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Jani Ortlund

The Leadership Lament

Posted on 11.23.12 by Jani Ortlund | Twitter: @JaniOrtlund

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One of the questions I hear most often from young brides is, “How do I get my husband to lead me?” This question usually comes from an unhappy wife who feels that many of the burdens of the relationship or home or budget are on her. Underneath the pile of disappointment, the question lurks, “How do I get my husband to be the man I want him to be?”

This question really has two sides:

1.  These women believe it is their responsibility to change their husband.
2.  These women believe they must take the initiative or nothing will get done.
(see Lies Women Believe: And the Truth that Sets Them Free! by Nancy Leigh DeMoss for a cogent discussion of this question.)

Both beliefs are contrary to Scripture and will put a stumbling block in the pathway to unity and peace in the home. Do you want to live with a defensive, resistant man? If so, consistently point out to him the things you wish he would change, begin, complete, and initiate.

If we as women take on responsibility that God never intended us to have, we will end up frustrated and resentful. In Proverbs 17:1, 19:13, 21:9, the Bible says that a nagging, quarrelsome wife is worse than deep hunger (a dry morsel), tedious torture (continual rain), and physical and social deprivation (the corner of a housetop)!

The Bible graces us with two powerful weapons that are far more effective than nagging, whining, or withdrawing. The first is a godly life characterized by a gentle and quiet spirit (1 Peter 3:1–4). And the second is prayer—appealing to a higher power than you could ever exert in your husband’s life.

Mary: Waiting on God
Think of Mary, our Lord’s mother, as an example. The angel came to her, not to Joseph at first. Joseph didn’t believe Mary when she told him what was about to happen, and he thought she had been unfaithful to him. There is no indication that she pressured Joseph to believe what she knew God had told her. She waited on God and gave Joseph the opportunity to hear directly from God himself—and he did! Mary was a woman who knew how to keep things in her heart and ponder them (Luke 2:19). She could afford to wait because she knew the power of God and trusted Him to fulfill His plans for her life and her family.

Our natural tendency is to take the reins and try to control our husbands. Ironically, though, most of us women long for our men to take action. We insist that our husband’s inactivity has forced us to step up to the plate.

But we can so easily strip men of the motivation to rise to the challenge and lead. And often when they do lead, we women correct them or tell them how they could have done it better.

So what can a woman do?

Be willing to wait. Be willing to let your husband fail. Your security is not in your husband, but in a sovereign God who is never going to fail you.

Turn to God in prayer, releasing your worry to Him. Your prayer doesn’t need to be perfect. If you can cry, you can pray:
“Teach me to do your will, for you are my God!  Let your good Spirit lead me on level ground (Ps. 143:10).”
Sarah: Why Didn’t I Wait for the Lord?
Sarah is often lifted up as an example for us, but there is at least one time when God did not seem to act quickly enough for her, and she took matters into her own hands. When Sarah was sixty-six years old, God promised her husband that they would have a son.

Ten years went by and she was still childless.

Where was God? Had He forgotten His word to her husband?

So Sarah resorted to a common practice of that day and used her handmaiden to get a child for her man. It seemed to work! But the situation soon turned sour—even before the child, Ishmael, was born (Gen. 16:5)—and Sarah blamed her husband for her suffering.

Thirteen years later, when Sarah was ninety years old, God supernaturally gave Abraham and Sarah their own son, Isaac. But Isaac’s half brother, Ishmael, was a lifelong source of conflict and pain. I wonder if Sarah ever thought, Why didn’t I wait on the Lord? Why didn’t I trust His word and His way? Why did I have to step in and control the situation in my own way?

Psalm 27:14  says, “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!”

Where is it hard for you to trust the Lord in relation to your husband? How has the Lord helped you to wait for Him to work His plan in His time?

