“By a delightful stroke of God’s providence, the English language bears witness to a husband’s job description in the very word husband. For a husband is a man who practices husbandry, or cultivation. Like a master gardener, his job is to so nurture and tend to his wife that she brings forth flowers. We should beware of stretching the image too far, of course. No woman is merely a passive patch of soil, helpless until a husband comes to cultivate her…. yet whenever we find a wife in full bloom, we would be wise to see if we can learn from her man.”
Scott Hubbard
The husband is the head of the home, yet the woman is the heart. Her presence pumps life-giving faith and oxygen to everyone in the family. Her presence has a quiet steady strength that helps the family thrive. Her presence, work and efforts are often be invisible, unappreciated, or unnoticed by the world, but her husband who loves and encourages her, knows that her very presence as the heart of the family, gentle and hidden, is utterly essential. Her presence has the ability create an atmosphere where by her children, her husband and herself can flourish.
“The wise woman builds her house, but the foolish pulls it down with her hands.” – Proverbs 14:1
Just as within the body of Christ, where no part of the body is more significant than the other – the woman, the secret heart of the home, is of immeasurable value to God and her godly husband. As women, we’ve been created to fulfil the role as “helper” within the home, a role which is a privilege and honour, and held in high esteem by the Lord. “Helper” does not mean we are oppressed or bullied into submission, it does not mean we are unable to work or do anything besides child rearing. As the “helper” we provide much needed assistance to our husbands to see them fulfil God’s call on their lives – something which our husbands will do well in with our loving support, wisdom and feminine strength. In the process we thrive, we step into our own callings, we grow and develop within our faith and overall become the strong, unwavering and faithful wives that God had intended us to be.
The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” – Genesis 2:18
Submission of a wife to her husband may seem like an outdated concept in this day and age. Yet, when a husband puts only the Lord before his wife, when he loves her sacrificially, when he adores her and calls her his beloved and desires her above all others – she can consider it all joy, because her tender heart is safely held in his.
“Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” Ephesians 5:22-33
The world won’t always be kind to us, but let’s keep our marriages a safe place where we go to meet with Jesus together with our husbands, finding safety, peace, joy and hope.
The vibrant and beautiful love that we see between faithful Christian husbands and their wife, is but a shadow of God’s unfailing love. There are many ways we can choose to live our lives, but there is only one way to this great love – and that’s Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.
