I am now in every wife's favorite passage of the Bible. OK, so I say that lightly. It is actually the perfect passage for every wife. It is just a big responsibility for us to bear.
1 Peter 3:1 "Wives in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over witouth words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives."
Yikes. That is quite the responsibility.
Now, thankfully, my husband is a believer, so his being 'won over' is already done. However, he did inform me that I am the reason he has become closer with Christ and desires to keep knowing Him more (score 1 for me :).
All joking aside. The purity and reverence of our lives. Now this is what I am talking about. It just made me stop and think. What does this really mean?
Well, Peter does start off by saying "in the same way" which of course refers to the previous passage that I blogged on earlier about Jesus enduring the beating, humiliation and death on the cross without retaliation or threats. We are to do the same with our husbands.
Now, of course I am not talking about taking beatings and humiliation from them, but we are to be submissive. So, I looked this up. It means to yeild to governance or authority. We are to do as we are told without retaliation or threats. (Of course with a Christian husband, his authority is not near as bossy and terrible as this definition makes it sound as they are comanded to be considerate and respectful of us)
But onto the purity and and reverence part. I had to look these up too. Pure is spotless, stainless, free from any other matter, free from harshness or roughness. Reverence is showing or making them feel honored and respected.
All right. So, the reverence part shouldn't be that hard, should it? But, as I stated in my last blog. I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut so the arguing and retaliating part can be pretty tough for me (I even have a post I need to do on how I failed at this just 1 day after I posted on it). So I need to zip it and just do it. No whining. No complaining. No thinking I already do enough around here.
I try fairly hard to make him feel honored and respected though. Silently vowing to myself and God that I will not talk badly about him in front of others, on Facebook or my blog no matter how frustrated I might be or funny it might sound (I urge all wives to do this same thing as it makes a HUGE difference to the man you love). But I know that there are more ways I can do this. I need to do some checking and find out exactly what they are.
But this purity part? That is a lot to live up to? Spotless? Not me? Free from harshness? Fail at that one too I'm afraid. But then I stopped to think. God sees me this way. Not that I never mess up. But he has washed me clean. Through his blood I am white as snow. With his forgiveness I am stainless and free from any other matter. Could I be seen this way in my husband's eyes as well as long as I earnestly seek his forgiveness when I screw up? If I vow to him to try my hardest and set my sights on becoming pure in his eyes as well?
What a refreshing way to think about it. I don't have to be perfect. I just have to clean it up completely when I mess up.
What an example that can be to our husbands and our children. Won't you stop to think about this passage too and how it can effect your marriage?
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