Comments

  1. This is very true. Perhaps the reason us women struggle with this is because of a distorted view of what a helpmate really is. Often we think it is telling the man what to do or doing it for him as I thought for many years in my marriage. But by God's grace and a few years of acquiring wisdom from the word, I began realizing a major part of my role as my husband's helper was to pray fervently for him and focus on my end in yielding to the Holy Spirit for His work to be performed in my life as my hubby's wife. My husband credits the turning point in our tumultuous first decade of marriage to when I began modeling humility as a result of praying to God for help in my relationship with my husband especially. Prayer does change things and it seems to begin with the person who is doing the praying at least in my case.
    posted by Rebecca Colucci
    on Friday, November 23, 2012 at 12:49 pm
  2. In the day when we ALL come from a "disfunctional" family--- divorce & whatever else that comes along & slaughters the family, I think MANY women struggle with this issue! Because of these things, we don't have GOOD MODELS in our own mothers! (Older women teaching younger women just DOESN'T HAPPEN!) That DOESN'T relinquish OUR NEED TO SEE that we NEED A CLOSE RELATIONSHIP WITH CHRIST!
    It just doesn't help! That is where I failed when my husband & I first married; Not only was my mother a bad model but, I had an INTERFERRING MOTHER TOO! AFTER, going through a time of ACTUALLY SEEING/ IN MY FACE kind of thing what my mother was up to, I saw just HOW WRONG I HAD BEEN about things! I was able to let go & LET my husband take the reigns!!!! I was SO BLOWN OFF MY FEET with all that had happened, I HAD TO "let" him take control & he WILLINGLY took the reigns! Once I did this, HE WAS EVERYTHING & MORE of what I wanted in my husband & what God wanted for me!
    http://tladydesigns.blogspot.com/
    posted by Becky Green
    on Friday, November 23, 2012 at 1:35 pm
  3. Just what I needed to put on my heart and mind. Writing down the verses to memorize them and come back to it again and again. May the Lord help me wait on Him. "Likewise , wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct" 1 Peter 3:1-2
    posted by Mariella Rizek
    on Friday, November 23, 2012 at 8:15 pm
  4. Yes I completely agree with you Becky, in this day and age of broken homes and families it is hard to know how to be a wife/ mother when you have not seen a good example of this growing up. However God does have the power to help us learn and grow through this!
    posted by Samantha
    on Saturday, November 24, 2012 at 1:37 am
  5. God bless you and thank you for sharing !( my friend B. shared this with me) There is a chapter typo . The scripture in Psalm is 143:10. So , encouraging that God has given us examples of women in the bible who loved and served Him. Oftentimes , i read the lives of the men and I think that part of my "womanness" gets lost in the background. A woman's heart can be so distorted in this day and age.
    posted by Camillia Reed
    on Saturday, November 24, 2012 at 10:50 am
  6. Amen, Jani! This was very edifying. Good to remember the examples of Sarah and Mary that you mentioned; good to remember and live out (by His grace) the truths you are speaking.
    John 8:32
    Blessings to all my sisters in Christ,
    posted by Leslie S.
    on Monday, November 26, 2012 at 10:36 pm
  7. This is one thing that my husband can say that I don't do is NAG. I am the quiet one in the relationship. He comes in complaining about everything going wrong at work, everything the babysitters are not doing right, the trouble the children are getting into, etc, etc., etc., You better believe that I want to lay it out before him..."hey, if you would just let me stay home and raise my children, then you would have a nice hot meal when you get home (he usually does anyway), the house would be clean, the laundry would be done and the children would be better behaved because I would be there to "tan their hide" and train them." I don't...Sometimes I do drop hints about focusing on getting out of debt so I can be home and alleviate the babysitters...but he is bent and determined that I am going keep my job.

    This article gives me hope because I do labor under an intense load of guilt...because I can't stay at home...my husband won't let me...Everything that I learn on this site and try to incorporate in my home, he bucks against it in some way or another and sometimes I feel like there is no use to try to be different. The only support that I have for being a godly wife and mother is the support that I get here on ROH and TW. I haven't given up...I just get really weak minded sometimes and I get afraid that my efforts are going to be in vain.

    My husband is a good man...but he has some bad teaching and he is very insecure. He is holding on to what he has been taught. I appreciate his faithfulness to what he believes but I just wish he were dedicated to the Word of God and what God says. Please pray for him..His name is Winston...that somehow the Lord would touch his heart and cause Him to put his trust in God's word and not his own understanding.

    Jodi C.
    posted by Jodi C.
    on Thursday, January 10, 2013 at 8:47 am
  8. Bless you, dear Jodi C. We do love you and care about you! Persevere, my dear friend. God knows, God sees. He WILL work--NOTHING you do is in vain! The God who sees in secret will reward openly. (Matt. 6:4) Blessings to you this day ~ I have paused to pray for you and specifically for your husband.
    posted by Sarah, with the TW Team
    on Friday, January 11, 2013 at 11:15 am

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