Last month, God put it on my heart to write about what He has shown me about being a Godly father and where I fell short in some or many ways. He wont let me off the hook this week either and has been pushing me to write what He has shown our men’s group on how to be a Godly husband. So what does God say makes you a Godly Husband?
The Role of a Godly Husband
If you asked 100 men today, what makes you a great husband, you would get 100 different answers. Thankfully, according to scripture, there are some very specific things that God says we need to do if we want to be the husband that he created us to be. By earthy standards many would say I would have scored very high as a “good husband”, but how does that score translate on God’s score card? Lets find out!
The first thing that God says is necessary for a husband is to Love your wife the way God loved the Church. Love means many things today but sadly to most people it centers around what people get out of someone that brings out emotion in them. In that scenario love is selfish. In God’s word (Ephesians 5:25), Christ loved the church so much that He sacrificed everything for her including his respect, honor and His life. What do you sacrifice for your wife? In this area, God had to be happy with some of my efforts as I put my wife first almost always, but where I know He was supremely disappointed in me was that I would “keep a record” of things and began to feel resentment if it certain things were not reciprocated back to me. No where in the bible does it command wives to love their husband, but instead to honor and respect them so what I desired wasn’t possible or biblical (Ephesians 5:33) and not fair to expect from my wife. The score card of God would be “needs improvement”, or even a fail for me in this area. What about you?
The second thing that God commands husbands to do is to Live with your Wife. This sounds obvious and crazy but its clear to me that this means more than just the title (1Peter 3:7). Living with your wife means; is she as important to you as you job? Are you able to handle any issues at work all day long but then unable to do any chores at home, or help your wife with dinner or the kids homework etc? I think I did really well in this area at first glance because since Covid 19 and before I have done most of the meal prep and kid’s meals as well as school drop offs etc. Again, where I failed was that I made sure she knew it and that I felt the yoke wasn’t equal. All the good will that I had made doing laundry and making lunch and dinner between work calls was erased by my poor attitude and bitterness. To make this really simple, are you putting more deposits into your wife’s emotional bank account or only making withdrawals and leaving her empty? Sometimes all it takes is one terrible withdrawal to remove all the amazing things you did during the day. Do this long enough, and she will not even remember the good things you do for her. I wrote about the Holy Spirit this week, and when the HS convicts me in areas, it almost always shows me where I went wrong in real time with a memory or thought. I recall clearly in this area that God reminded me that she didn’t ever want a Rolex watch, but instead loved to wear the Movado I bought her instead because “it meant more to her because I bought it for her when we were broke”. I needed to fill her love tank in that way instead of crushing withdrawals! God’s scorecard= Fail in this area.
The third area that God told me was essential was to Know You wife and Continue to study her always. God says look at it from this perspective: If the amount you studied your spouse before marriage was equal to a high school diploma, then you should continue to learn about your wife until you gain a college degree, a master’s degree and ultimately a doctorate degree. It should be a lifelong journey that brings your hearts closer together every day. I had to learn this the hard way years ago and obviously I still haven’t mastered it. Some of the questions God put on my heart were, “do you know what her greatest fear is”. “Do you fully understand how she wants to feel love from you?” “Do you know what her biggest struggle with is today? “ Honestly I wasn’t sure how to answer any one of those three exactly and I became ashamed pretty quickly. The woman that I had adored and couldn’t stop thinking about in a normal day still didn’t move me enough to want to study her more and find out her inner most important desires. (Proverbs 18:2, 18:15 and 20:5) Gods score for me= “Needs improvement”.
The next essential area that God says is important if you want to be a godly husband is to Honor Your Wife. When God spoke to me about this, the words he used was “treat her like a Princess” because that is something I used to say and was familiar with. He was very clear with me that while I was great in the areas of complementing her about her looks, or the way she smelled, or how she used to drive me crazy all day long (in a way that even made me bark at her in our own private joke way) working at home next to her, that I failed terribly when my mouth would say terrible hurtful things at night after the kids were in bed. I said above that I kept score and I wanted to make sure she knows that her efforts with others seemed more than it was with me or our relationship and I was too self absorbed to stop and see what it was doing to her. In cases like this, no number of flowers, or door opening, or love letters, or other things that you buy her to make her feel special will make up for that love and trust crushing behavior. This was a real problem in our relationship because it opened us up for Satan to interject more emotion and stress in the situations like this and before you know it it’s out control. It is clear to me that all the good that I had done in this area and that I had made an effort to specifically perform well in, was erased by my mouth and my inability to honor her properly. Do no make this mistake men! It could cost you everything.
The last area that I want to talk about is probably the one that I’m the most ashamed of. If you desire to be a godly husband, God commands you to pray with your wife without ceasing (Hebrews 12:2–3; James 1:2–3). When God asked me how often I prayed with my wife I was so convicted that I honestly couldn’t remember the last time I sat down with her and prayed with her. I am so ashamed to even admit that. As a “Christian” man that’s absolutely unacceptable. God specifically told me “if there is no spiritual relationship with your wife how can you expect to have a marital, emotional, or intimate relationship with her”. The model that God showed me was that you should wake up in the morning together and pray about your day while putting on the armor of God. during the course of the day you should pray for each other if you are not together. In my case, I should have taken 10 minutes to pray with her over lunch. According to God, a godly father and godly husband would then pray with his wife at night about the day that they just had, the fears that they have going into tomorrow, and their needs going forward. If this is not happening God was very clear with me saying “I won’t do anything for you or her in the name of your prayers if she’s not praying them with you”. God is clear that this is the responsibility of us men to lead our family in this way. I felt like that 5-year-old kid that completely disappointed his dad by breaking his favorite tool. But the beautiful thing about God is he always forgives, always protects, and always gives a second chance. Be careful in this area gentlemen, because your wife may not give you a second chance. Gods score in this area for me= FAIL!
In Summary, I can’t stress it enough that the words we use and how we use them are some of the most important things when it relates to being considered a godly husband. One of the best things that I ever read that will help us man focus more on our wives than ever before is the Love Dare Book where God challenges us for 40 days to love our wives differently than ever before. This is an absolutely life changing book and I recommend every married man read it and begin to implement it into their married life. I also love the book 40 Prayers for your wife. Every single day for 40 days, you pray differently for your wife and it’s amazing what can happen in the hearts of others while doing this. whatever you do in your marriage, made Christ the center of it and ask God to change you both for the better.
1 Corinthians13:4-8
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud or rude. It is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth”
