Welcome to A Surrendered Heart: A Wife’s Journey to Love the Jesus Way. Click on the “Leave a Comment” button on each post to add your thoughts, experiences, and suggestions to the discussion. If you are a newsletter subscriber, please click through to this post on my website to add your comments to the discussion to be read by everyone. I look forward to hearing what you have to say! God be praised for the gift of marriage and for allowing us to grow in Him.
Read Lesson 1: Why I Married This Guy
Read Lesson 2: So, What Does Your Husband Do?
Read Lesson 3: How Selfish is Your Prayer?
Let’s begin with today’s scripture focus right away. It’s a verse we’ve all likely heard since we were little, yet I find that it’s one of the most difficult to obey.
Download “Do to Others” Printable Here
I love this simple admonition. But more often, I live this out instead: “Here’s the deal. If you treat me nicely, then if I’m having a good day, I’ll be sure and be nice back. However, you should know that sometimes I’m just not feeling it. Sometimes I’m frustrated with you, so I don’t really feel like being nice. You’d better be nice to me, though.”
My thinking is so backward and messed up sometimes.
Do you know how many times I have said something to Matt that if the tables were turned and he had been the one to have said it to me, I would have been all indignant and thought, “Well. I didn’t deserve that.” It’s ridiculous. Why do I think I am justified at a “roll my eyes” comment but would feel incredibly hurt if Matt responded this way to me?
He called me on this one day a few months ago. I was pretty much in a state of frequent annoyance with him, so when he said something about who knows what, and I didn’t understand what he meant, I acted like he was an idiot and yuck, I really just hate even talking about how I responded to him. It was ugly. He (sweetly, somehow) told me as much. I needed to hear it.
I can feel justified all over the place with how I respond to Matt when I’m frustrated. But if he were to treat me like that? Well, I’d think he was acting like all kinds of a jerk.
The good news is, he is better at “doing to others as he would have them to do him” or however that should be written since I switched out the “you’s” with “he’s and him’s.” I’m the one who has been struggling with this recently. That’s why I need this scripture focus.
So now that we have been reminded that our hearts need to surrender to treat our husband the way we would love to be treated – how can we put this into practice?
Considering this verse (Luke 6:31) changes how I serve Matt. Service comes in all forms. It’s barely about folding his laundry and mostly about showing him love with my words, face, and actions. I am finding that taking time to reflect on how I can serve my husband better – while focusing on “doing for him as I would have him do for me” is humbling and rather lovely if I truly give up my self. It makes me want to serve. It brings me joy to serve.
Imagine that. When I take the focus off myself, and instead serve in God’s way – it works. I should stop being shocked by this.
Take time to consider Luke 6:31. Listen to what God has to say to you about how you are treating your husband, how you should be treating your husband, and how you can serve him with a surrendered heart, loving your husband the Jesus way.
Download “How I Can Serve Him Better” Printable Here
I found that it was beneficial to write down what I want from Matt (such as, I want him to really listen to me and hear my heart), and then flip it around to truly understand the “Do to others…” passage (I need to really listen to him and hear his heart). Some of his needs are different from mine, but I found that this was a great start in recognizing ways my heart needed to change.
Now here’s the truth: If Matt doesn’t live up to my expectations of what I want/need from him? It can’t change the way I treat him. My response, my service, and my care for Matt is not based on his performance. They are based on my obedience of scripture. I choose to love Christ, therefore I choose to love and serve my husband the Jesus way.
This takes surrender of self. Surrender of my heart. There is no way to do this unless we are each choosing to let the Spirit of God work in us to be holy. Let’s let Christ do His work in us! Then, serving our husbands? Well it will be surprisingly delightful.
Up For Discussion…Share With Us!
- What are some things you do for your husband that you know he loves?
- How have you found that spending time with Jesus and reading the Word makes it easier to love and serve your husband?
- What other scriptures come to mind as you consider serving your husband and loving him the Jesus way?
- How can you serve your husband better this week (and next week)?
mrs.p says
Sunday nights at church we are doing a bible study on love and respect. How man want to be respect and how woman want to be love. That man and woman hear things differently. Woman wear pink earring aides and men wear blue. Understanding this has help me with my relatonship wih my hubby. I give him alot of grace doing he uses his blue aide and I using my pink. My hubby likes to come from work with my hair done, make up and nice clothes. This don’t happen all the time so that what I work on the couple of weeks.
Laura says
Men and women certainly do hear differently. It’s so good to remember that!
Sarah Nicholson says
Thank you for sharing this. Before I talk about my husband, I wanted to tell you that being reminded of this verse and the principles behind it helped me regain perspective on how I need to be loving my children. I have a 2 1/2 year old and a 9 1/2 month old, and they are driving me crazy daily with whining and crying and getting into everything and disobeying. They have so many awesome moments as well, but the less-than-awesome and super loud moments are the ones that have really been getting to me lately. And I haven’t responded well. I yell back and treat them rudely and meanly, exactly how I don’t want them to treat me, each other, or anyone else for that matter. I’ve been praying and searching for help in getting through this and teaching them to behave better (especially the older one), and this simple concept really hit home. :)
Of course this also applies to my husband. I think I tend to do a better job with him though! His birthday was Tuesday, and I really tried hard to make it special by just doing little things like taking him out to dinner, blowing up balloons and putting up decorations, and surprising him with a special cupcake and candles. Just stopping and thinking about how I would want to be celebrated helped me celebrate him better, and it also reminded me how thankful I am for him!
Mindie says
Sarah,
I totally hear you on this, I also fall into getting agitated with my kids and being rude and unkind as they are treating me with disrespect and being rude to me and each other. I definitely found as I read this lesson that I kept thinking of my kids and how I treat them when I know that I need to be the example of love and kindness. (and yes, we have lots of awesome moments too, but the tired and grumpy days are especially hard !) I find it a lot easier to treat my husband the way I would like to be treated, because he also does a wonderful job of being kind and loving too.
May we both keep this in prayer and work to be more patient and kind to our children. The kids and I have been trying to memorize 1 Corinthians 13 4 through 6, but a lot of things can be summed up in just the first few words “love is patient and kind”. My oldest is 9 so it is a bit easier for me to be able to talk about how we need to respond to each other with her than with the littler ones.
This lesson was a great reminder, Laura, thank you for sharing it. =)
Diane says
I have struggled with this one with my child too. We are to be the example for them. This is a good reminder.
Laura says
And thank YOU both for the reminder that this applies to how I treat my kids, too. :)
Diane says
Laura, thank you so much for sharing all of this. I hope it is ok to share my 2 cents. I went through 2 graduation parties already and it is an emotional time for us mothers. Unfortunately we can take it out on the ones we love. I hope you will have some grace with yourself too.
This was my favorite one so far. It is so easy to get caught up in our own needs and wants, it is important to remember our husbands have needs and wants too, and to watch our attitudes. I pack a lunch for my husband for work. I do it even when we are upset, angry,or hurt with each other because of the verse that says: do not repay evil with evil but with good. Not easy though.
Karen S says
I just read an article on FB yesterday about this very subject. So often, we “browbeat” our husbands verbally over small things. They forgot to pick something up for us, or they didn’t do a task the way we would have done it. I’ve been so guilty of this, but I am going to make a real effort, with God’s help, not to demean my husband with my words. I love him, and I thank God every day for him. I want him to always feel that love from me.