Chapters 9,10,11: by Keli M.
Being on your husband’s adventure:
This month when reading our chapter in Created To Be His Helpmeet, I was struck by how the last three chapters seemed to flow together to me.
In the books, Wild At Heart and Captivating, John Eldridge talks about how men and women are made, how they fit together in God’s design, and how the true heart of a man is wild and adventurous like God. As a man matures he wants a woman to sweep up into the adventure God has put him in. As I read about Jezebel, I thought about how she not only undermined her husband and took on his masculine role, but she created her own adventure, instead of embracing her husband in the adventure God began in him, to become their journey together. I am sure in Jezebel’s mind she justified her actions as keeping order in the kingdom, but what she really did was take control. Her own journey ended with her being devoured alive by wild dogs. Hmm.
I wish the lady whose husband had decided to become a dairy farmer had read that story. Maybe her letter would have read differently. There is a clue to her discontented heart at the very beginning of her letter: Remember the line where she says her husband does not read the Bible as much as she thinks he should, but she will get to that later? She liked her life because she thought she had some control over it. When her husband realized his dream and went for it, she acted like a spoiled little child, not a grown woman. Why could she not be happy for the man she loved to finally experience his dream of being home and spending more time with his family?–Because the journey to get there was not comfortable and it was no longer in her control, according to her own schedule.
If my husband kept his job as a public high school principal and moved us to a dairy farm, I would support his endeavor. If he was late I would get out to the barn and milk the cows myself so we could spend what was left of the evening together. The lady in the letter complains about her husband messing up her dinner schedule and how hurt she is by that. Obviously she is only thinking of herself, which will kill a marriage in no time at all. Marriage was never about just one person. My marriage has never been about just me. It is not just about my husband. It is about a relationship designed by God in perfect union, it is about the community of the family, and it is an example of what Christ did for us and who we are as the Church. Is the Body of Christ going to tell Him to keep up with her schedule? Are we going to say to Christ, this is not what I bargained for?
We serve a mighty, Holy, and awesome God, and He is the King. When things come our way that we do not expect, let’s try not to react, but to respond in a manner befitting the Bride of the King. We are such a vital part of our husband’s adventure and how God is training him. We can either embrace the journey and all that God has for us both in it, or we can sit there and sulk about not getting our own way, miss the Glory of the Lord, and possibly bring about our own destruction.
Blessings to all,
Keli
