Page 108 - Sarah's Children

a woman to call her husband lord, and even rarer for a woman to obey her husband
as she would the Lord.

Ephesians 5:22-24
Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the
husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church,
He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to
Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.

Even as a man must have a heavenly vision to surrender his own will for his life to
Christ, so too must the godly woman have a heavenly vision in order for her to
surrender her life to her husband. If the woman is seeking to find all her fulfillment
in this life then she will never choose this course. Only those who look to a heavenly
reward can with joy turn their back on this world and its alluring offerings of self-
fulfillment and pleasure. Only by understanding that her reward is elsewhere can a
woman choose to accept man as her head and to refuse to have a head of her own.

I have encountered so many examples of women who are not walking in these things,
even as I have encountered many men who are not seeking the will of Christ for their
lives. How often has a man declared to his wife that he senses Christ leading him in
some direction and the wife opposes him because her will is not in agreement?

I know of men who felt called to be missionaries and their wives adamantly refused
to go along. The wife wanted to stay close to home, close to family and friends. The
wife may have had some plans of her own regarding career and education, and her
husband’s will conflicted with these things. She may have simply wanted to have a
‘normal’ life where she could raise children in the comfort of surroundings that were
familiar to her. The wife ultimately was unwilling to bend. She was unwilling to
subject her will to that of her husband.

I could give example after example of such things, for this is the norm in the church
today, but let us press on to other matters. There will often come times when a wife
or daughter is required to submit and to give up their own will and desire for that of
a husband or father. As large and difficult of an obstacle as this is, there is much
more that is entailed in losing one’s own life and laying it down for another. There
is much more to a wife being subject to her husband as to the Lord.

I listened to a minister speak on the issue of submission many years ago. He gave an
example from a very practical experience in his own life. This minister had some
land and he proceeded to build a fence on it. He had a young man whom he hired to
assist him with the fence. Throughout the day the minister noted some profound
things as he worked with this young man.