The Gift of Your Wife

"Whatever is done which does not honor her, will not last."

I have seen far too many marriages under stress and far too many lives self-destruct because the husband would not lay down his life for his wife.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her … that He might present … the church in all her glory …So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies…THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH…. love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband. (Eph. 5:25-33) 

Husbands love your wives and do not be embittered against them. (Col. 3:19)

When a husband asks me for my counsel on a situation, I always ask, “What does your wife’s have to say to you concerning it?” I always tell them to honor and accept their wife’s counsel. I have found every time I made a decision that did not honor Patti's spirit, but pressured her to agree with me, or worse yet, did something in disagreement with her, it always amounted to ashes. So of course, I have learned (the hard way) to honor and love my wife and respect her, her heart and her spirit.

And then God brings up bitterness. Don’t get bitter. It is like taking up a reproach against someone. It is judging without all the facts, and then forming a negative judgement. It is dis-honoring them. Not understanding.

Well, you say, how can a man possibly understand a woman?

I don’t know that God told me to understand Patti. That was not in the above verses, for sure. What is in the above verses is love, give up your preferences for hers, make sure she glows and radiates life, make sure you do everything in union with her, and keep your heart pure toward her, no anger, bitterness or judgment. So, yep, none of those requirements demand that I need to understand why she processes thoughts or emotions or decision-making differently than I do. (Actually, my guess is because she is brilliant, intuitive and nurturing.)

I know through my first year of journaling, God told me more than 50 times to love Patti. I told Him that I would as soon as I fixed her. He told me, “Mark, I did not tell you to fix your wife, I told you to love her.” Well, back at that point of my life I was into fixing everything - myself, others, Patti.

Over the years God has taught me that love and compassion are the center of life, not judging and fixing.

Jesus, moved by compassion, healed, delivered, taught… (Matt. 9:13).

The anointing of the Spirit rides on the carrier wave of compassion

Whatever is not by the Spirit produces death. Without compassion there is no life (Jn. 6:63).

No wonder satan has taught the Church to reject emotion and intuition as soulish and unreliable. This way we get to reject compassion and the voice of the Spirit. Then we certainly will not be anointed, and we could definitely dishonor our wives, who generally express more emotion and intuition than men do. We could spend our lives judging and disdaining rather than loving and healing. Sounds like satan’s plan, for sure. Time to tell satan to GET OUT of our minds and take his stinking, demonic, ungodly thinking with him!

It is time to honor, be compassionate, be intuitive, and heal our hearts, our marriages, our families, our relationships, and our outreach.

I actually had the opportunity to sit on a plane a couple of months ago and talk for 90 minutes to a lesbian about her homosexually without judging, condemning or coming against her. Instead I listened to her, her heart, her story, and then to the leading of the Holy Spirit in my heart. I simply shared my story of my inner battles with anger, hatred and lust which would not go away until I went through deliverance and had about 20 demons cast out of me, and then my heart was free to respond in righteousness, no longer being controlled by demons. She asked for my card so she could stay in touch. I gave it to her.

This sure has to be better than judging, disdaining, coming against and withdrawing from. Those were the things I did before God gave me a rhema word, “Honor all people” (1 Pet 2:17). Talk about a game changer! The whole honor thing begins with honoring yourself, then your spouse, your children, and working out from there. I doubt this can be effectively accomplished without ongoing journaling, where we receive God’s thoughts which He guarantees are completely different from our thoughts. So fine, I can stop my thinking and replace it with His voice. Try it. The Holy Spirit brings life to all He touches.