Honoring God by Honoring Your Husband

While you’re dating someone, it’s easy to love the man you’re in a relationship with. You probably don’t notice all his flaws or the things that get under your skin and drive you insane.  You are probably blissfully unaware of how things, for many couples, will change once you exchange the rings. Once the “honeymoon” stage is over, reality sets in and then it starts.  It becomes harder to excuse certain behaviours or habits, harder to forgive, and sometimes even harder to love (in the form of a verb).

Many wives begin to find themselves asking why they should honor their husband. Why should I forgive him over and over? Why should I boast about him in front of my friends? Why should I overlook his flaws and focus on the good? The answer becomes, “because that is what God does”. 

The questions in our mind about whether or not to honor, respect, and submit to our husband becomes a question of whether or not we’re going to honor, respect, and submit to Jesus Christ. We honor God when we honor our husbands. We boast about God when we boast about our husband. We see as God sees when we overlook the flaws in our husband. We have been forgiven; therefore we must forgive.

When we start to believe that our husband must “earn” these things from us, we have forgotten how much grace God has poured out over us. God doesn’t love us because we’ve earned it. God doesn’t forgive us because we’ve passed some test and earned his forgiveness. We don’t earn blessings from our Father; they are gifts, freely given. You don’t show up to a birthday party with a gift for someone, and then pull them aside to say, “OK, that will be $50.” Gifts are always free. A “gift” is literally defined as “something given voluntarily without payment in return”.  

But you know, God’s grace, his forgiveness, and his mercy all came with a price. The good news is that Jesus Christ paid the price of those gifts by dying on the cross for each of us. The definition of “gift” also goes on to say, “As to show favour to someone”. Not only is God’s favor on each of us when He shows us mercy, grace, and forgiveness, but we show God's favor to others when we grant them those same gifts.

One of my favorite verses from a song are “Heal my heart and make it clean, open up my eyes to the things you’ve seen, show me how to love like you’ve loved me, break my heart for what breaks yours, everything I am for your Kingdom’s cause, as I walk from earth into eternity” from Brooke Fraser’s song “Hosanna”. We are called to become like Jesus. We are called to think like Him, see like Him, and hurt like He does. We need to look at our husband like God sees him. We need to speak about our husband like God does. We need to forgive as He forgives. When we do these things we are honoring the Most High God. Forget about whether or not your husband “deserves” it at the time or not. Jesus didn’t “deserve” to be beaten, spit on, humiliated, and hung to die on a cross.  Better yet, thank God we don't get what we deserve! Our Heavenly Father looks past what we deserve and loves us because that is who He is. The word “love” is used 314 times in the Bible. I think that’s enough to assume that “God is love”.

This idea also applies to those who are single. You are not exempt because you are not married. We are called to the same things in relationships with others. When we honor those around us, we honor God. When we look past their flaws, we are seeing them as God sees them. When we speak highly of others, we are speaking highly of our Creator because of course he created everything in heaven and on earth in His image. 

You know, sometimes I wonder how much it breaks the heart of God to hear some of the things we think and say aloud. When we criticize, ridicule, and judge others, I can’t help but think God must be so upset that we would diminish what he Himself designed and created. We wouldn’t walk up to a new mother holding her baby and openly say, “Your baby really is so ugly. What a spoiled brat you have! Don’t you ever change their clothes, wash their body?” So why do we continue to struggle to see people as God sees them?  Proverbs 10:32 says, “The lips of the godly speak helpful words, but the mouth of the wicked speaks perverse words.” Sam Levenson and Audrey Hepburn wrote a quote that starts like this, “For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.” 

When you find it hard to act out these things in your marriage or other relationships, think about how you may be honoring or dishonoring God. It becomes much easier to grant our husband forgiveness when we remember how much God has forgiven us. When we submit to our husband, we are submitting to God. We honor God when we honor others. We boast about God and all he is when we lift up others. We see others like God does when we look for the good instead of the bad. Hopefully, in most marriages, we view our husband as someone new and incredible that God has brought into our lives.  Our lives are fuller and more complete than before. Just like when we become believers, God makes Jesus new and incredible in our lives. Something that was missing before is now filled. Instead of moaning and groaning, gossiping and sheltering bitterness and resentment, we should thank God for bringing the man He did into our lives and making them fuller. I don’t think anyone feels bad after saying the words “thank you” to someone. Maybe we should learn to say “thank you” to God more frequently until our head falls in line with our heart.  Stop thinking about why your husband might not deserve forgiveness, respect, and honor, and start thinking about all the reasons our God does deserve all these things!