Category Archives: husband

One plus one, makes one..

1 Reply

But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman’ for she was taken out of man.” For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

(Gen 2.20-24)

Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church – a love marked by giving not getting. Christ’s love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her…and that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They’re really doing themselves a favour – since they’re already “one” in marriage. No one abuses his own body does he? No, he feeds and pampers it. That’s how Christ treats us, the church, since we are part of his body. And this is why a man leaves father and mother and cherishes his wife. No longer two, they become “one flesh”, This is a huge mystery, and I don’t pretend to understand it at all. What is clearest to me is the way Christ treats the church. And this provides a good picture of how each husband is to treat his wife, loving himself in loving her, and how each wife is to honour her husband.

(Eph 5.25-33, The Message)

It is an uncomfortable truth that the hardest place to live out our faith consistently is within the walls of our own home, among people who know us inside out, and see every up and down of every day. I may be the most patient person in my workplace, but my family know only too well how short my fuse is at the end of a long day, and suffer from my bad temper and moods.

Family life, and the intimacy of marriage is where our true colours come to light, and the extent to which God’s continuing work of transforming us to be like Christ is seen. It is here that we have the chance to put the gospel into practice every day – forgiving and extending grace to others even as we depend upon God’s forgiveness and enabling. As I contemplate our son’s forthcoming marriage, I am only too painfully aware of the many ways in which I have failed to set a good example for him.

I rejoice that God is able, by his grace, to deal with the messes I have made, and thank him that my family are precious to him, so that nothing I have done or failed to do can prejudice his will for them. But I am also conscious of the need to pray for my son and daughter-in-law as they embark for themselves upon this high calling – of loving one another faithfully, through sickness and health, poverty and wealth, till death should part them. It is only by God’s help that they can do this, in a way which witnesses to the power of the gospel and to God’s love.

I rejoice that God has brought them to this commitment; and tremble at what might lie ahead for them. I rejoice in the faith that they share; and tremble as I know that they will be under assault as they explicitly pursue Christian marriage and ministry. I rejoice that my son has been given a woman who is committed to Christ first,  who knows that marriage is to be undertaken earnestly and with dependence on God; and I tremble as I know that she will be giving my son the power to nourish and cherish her, or to wound and weaken her – he is no more perfect than she!

No human marriage can reach the perfection of Christ’s love and care for his bride, the church; but we take courage from Paul’s insistence that this is the model on which we seek to live as spouses, and to pray for other marriages. God is at work for the good of his children, the church and the world through our relationships, and we can confidently depend upon him to strengthen and keep us as we ask for his help. Marriage is God’s idea, and his purpose is that it be for blessing.

As I watch my children set out on this wonderful, frustrating, exhausting, and mysterious relationship, I commit them to the Lord who loves them even more than I do, and know that they are in the safest place. As I renew my own vows in my mind, I thank the Lord for his keeping of my marriage – in spite of so much failure and sin – and pray on for his blessing of us, and through us, his church. To him be the glory, in all things!

What a faithful God…

1 Reply

Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away..

(Song of Solomon 8.6&7)

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

(Col. 3.12-14)

As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children – with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.

(Ps 103.1-18)

Twenty five years ago, I stepped into the dress of which this photo is a detail, took my father’s arm, and walked down to the front of my church to meet and take vows with the man who is my husband. Four homes, two children, and two congregations later, we are still here, still married, and still utterly dependent upon our faithful God for his power to keep us together.

It is one thing, in the rosy days of romance, to say that we will love the sinner to whom we have given our promise…it is quite another to learn to do this in practice, day in and day out, through the exhaustion of early parenting, through the doldrums of teenage angst, in the face of external and internal stresses and challenges. In every situation which we face as husband and wife, we have to remember that we also face our own sinful tendencies, and the not-yet-cleansed thoughts and habits and weaknesses which can cause so much pain. As I celebrate these twenty five years, I do so with a profound awareness that it is only by God’s grace that I am still here.

Over the years, the knowledge that my father God understands all that I am facing, and all that I am forcing my husband to face, has been probably the mainstay of my strength. There is one who knows and understands, who has compassion upon my weakness and who has, in his incredible providence, already provided for the ways in which my mess will be absorbed into his amazing plan to make everything work together for his glory and my blessing. This is an indescribable relief, to know that none of it is wasted, nothing is irretrievable, and that over and under and through it all, I am loved by a perfect, powerful, and present God.

