The Dissatisfied Wife

Quite often, marriages are destroyed because the wife becomes more and more difficult, uncooperative, nagging, critical and basically unhappy because she is stepping outside of her God-designed role. Most women don’t intentionally mean to take charge of everything…it’s just that we start doing everything that we think needs to be done and the more we do, the less he does and then resentment flares and hurt begins to separate.

The result of a dissatisfied wife is usually one of two things: either the man will emotionally or physically detach from her; or he’ll surrender to her control and live beneath God’s design for him. Well love, you might think you have finally have what you want by being in charge, what’s really happened is that you have lost respect and the husband is no longer highly esteemed in your eyes. Either way, both the husband and the wife loose.

So, what DO we do if our husband isn’t keeping up his part of the bargain? First, we pray….and then we trust God.

I don’t mean to oversimplify a painful and complicated situation but truthfully, that’s the remedy. The answer is in going back to the introduction of today’s lesson. We seek our own personal holiness and trust that God will be faithful to our obedience and He will mold and shape our husband in response to our obedience.

When we love (choose to love) as I Corinthians 13 outlines: long suffering, kind, humble, meek, serving, temperate, keeping no list of wrongs; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things…..then God has the freedom to work within our husband to produce the “fruit” of joy, peace and love in our marriage and in his life.

I Peter 4:8, “And above all things have fervent charity (love) among yourselves; for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.” Our love and servanthood releases the Holy Spirit to work in our home.

We see this principle put into action in Abraham and Sarah’s lives. In Genesis 12 and 20 Abraham put his own well-being above his wife’s (not just once, but twice) when he told Sarah to state the she was his sister rather than his wife because she was so beautiful and he was afraid that the men of the cities they traveled to would kill him in order to have her. Abraham’s thoughts were only for his protection rather than protecting his wife as was his duty. He totally failed Sarah and dishonored God. Still, God rewarded Sarah’s obedience by protecting her in spite of Abraham’s weakness and failure to be the husband he should have been. God intervened when Sarah’s safety was in jeopardy. I Peter 3:6 states, “Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord; whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.” In spite of Abraham’s inequity to his wife, she still called him lord and reverenced him. In this specific instance, Abraham was a disappointment to Sarah and it must have grieved her heart…yet, she chose to see the many other ways that Abraham was a great man of God, and she trusted God to work in Abraham’s life.

Proverbs 3:5-7 states, “….lean not unto thine own understanding, in all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes…” As we consider Sarah and Abraham’s story, we might think it’s foolish to allow ourselves to be “misused” as Sarah was. Yet, God says to trust him, and to not lean on our own understanding. God’s protection is so much more powerful than our own attempt to stand up for ourselves. Sarah would have lost God’s powerful protection on her life if she had taken matters into her own hands. It’s Satan feeding our desire to seek our own justice that causes us to trust our own instincts rather than trusting God’s defense and instructions.

If you’re dissatisfied, disappointed, disillusioned….take it to God! Plead with God to change you and to change your husband, and to bring you together in unity, respect and love.