Real Marriage_ The Truth About Sex, Friendship, and Life Together - Mark Driscoll [40]
If we have wrong thinking or bitterness toward the word respect and what the Bible says, we need to start with repentance and ask God to give us respectful thoughts toward even His authority. If we continue to feed our old way of thinking with lies and fears, the sin of disrespect will control us. I hear many women say there is nothing they respect about their husbands, and they have many complaints instead. If you married him, you must have seen something you appreciated and admired about him. We can develop new habits of biblical thinking by being thankful for our husbands’ gifts and strengths, rather than being bitter about their weaknesses and shortcomings.
Mark and I are opposite in literally everything (except our theological convictions), right down to him liking the big potato chips and me preferring the little pieces. Sometimes we just have to laugh that God put us together with everything different about us. We can either choose to be constantly frustrated by being opposite, or be willing to grow and learn from each other and appreciate our differences. These things can actually, by God’s grace, complement our marriage and help us serve each other and others more fully. Sadly, we know far too many people (including us for many years of marriage) that let the differences lead to disrespect and division, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
69
Where do you start the respect process? Confess your sin of disrespecting authority to God and your husband, and be willing to listen to the Holy Spirit’s conviction for change. By taking time to observe your husband closely, you can start to journal or make a list of things you appreciate about him, such as, working hard, staying faithful to you, spending time with you and the kids, being a friend, and doing specific tasks. Mark appreciates both verbal and written encouragement; so telling him and writing notes about how I appreciate him are ways I can show him I respect him.
Think about how you feel when your husband encourages you or thanks you for something you did. This doesn’t mean you are overlooking his sin, but if you are caught in the cycle (as I was) of disrespectful thinking about him, you need to stop walking down the path of disrespect and in repentance go the other direction, toward respect. As we obey God’s command to respect our husbands, faith and wisdom will rise up in our hearts and replace fear. There will be a difference in your words and actions if your mind is growing in respect first toward God and His Word and then toward your husband.
Hearts of Respect
If our hearts are working toward respect, our mouths will follow because “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”a If our hearts abound with disrespect, our mouths will spew disrespectful words. Our words as women are often motivated or withheld because of our emotions. Do you tend to respond to your husband with criticism or with silence? When you talk about him in public or with others, do you tear him down or build him up? Are you careful not to gossip about him, or do you freely share your issues with others? This includes prayer requests, women’s Bible studies, and female accountability relationships that degenerate into gossip, busybodying, and disrespecting our husbands in the name of ministry.
70
The respectful Proverbs 31 woman “opens her mouth with wisdom, and on her tongue is the law of kindness.”a Are your words to and about your husband marked by “wisdom” and “kindness”? Or, do you instead use words as a form of control because you don’t know how to, or just don’t want to, have healthy conversations with