Because I am loved by God, I can love my husband; I will seek his good, pray for his walk with God, show kindness and compassion.

Because I am forgiven by God, I can forgive my husband; I will extend to him the same grace which I depend upon daily, trusting in God to enable me to refuse to harbour grudges or grievances, even as God refuses to remember my sins.

Because I am delighted in by God, I can delight in my husband; I will choose to remember and celebrate that he is unique, beloved of God, one who in the days of the new heaven and new earth will be revealed as glorious.

Because I am accepted – as one made in God’s image, being made whole and Christlike – by God, I can accept my (also a work-in-progress) husband!; I will choose to encourage and support him, to be a place where he may rest and be refreshed, to hold him in honour, as one upon whom God has set his love.

We cannot tell how many more days, or years, the Lord may grant us to walk this earth together, nor what trials may come to challenge us – and what a mercy that we should be kept in such ignorance. But we choose to say now, that we have a faithful God, and that we will trust him for what will come. May we live to be a blessing to others, and to give glory to our God, in whatever ways he may direct.

Just wondering….

Leave a reply

For I am jealous for you with the jealousy of God himself. I promised you as a pure bride to one husband – Christ. But I fear that somehow your pure and undivided devotion to Christ will be corrupted…

(2Cor 11.2&3)

And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ…For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault.

(Eph 5.25-27)

Fear not; you will no longer live in shame. Don’t be afraid; there is no more disgrace for you. You will no longer remember the shame of your youth and the sorrows of widowhood. For your Creator will be your husband; the Lord of Heaven’s Armies is his name! He is your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, the God of all the earth.

(Isa 54. 4&5)

What does it mean, to call God ‘Husband’? Why do the hymns refer to Jesus as the ‘Lover of our souls’? What does it look and feel like in daily life, to live the reality of this aspect of our relationship with Almighty God?!

I wrestled for a long time with this particular imagery, and it is only in recent years that I have come to understand a little better just how sweet and precious a picture it is, and to rejoice in the reality which lies behind it. I am not planning to write some profound analysis of marriage in this column, only to try to articulate something of the blessing which it is to have Jesus as the lover of my soul, my Redeemer as my husband…

In many cultures today, the situation for women is still as it was in biblical times – an unmarried or widowed woman was without rights or status, vulnerable to exploitation and without protection. A husband was a woman’s guarantee of security, with prospects for a peaceful and fulfilling life. He took upon himself the right and duty of providing for and protecting her, and as a unit they would grow together in affection and through their daily labour, relying on and complementing one another. It is crucial to remember that the bible does not give us examples of perfect marriages to follow, but the real messy stories of human beings making an attempt to live out the ideal which God always intended for us. What we experience is only a pale imitation of the depth of union and love which God made us capable of before sin broke the lines of communication and left us vulnerable in this most foundational of relationships.

When I call Almighty God my husband, I claim the right to use his name as my own, his authority gives me status and rights to an inheritance. When I call on my Redeemer as my husband, I call on the one whose strength is sufficient to keep me through every trial and to bring me to a place of honour. The stigma of being unwanted, rejected or abandoned, is gone, because I have a husband who makes public his love for me and his commitment to my well-being – that is what happened on the cross! Jesus stretched out his arms, and said “I love you.. I am for you…you are precious and beloved, and I will do anything to ensure that you can be mine for ever”.

The words from Ephesians make it very clear that Paul understood the ‘husbanding’ of Christ in this way – “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy…to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or blemish..”

A human husband knows that loving his wife should mean seeking the best for her – encouraging, nurturing, sometimes perhaps confronting or challenging, but always putting the fullest realisation of her potential first. A human husband also knows that he will fail, and fail often…

But our heavenly husband, our divine lover, is one who never fails in love, patience, compassion and tenderness. Oh how good it is to have such a lover, one who never fails me in my need, who never gives up on his ambition of seeing me made perfect, radiant and lovely!

Let me never give up on saying ‘I do’ daily to this dear Lord, but go on seeking to know him and his love as the foundation for my life, and as the sweetest blessing that I can share..