Originally posted on January 20, 2019 @ 8:00 am
Remember when you first started using email, and sometimes you would hit the SEND key before you edited your fresh composition? Or maybe you wrote a real payback-is-hell email to your boss or wife or husband or friend, and it was mostly an exercise of “Oh I wish I could send this”, and you sent it?
I did that two minutes ago.
Not an email but a posting that went out to a whole bunch of subscribers. It is a piece about fidelity, respect, obedience from wives to husbands. I have some wonderful women who subscribe to me and I do try to be sensitive to “feelings”.
Nonetheless, Yahuah is no respector of persons, so neither should we be. And wrong is wrong. Sin is sin and we all need to love more faithfully.
I’d like to speak to Mr., now. Husband, father, son – the man. Commanded to love his wife repeatedly by Yahuah, what does that tell us about men?
That we need to be reminded a lot? That it is a command and not an option? Sure, yes, all of that. But the main takeaway from all those “Thou shalt love..” is this: Love is a decision.
Men choose to love or not to love. We don’t get a “feeling”, and it isn’t chemistry. It is a decision, like whether or not to mow the lawn, wash the dog, read the Word or take a shower. Love is the end result of “I will”.
I like that.
Choosing to love can be a very difficult choice. Loving an unloveble woman can be quite difficult, as one might imagine. Unlovable means just that: not lovable. Some women make it extremely difficult for a man to love them, and then they wonder why they are not loved.
Make it easier to love you, ladies. If you need some pointers, read this.
A disrespectful wife is the most difficult woman to love, brother. They are contemptous, loud, bossy, arrogant, deceitful and in general not worth having around.
Proverbs speaks to this several times, citing the fact that it is better to live in the corner of a roof than in a fine home with a contentious woman. Or that it is better to have a little bit in peace than a lot of stuff in strife.
That said, if you are married, and if your wife does all that stuff and you are miserable, guess what? Yahuah never promised you a rose garden. He never said you would have Miss Manners for a wife, or that your wife would not be a closet man-hater. You married her and now you get to start the long march.
But you can do it.
Love is simply love. It is not slavery, or some way to break your will. You can love your wife very deeply but never do the fawning roses and chocolates and the “yes, dears” and the “doing whatever she wants because that what she wants to do” thing.
You can love her just fine while watching the Superbowl with a room full of friends.
You can love her just fine while her mother complains about you behind your back, and your wife says “mommy, you are so smart”. Faithful wives are hard to come by.
But you can still love her, and love her deeply.
Love does not require you to check your self-respect at the door. You still get to be all the man that you can muster. Maintain your self-respect, maintain your dignity. Do things that you know are good for you, and help your wife when she needs help. If she asks for help, help her. Be polite to her. Treat her with respect because when you are disrespectful to anyone, you are disrespectful to yourself.
When she does things that confound you with illogical thought processes, love her anyway. Let it go. It is not love to go about correcting and perfecting her. She gets to live her life, in large part, as she see’s fit. As long is she plays within the parameters of the Word, she is good to go. Let her roll her way. Don’t be afraid that, if she does some things her way, that you will be less a man.
A strong man will give his wife all the latitude she needs. Unless it is sin, encourage her in her endeavors. That is love.
You can try a good many things to build your relationship with her, but again, if she is a modern man-hating type of woman, then she certainly is not easy to love.
Just as some men are simply wicked, dead soul types, selfish to the core and interested only in their own personal comfort, many women are exactly the same. You might be married to one and guess what? She just might burn in hell for her rejection of Yahuah, and you might be married to her until the day one of you dies.
If that is your situation, you can still love her. She might complain first thing every morning and throughout the day for the remaining 90,000+ days of her bitter life, and that might be one of the most profound blessings you will receive from Yahuah.
If this is your life, rejoice because you get to submit to Yahuah out of respect to Him. He says “love”, she says “beat it” and there you are, torn between your desire to honor Yahuah or to call down sulfur upon your once-upon-a-time-a-long-time-ago delightful bride.
But He is watching.
He is mindful of your desire to obey Him. He knows that you want to love her as He commands, and He does see everything you do. Keep it up. Live your life. Offer to read the Word with her. Keep that door open, always. Yes, it might be like studying the Word with Louis Farrakhan, but the Word will do its job, and in time, if she is willing, her heart will open.
Some women have been deeply hurt by men. So badly wounded that they are unable to trust even their husband. They marry, hoping that their love or fondness or whatever is running through their mind for the guy they marry will transform them/her into the happy, trusting girl that she was before evil came.
That’s where you can be a real blessing to her, because although you might never know about her wound, if you can win her trust, you can win her heart.
You win that trust by loving, and it is a richly sacrificial love that you bring to the table, too. You are going to take some licks from her as she tests you. She wants to know where your breaking point is because she is looking for that moment where she can say “Aha! You are all the same”.
But if you love her, your desire is Yahuah and not her. She will find you very hard to antagonize.
There are no guarantees except for this one: If you choose to love her in spite of her utter disdain for gracefulness and respect to you, you will become a better man. You are not some door mat or whipping post. No need to argue or even have discussions with an overtly hostile woman. Pointless. Do love, do help, but go about your life taking care of your business, biding your time, and waiting for Yahuah.
He’s patient with us, and we are the most faithless creatures he made.
Your posts have been, in the past a real inspiration to me and many I am sure. However I wonder, if a said husband, had been one with a roving eye consistently, and the said wife has noticed this. Or the wife has inadvertently read comments such as the one in your previous article, about wishing you were not married when you were obviously enamoured with your so called respectful work mates then perhaps you have acted very disrespectful to your own wife and are hardly sticking to your Christian values you preach. Jesus loved unreservedly and hardly judged even the prostitute. I think you are missing your whole testosterone driven point. Makes me wonder if trust lost is lost forever under these circumstances. Yahuah , in his infinite wisdom would have understood the changing technological times and do you really think he would not forsee the hypocrisy in the said husbands mind. The victim mentality may have had a root cause and he cannot blame the outcome of his marriage on his perhaps second… Read more »
Madam, you are doing a lot of guessing and a lot of judging. You read and interpret my words through the filter of your own bias, and miss the point because you already have firm opinions. I didn’t want to publish the article you are criticizing me for, because I knew it would trigger some negative replies from women. But women need to respect their husbands, or not marry them. Your statement “then perhaps you have acted very disrespectful to your own wife and are hardly sticking to your Christian values you preach. Jesus loved unreservedly and hardly judged even the prostitute. I think you are missing your whole testosterone driven point.” is pure judgement and bias against me and perhaps against men in general. If you have a husband, go and ask him his opinion of your respectful submission to him. If you are divorced, go ask your former husband. Find out about your own behavior before you start telling men how to think. Getting the plank out of your own eye, as the… Read more »