~Appreciate Your Spouse~Buoyancy in Marriage~Consult Your Partner~
~Dream Together Part One ~Dream Together Part Two~Empower Your Spouse~
~Have Fun With Your Spouse~Give to One Another~Honor Each Other~
~Be Intentional~Jubilee~Kingdom Focused~Listen~~Mentor Relationships~Nourish~Own It~
~Pray With Each Other~Quick to Listen~Read Together~Selfless~Teamwork~
~Uplift~Vulnerable~Worship~X in a Healthy Marriage~
Yielding Yields Much – Matt’s Thoughts
Too many times yellow traffic lights and yield signs end up being counterproductive. I have nothing against the signs. It’s the way people often react to them. When the light turns yellow, the driver is to take caution and extra care as they travel through the intersection or stop before the intersection. Instead, the driver puts their foot down and ends up being less careful and less precautionary. A yield sign is supposed to help traffic merge safely or make an intersection safer by clearly indicating to one party that they are to give the right of way to the other party. Quite often though, I see one or more cars punch it so they won’t have to yield.
Does that sound like you in your marriage? A situation arises where you need to take extra care and/or give up your (right of) way so that the two of you can merge and end up in the “same lane,” but you put the pedal to the metal in order to get your way.
I grew up hearing some phrases in jest from Christian teenage buddies like “those women need to submit…and be in the kitchen making my dinner…barefoot…taking care of the kids…cleaning my house…washing my clothes…” (I think the list got longer everytime it was stated and we didn’t say this when any female was around, except that once when Pete said it in a funny voice, but the girls didn’t laugh and none of us guys dared laugh either. Just so ya know, my conviction is that joking like this inappropriate and I apologize to all women for immaturity in my teen years.)
Although we teenage boys were in fact quoting from Ephesians 5:22, we had missed the verse prior that sets the tone for the section about various relationships – husbands/wives, children/parents and slaves/masters – “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Eph. 5:21). I’m hearing the apostle Paul say here that in healthy marriages both husbands and wives have yield signs. Defer your desires keeping the interests of your spouse above yours. What’s great is when both spouses are thinking of each other. Merging your wants with your spouse’s aspirations can often be seamless.
It has been my experience that yielding my will in order to merge with Laura has yielded great returns in our relationship.
Submit is Not a Four Letter Word – Laura’s Thoughts
It appears to be a sore topic. All my life I can remember hearing women of all ages talking about how they hate the word “submit”. This was often said either with a bitter chuckle, or sometimes with a roll of the eyes and a “men are dumb” attitude and tone of voice. This always confused me, and now that I have been married for 17 years, I find that talk like this is very discouraging.
What’s wrong with submission? What part of yielding my will to my husband is really so terrible? That is, unless I think this marriage thing is all about me and my happiness.
Submission does not mean that I have to give up everything I want or need. It means I need to think before I speak. It means that out of love and care, I need to put my husband’s needs before my own. Mutual submission, as mentioned in Eph. 5:21, means that my husband does the same for me.
Yield. Take caution and extra care as you make decisions with your spouse. You’re likely to find that submission makes you quite happy after all.
Ladies, we know you’re reading here more often than the guys. ;) We’d love husbands to read this article as well. If you feel so inclined please send the link to your husbands, or if it’s easier, we’ve created a downloadable article for you to quickly print off and share. A to Z – Yield
Lorie says
Thank you for this post! I sometimes think of the word submit or yield in regard to marriage and “feel” the negative connotation. I think that comes from a quick defense in past situations where I have not really seen the man yield…in fact where abuse (physical or mental) has occurred. In this case, I think, he two people were “unequally yoked.”
I love this post putting in mind that BOTH sides have to yield and submit. This is so true, and I think having each of you point it out and state it so clearly in wonderful.
rebecca says
Wonderful thoughts, so fun to read what you both write.
Diane says
I have been married for 27 years and that is a well learned lesson. Thank you for the uplifting post. I love that you offer both points of view.
Merry Christmas and thank you for all the wonderful things you have shown me this past year.
Anitra says
I once heard a pastor say (when preaching through Ephesians 5) that the command to submit wouldn’t be there if it was something we naturally do – that made so much sense to me! Yielding doesn’t come naturally (most of the time), we naturally want our OWN way.
Also, I think the command to submit to husbands is more than balanced out by the husband’s command to love their wives as Christ loved the church! That’s an impossibly high standard…
Shawna Cale says
Great info. I think we should also raise up our daughters with a submitting mind set. Between my personality and my upbringing, I thought I should be a strong independent woman. As an adult I first had to learn to obey/submit to God. Then work on submitting to my husband.
It took the Israelites 40 years in the wilderness to learn to submit to God and only the next generation actually enjoyed the promise land.
If we train up our daughters to submit to God and us (parents) and our boys to love God and us (parents) then hopefully it will be an easier transition into marriage.
