As to the Lord

"Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband."
Ephesians 5:22-33

What a powerful text! This is what we studied in our bible studies this week. For our Tuesday night bible study I kept thinking to myself, "how often do I fail to submit and love Brian?" I could not wrap my head around what this looked like and how bad I fail. I know that my nature is to lead and be in control.

Brian brought this great text up from Genesis 3:16,

"To the woman he said, "I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband,
and he shall rule over you."

I never realized that the desire in this text is referring to desiring to lead our husbands. It is not a good desire God is speaking of. This desire to rule over our husbands started at the fall.

The next day we were headed to our second bible study on the same text. On our way there we were talking about our little trip we are taking on Sunday. We booked a hotel downtown on the bay for a great price to celebrate our 1st anniversary in October and a last little night away for awhile before our baby comes. We are only going to have Sunday and Monday and I really want to make the most of our time. I said to Brian on the way to study, "are we staying for Sunday school as well after church." He said, "Of course we are." And I immediately got upset and told him that we barely get anytime to be away and I really want to make the most of it. Why cant we just go to church and leave. Brian says, "you know how hard it is for us that people spend so much time studying to present a message for Sunday School and most of the church just leaves after the sermon. We want to be there to grow and learn and support the speaker and then we can start out trip." I still was not hearing him out even though I knew what he was saying was the right thing. We went to bible study and I was completely convicted for not submitting to my Godly husband who loves the church so much he wants to lead our family in a Godly way. He will never book anything that would cause us to miss church. We just love the church body which is the Bride of Christ! How can you not? We have always wanted to make sure that even when our baby comes we will continue to be involved and be at church for both services and if I need to go home Brian will stay. How can I get irritated with my husband leading us in such a Godly example? I was so humbled the next day and really felt so loved and cherished by the leader of our home. I pray to grow in these areas that people think are so foreign and old school. And church is not just on Sunday we really want to be involved throughout the week as well in fellowship with the body.

If we follow the bible and love God than this is a text we too must follow as husbands and wives. What a blessing to be under Godly leadership!