. You can pray to Him with your husband or children. You can read the Word with your husband and/or children. And if you want to do your own private study, you can do so during your free time.
It took me a while before I finally understood this. I didn’t realize that I was projecting an image to my husband that I was holier and more spiritual than him. Without me and my husband realizing this, it weakened him more than it strengthened him. Why? Because I was out of order. And when things are out of order, the man can’t exercise his full authority and therefore becomes weak.
I have seen marriages break up only because the wife was more spiritual (or so she thinks) than her husband. I have seen wives who became church leaders and pastors while their husbands remained hidden behind the scenes, most of them not even in favor of what their wives were doing but could not do anything about it. This is totally out-of-order and the reason why the husbands probably never achieved a spiritual stature higher than their wives.
Wives, it is our role to subordinate ourselves to and adapt to our husbands, even when it comes to our spirituality. Even if your husband is weaker in faith than you, you still have to subordinate to him, meaning, allow him to be higher than you. If he is unsaved, the Bible still tells you (1 Peter 3) to live godly lives so he can be won through your actions, not by your words. You are still required to submit to him. Of course it is a different story if your husband tells you that you can’t pray or read your Bible. This is the reason why I warn single women never to settle for any unsaved man or any man who is weaker in faith than them.
My husband used to complain to me that when he prays, I always want to say something too. Looking back, I now understand why he felt that way. I was trying to compete with him, which should never be the case.
Do you want to see your husband become the man that God created him to be? The key is for you to let him be ... for you to give him that room to exercise his authority in God over you ... for you to let him be your spiritual leader and covering.
Let me give you some tips on how you can do this.
1. Ask him to pray for you.
Approach him in a very gentle way. You can even sit on his lap. Tell him that you need his prayer. You can be specific about the prayer you need. The most effective is a prayer for you to be a more effective wife to him.
2. Ask him to explain a certain Scripture to you.
Do this sincerely and not just for the heck of doing it. Don’t come to him with some revelation about the Scripture or some real good explanation about it. Come to him because you really want to hear how God is going to speak through him.
3. Invite him to read the Word with you.
Be sensitive about this one. Some men don’t want to be told what to do. My husband used to resist me when I tell him to read the Word with me. Then one day he told me that we are going to read the Word together for a year. We started this January and we’ve been doing it since then, including our 16 year old son.
4. Fellowship with him but let him talk more than you.
Ask him about certain issues or about a preaching you heard or about anything that you know he will be interested in. Let him minister to you while you are fellowshipping.
5. Pray for him while serving him.
I have discovered one of the best secrets to praying for my husband, and that is ... praying for him while giving him a back rub. He loves it! And I love it because I know how pleased my husband and God are. It also allows me to pray for his whole body, head to toe, while I give him a full body massage. This also opened doors for us praying together, which we’ve been doing everyday now for the last months.
It makes me cry thinking of how I’ve unintentionally belittled my husband just by feeling “spiritual than thou”. All those times that I lost respect for him were due to my own puffed up spirituality. No wonder there were times when I felt that God Himself was hindering me from spending quiet time with Him. He wanted me to pull back. He wanted me to realize that by serving my husband and fulfilling my role as a help-meet, I am being more intimate with Him.
I am holding back my tears as I am typing this article. God is so good for revealing all these to me, which is now being revealed to you. I’ve never felt so close to God in the many little things that I do for my husband, more intimate than those undivided time I’ve spent with Him when I was single.
God has surely taken me to a higher level of intimacy ... a level of intimacy that is only achieved through utmost servitude and obedience to His perfect will. For us married women of God, our being a help-meet is God’s perfect will for us.