Embracing Our Husband's Goals

I'm thrilled that a pastor, teacher, author that God greatly used to help influence our family in the ways of God when we were just starting out with little ones has begun blogging again. Any time spent reading anything Gregg Harris has to say is not time wasted.

So I'm not a bit surprised God is still using him in my life today to encourage me to keep on keeping on. 

Listen what he wrote in a recent blog written to children about who has the greatest responsibility and influence on family life:

"As the husband and father, Dad is supposed to be the head of his household. His vision and purpose in life should provide the North star of his entire family's journey.

His wife and the mother of his children should have a huge influence as well. If she embraces her husband's goals for the family with appropriate enthusiasm, respecting him and believing in him when he has trouble believing in himself, she will "do him good and not evil all the days of his life. (see Proverbs 31)"  ~Gregg Harris, The 21 Rules of This House Gregg Harris Blogspot, February 20, 2013

"If she embraces her husband's goals for the family..."

Are you embracing your husband's goals for the family? Do you, like me, struggle with going your own way—forgetting that our main task is to do our husbands good all the days of his life? (ouch, I'm talking to myself here).

Do you ask your husband's advice before you make a major decision? Do you ask his opinion and expect him to have one that will make a difference in the action you will take? Do you support his vision and purpose in life?

Reading this excerpt from Gregg Harris spoke to my heart. It reminded me that God has appointed the husband to be the head of the family. "The buck stops with him," as Elisabeth Elliot used to say.

Let's remember that God designed the family! His ways are the best ways, and they are n ot the ways of the world. Women, let's willingly put ourselves under our husband's authority and leadership and then act accordingly by doing those things that please him. 

I need this teaching as much as anyone. 

I struggle with doing what I know is right. I waste time and become anxious as I often spin my wheels when it all could have been avoided if I had just conferred with my husband first. God gave us our husbands to lead us. So let's follow their lead. 

Olympic runner Eric Liddell said that God made him fast and that when he ran, "he felt God's pleasure."

God made me the wife of my husband and when I do what pleases my husband, I feel God's pleasure.

So why on earth do I buck him on so many things? Why do I make his life harder?

My job is to make his life as easy and as pleasant as I can! 

I want my face to say yes when he asks for my help or needs me in any way. He needs to know by my responses that he is the most important person in my life. 

Lord, please forgive me for leaving the protection you've given me when I do not listen to my husband or abide by what I know his wishes would be when he is not here. Lord help me! I need your touch to live out my responsibilities as a Christian wife. Give me grace, Lord—and then help me to extend that same grace you've given me—to my husband.

May God give us as wives the grace to "bring our husbands good and not evil" one day at a time. Let's embrace their goals for our families enthusiastically, that we may one day hear God say to us, "well done, thou good and faithful servant." (Matthew 25:23)

I better practice what I preach so I'm heading downstairs to make homemade chicken and vegetable soup. Today, it's cold and rainy where we live. I'm thinking my husband will be pleased when he walks in and smells the scent of chicken broth simmering—with the celery leaves in there too—juuuuuust like he likes it. ☺

"She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life." ~Proverbs 31:12

Walk by Faith,