By Sandy England, facilitator of the Blazing Grace wives ministry
During our 10 week Wife’s Heart Course, one of the toughest subjects that many wives want to talk about is “I want a godly Husband”. My first question to them is, “What is your idea of a godly Husband?” John the Baptist? God’s word tells us he was a very godly man. Well, that question opens a huge can of worms. There is a lot to unwrap in that one little statement – godly husband… once they share what they feel a godly man should look like. “Honest, faithful, loving, provider, protector, honoring the marriage vows,” oh yea “God fearing,” comes up, to name a few. Sounds good to me. So, let’s break this down a bit, several questions come to mind, and the discussions are open and here comes the tough part.
So, did their husband have a great childhood with a father that was a “godly Man” to show them to give them an example of what a godly Man looks like? Was their father a godly man, honest, supporting, faithful, was he an encouraging father for his children, and oh yeah – God fearing? Did their father honor the marriage vows and treat their mother like Jesus calls them to do, to love their bride as He loves the church. Many times, the answer we find is NO!! That is not the childhood experience the husband had. The wives share that in many cases the husband did not have a good father figure, in fact the husband may have many father wounds, very much like Mike talks about in his books. Oh, so your husband may not know how to be a godly man. He had no example to learn from. This realization is very hard and tragic for us to now look at in detail. How is a man to learn how to become a godly man? Oh, I get it -maybe the Church?
Let’s talk about that for a bit. Did he have an example from the Church? Did he have fellow believers that were men that were godly men, to help him understand his role as a husband, as a leader of the family as a protector, a provider and most importantly placing God at the top of his priority list? Did the church help him understand what is meant to be a godly Man, Husband, Father? The answer is usually a very strong No. That brings us to another round of discussions explaining their husband’s experience with the Church, if they even were part of a church. Ok – so we are now married and going to church, trying to figure out this life thing as believers. We are still watching for examples on how to be what God is calling us to be.
We discussed what examples the Church has shown us. Many shared the following about their experiences in the church: We learned about social events, putting on a face that everything is good. We didn’t feel safe discussing struggles in our family that were taboo and uncomfortable. We couldn’t share our struggles with the Church family because it was too shameful and embarrassing. You can’t talk about that; it would bring shame to your husband and family. Sometimes the advice to the family is not very helpful if any is given. Sometimes even more damage is done by the church’s example of what a “Godly Husband / Man” should look like in their eyes.
In summary, most of the time, your husband was not taught or shown how to be a “godly husband” from the two most important sources of his life, his father and the church. Yikes!!
The wives and I have a lot of discussion on how a husband should know how to be a godly husband. How would they know? Who has shown them? Who was to teach them? They are not going to become a “godly Husband” by luck or advice from the world!
So what do we wives do with our expectations? We thank God for showing us the real battle at hand. That our husbands didn’t have the examples to be who God made them to be. They have a huge battle ahead of them, fighting all the lies they have learned from the world. This is going to be a relearning process for us all, husband, wife, family.
What is the wife’s part in this process? Is this process a major lesson in grace, forgiveness, and learning to be the wife God meant me to be? While I am working on healing my broken heart, I am learning to speak truth in love, how to set boundaries, hold myself and husband accountable. Oh, yea and surrendering all this to God, realizing this is way too big for us to do alone.
Then we are faced with the next question: Are we godly wives? We now need to look at what our examples have been of a godly wife, mother, and daughter of the King. What examples have we wives had from our mothers and the church? What would our husbands think that should look like? What does the church say that should look like? A doormat without a heart? Were our mothers, stepmothers, and grandmothers’ godly wives? How did I learn to be a “godly wife”?
This is when our healing starts: when we realize that much of what we learned hasn’t been good and we begin to grow into who God wants us to be. Many women share examples of their childhood, their mother was abusive emotionally, physically, or spiritually, in ways you can only imagine. Fathers stepping out on their mothers, mothers being depressed, disengaged, angry, tired, stressed and struggling to keep everything looking good for the outside world and the church.
Mothers that were not able to share their battles at home with anyone. At this point many wives realize they are battling the same behaviors their mothers had, and that they are angry at their father and mother for all that was hidden in the family. They followed the pattern of the world which is anything but what God’s word says we should be as a married couple, parents and daughters of God. Oh my – how are we to know what that looks like? What lies have we believed?
What does the church say? I am sure they will help us understand and walk us through these hard times. Break the patterns, right? Some churches do their best to support wives, but as Mike has discussed in many articles and in the books he has written, the church is not a great example of helping wives. Sometimes the church adds to the wounds and therefore the wife is even more isolated. The cycle continues.
There must be something to help – where can I go for help? TV, the internet, influencers, the world – yes that must be it. (Sarcasm). They have taught us anything but God’s will for us as his sons and daughters, spouses and parents.
Ok- now what? I don’t want to stay in this cycle, I don’t want to repeat the examples set before me and my family. There is only one place to go and that is God, my relationship with him, leaning into my savior Lord Jesus. We can’t do this without Him and we can’t do it without the support of other women. We will grow in strength and understanding, but first we need to understand the battle.
It helps us understand that the road ahead for our marriage, family and other brothers and sisters of Christ is going to be a fierce battle with much spiritual warfare. And we need to offer love and grace and others.
That is when the Wife’s Heart course gets intense. We have to change our expectations and lean into God’s word and other brothers and sisters to fight this battle, and we must become prayer warriors. We have to learn that we can’t expect a broken world to make us godly in the way God meant. We wives can’t expect ourselves and our spouses to get it right all the time and be godly out of the box, especially with the healing we need.
We must look to God’s word to see what He meant us to be. We need to identify the lies we were taught and have forgiveness and grace for those who have hurt us. We surrender our hurt, pain, expectations, and lies of the enemy and get down to the battle of what God is calling us to do, which is to walk with Him and follow His plan for us, while rely on His strength, wisdom and discernment. We must trust that He will be with us in every step of this battle when we are truly ready to fight. That will be the only way we can become Godly husbands, wives, parents, sisters, and brothers.
I could go on and on about what we learn and how we grow in our walk in the Wife’s Heart course. It is an amazing adventure, watching God move in so many lives, watching women see that this battle began long before we were married. We have work to do, lies to rebuke, and forgiveness to offer for many who too were broken and blind.
I want to ask each of you to pray for your husbands, wives, families, brothers and sisters in Christ. They are in the battle for their lives and we are called to fight with them the best way we can. Pray! Pray and be blessed to watch God work.
Love and Prayers to all.