“Man did eat angels’ food” (Psalms 78:25)
Today’s devotional is from “Conforming the Image of Jesus in Marriage” that I have authored, and have counseled to many dysfunctional marriages in my 40-plus years of private marriage counseling ministry, including in our church worship services, plus small group seminars, and Bible conferences at other churches.
Some of my counseling principles are also gleaned from my own historical failures against my wife, Charlotte, in our younger years. Learning how to be a loving husband is a lifetime endeavor.
I Peter 3:7 exposes that God created your wife as queen (“giving honor” in Greek) of your family. Queens have servants, and the husband and children are her servants to help her with all household chores.
God calls our wives “help meet” (Genesis 2:18). Such a title doesn’t mean God created her as a low-class slave, that after she has worked all day in a stressful out-of-home occupation or business she must come home and all alone cook dinner; wash dishes; wash and dry dirty clothes; dust all furniture; sweep and mop the floors; bathe toddlers; clean toilets, bathtubs, showers; wash, dry and iron all family clothes and arrange them neatly in closets and dresser drawers until her bedtime, while the husband watches his favorite TV shows, and the older children sit around playing with their hand-held electronic games and talk on the phone.
“Help meet” means God created the family to “meet” together to “help” the wife/mom with all household responsibilities, because 1 Peter 3:7 reveals God created the wife/mom weaker than the male. It’s unfair for the weak to work harder than the strong.
I am so glad my mom made me iron my own clothes as a teen. Such has relieved Charlotte from having to iron my clothes, even though she believes she should.
Another marriage attribute that will empower a husband to “help meet” with his wife is “pitying” her (1 Peter 3:8) when he sees it’s unfair for her to work hard and all alone. The power of “pity” will motivate the husband with love to help his hard-working wife.
Helpful husbands aren’t “henpecked.” They are love, pity and helpfulness wrapped with authentic masculinity, protecting their wife from working unfairly at home.
We men aren’t born with the natural instinct regarding how to love our wives. I Thessalonians 4:9 teaches we have to be “taught” how to love our wives, so we won’t destroy their femininity, and mental, emotional and physical health, including self-esteem.
God commands husbands to love their wives as God loves us (Ephesians 5:25). God-love contains pitying and helping others.
Today’s devotional is written only to husbands, but wives will definitely enjoy eavesdropping. God alone created marriage, and his marriage manual is inside the Bible. If God’s marriage manual is obeyed, marriages will flourish with increasing love, rather than deteriorating into heartbreaking divorce.
Local News
January 21, 2012
Column: G. David Henderson: Henpecked or loving husbands?
- Local News
-
-
Update: No sign of alleged double murderer
Close to 200 law enforcement officers plan to search through the night for an alleged double murderer who may have been spotted in Varnell Wednesday afternoon.
Continued ... - Teacher of the year sings through the day
- 911 call — ‘Somebody had killed him’
- Olympic hopeful’s horses killed in wreck
- ‘We are D’ sign mystery solved
- Investigation clears Dalton Middle erasures questions
- Chambliss, Graves say Congress must act to avoid big tax increase
- May 29, 2012
- Remembering once a year not enough
- Couple looks to raspberries to salvage season
- Camp AIM to hold 20th reunion
- May 28, 2012
- Stem cell treatment regrows Whitfield man’s foot
- Authorities continue to search for Neal
- MEMORIAL DAY REMEMBRANCE: Death at sea
- May 27, 2012
- Memorial Day Remembrance: ‘Just two weeks away from home’
- Southeast graduation
-
Update: No sign of alleged double murderer
Police: Seattle Cafe Gunman May Have Shot Self
No Limits for Disabled Hunters at Mich. Base
Victim Identified in Fla. Face-chewing Attack
Radioactive Bluefin Tuna Crossed the Pacific
90 Guns Seized, Dozens Arrested in Oakland
Raw Video: Hail Storm Batters Oklahoma City
6-Year-Old Going to National Spelling Bee
California's Foie Gras Ban About to Begin
Video Essay: Funky Winkerbean Comic Turns 40
Hurricane Andrew Remembered, 20 Years Later
Judge's Ruling Halts Tenn. Mosque Construction
Romney in Las Vegas on Texas Primary Day
Sister Says She Reported Brother in Patz Killing
Even Fla. Police Shocked by Face-Mauling Attack
Angry Birds Spreading Their Wings