Angela says
I’ve only been married for 10 1/2 years to my wonderful husband. I have to admit, when I was younger, I thought “There is NO WAY I am submitting to any man.” Boy was I foolish then. Submitting in your marriage is wonderful…for both sides. It makes such a healthy relationship between you and your spouse. If we can submit go God, why shouldn’t we be able to submit to our spouses? We were made in His image, weren’t we?!
Ashley says
I don’t exactly agree with that submission for a husband and wife is the same…why else would God simply say WIVES submit to your husband? He already said to submit to one another…but he directly said it again to women! Because of the feminist movement a lot of women have given up their place. God likes order, and the order goes man then woman. And the scripture says wives submit yourselves to your husband like the church submits to Christ… Christ does not submit to the Church. What you both stated contradicted the Bible. Men have a HUGE responsibility! They are commanded to love their wives like Christ loves the church!!!!! And women are to submit..we are suppose to love our husband’s of course, but each of our positions is different. I’m not saying that a man should be mean, and abusive to his wife, BUT I feel women should submit to their husbands desires. If he does what the Bible states and loves her he will care about her wants and needs anyway! It all balances out!
Laura says
(This is Matt) We firmly believe that husbands should be leading their family as the spiritual head by their words, attitudes and actions and that “wives should submit to their husbands in everything” – by their words, attitudes and actions.
In this brief post we attempted to share what Eph. 5:21-22 looks like when the husband loves his wife like Christ loved the church. He put the church before himself when he “gave up himself for her” (v25). So, as a husband I should put my wife before myself. To me, that plays out in life by me yielding to my wife rather than plowing over her and for her to yield to me rather than plowing over me. Too often we see and hear of spouses colliding rather than yielding to each other for a successful merger.
Matt
Danielle B says
exactly, Matt. If there was no mutual submission, the husband would be in 100% control over everything, and the wife would have no decisions to make.
I just read on a blog where a woman gave up her career after 24 yrsto stay at home. She closed her bank account and admitted she has no access to the account her husband has. It truly made me sad, and I wondered if there were other issues.
IMO, I think w/unilateral submission it can turn into the husband being an overbearing, controlling bruit of a husband.
Kelly Albertson says
Actually, men are to love their wives, but wives are to RESPECT their husbands. Yes, we are to love everyone, even our enemies, so yes, we are to love our husbands, but ever wonder why mhusbands have to love and we only have to ‘respect’? It goes to how we’re both wired…
stephanie says
I really enjoyed this post. I must say that growing up there was a lot of confusion around submitting. Its interesting how in my early married years both my husband and I would have agreed perfectly with anyone “preaching” these verses. The problem we had was our understanding of what these verses meant and even how the verses were being taught incorrectly. We look back and laugh now. I can’t say we had a bad marriage, but I will say it was rougher than it needed to be at times. A friend recommended I read the book Created to be His Helpmeet. My sweet husband’s reply, “You don’t need it, your perfect just the way you are.” Several months later a much closer friend to both of us recommended I at least read one chapter out of this same book. The chapter wasn’t the first chapter and being the weirdo that I am I can’t start in the middle of a book, so I started at the beginning and read the entire thing. This book gave me a better understanding of my role as a wife and gave encouragement on how to respond even when my husband may not be behaving how he should (after all we are both human and neither one of us is going to be getting this thing right 100% of the time). Today I have a much sweeter marriage thanks to what I learned from this book (I do not agree with everything, but there is a lot of good in it). My husband gives me the credit for being all sweet even when he wasn’t, but I will readily admit that in the beginning imagining coals of fire heaped upon his head was sometimes my inspiration in being sweet. I said all this to remind us that we can’t base us doing what we are supposed to be doing on our spouse doing what they are supposed to be doing. We each are responsible for our actions. Thank you for posting such a good reminder to all of us.
Shelly says
To those dealing with an unyielding spouse, one-sided yielding can be frustrating. It’s tempting, especially in young marriages, to think if your marriage is good it’s because of something you did right. Whatever the state of our marriage, I think we need to be obedient, yielding and prayerful, but to also remember that God gives the increase.
Faith says
Thanks for a great post! Me and my husband are both reading (thanks to your post on reading through books together) Love and respect and it deals with this concept using Ephesians. I love it and its helped a lot…Thanks again!!
Shawnie says
Beautiful post. I read this a few weeks ago and have thought about it ever since. I never quite considered the word submit in the way that you put it. In fact, I insisted it be omitted from our wedding vows (and it was). I have a wonderful marriage of almost 10 years and I credit that success to the fact that we submit to one another – how about that. Did it and never knew it.
I am so thankful to God for my husband and our marriage.
Thank you for this lovely explanation on love and submission.
I love what Shelly wrote above, “God gives the increase”…beautifully written.