photo courtesy of: Lauracg on Photobucket
How many times have I heard this over the years?
- My husband isn’t the spiritual leader of my home.
- My husband lets me do it all.
- I wish my husband would just do family devotions.
- Why isn’t my husband leading bible studies at home?
- If only my husband would…
Now, it could very well be that your husband is doing nothing to lead your family into greater spiritual depth. Perhaps he isn’t even saved. BUT very often I’ve found that it’s not so much that he ISN’T being the spiritual leader — it’s that he isn’t be the spiritual leader in the way I THINK HE SHOULD BE!
OUCH!
Let’s face it. As wives, we have VERY DEFINITE ideas on what spiritual leadership should look like. There needs to be family worship or family devotions daily or weekly. There needs to be a time when our husband leads a family bible study. The list goes on as long as our imagination will take us. In fact, we develop our ideas of what a spiritual leader in the home should look like by what OTHER HUSBANDS do. Not from our understanding of scripture, but from our anecdotal information from other wives.
NEWS FLASH: God gave our husbands to US and not to some other woman. And he gave them to OUR family, not to some other family.
God is training each individual husband to work as the head of their home. And, whether you recognize it or not, he IS the head of your home! Whether you honor him in that role or not, that’s who GOD has created him to be.
We have never, in the 27 1/2 years we’ve been married, had family devotions. We tried a couple of times, but it always seemed forced, strained and weird. We are not a *tradition* kind of family – at least not in that way. But we have done other things that sometimes look odd to others.
We talk about scripture ALL THE TIME. It is impossible to be in our home without scripture coming up in random conversations. My husband’s spiritual gift is knowledge and he remembers everything (and I do mean everything) he’s ever read or heard. Of course the Lord only brings it to light when it’s needed in a conversation, but it’s there. So when we are discussing a song lyric, Kevin will pop up a scripture verse that speaks to the truth or lie of that lyric. If we are discussing a movie, Kevin will bring in some scripture references to help us discern the value of the message from the movie in the light of the Kingdom of God. Kevin even talks scripture when he’s playing chess with the boys or with company!
And guess what? This IS what spiritual leadership is about!
It’s not about reading a certain book or singing a song or following a format. It is about a husband using his gifts to help build and strengthen his wife and children in the faith. It won’t look like any other family. It won’t follow the patterns of other homes. And it won’t look the way WE think it should look!
Years ago a dear sweet friend was telling me that she was concerned that her husband wasn’t leading in her home. She wanted him to lead their family bible studies (she was a homeschooler at the time) and he was telling her to lead a particular study during their school time. She thought he wasn’t leading. But he WAS. It just didn’t look the way she expected it to look. He WAS leading by instructing her in the passages of scripture to study with the children. He WAS leading by direction. He listened to her concerns about the children, choose the scripture that would be best for them and handed them to her to teach. He was leading by delegating.
Look at your own husband. How does he lead (where you may not even suspect) your family?
Linking to:
Marital Oneness, Encourage One Another, Wifey Wednesday, Winsome Wednesday, Women Living Well Wednesdays, Hearts 4 Home, Big Family Fridays
Okay, this is just weird because I was going to talk about this very same thing on my blog tomorrow!!! Great minds think alike. 😉 I hope you don’t think I stole it from you, my friend. LOL Great thoughts, Kate!
Terri, that IS funny! But we’ve done it before so I’m not surprised. Looking forward to reading yours.
Spiritual leadership in the home is a tricky thing. I think most Christian men (myself included) often feel we fall way short, but struggle knowing how to improve.
I’ve concluded that, for our home, spiritual leadership seems to look less like a structured Bible study, and more like serving my family in Christ’s love.
And Joe, that’s exactly how God will work in your family. Your children will grow following your example in LIVING the Word in their lives.
Thanks for sharing, brother!
Wonderful post Kate! So glad you shared it at The Alabaster Jar! More wives need to hear these messages. Hope to see you next week! Btw, I always feel so bad about not joining your link ups because I don’t right much in the ways of children/parenting. 🙁
duh! *write*
😀 Jolene, I’m so grateful for your link-up. I love being able to share on your blog. Come on over anytime, whether you get to link-up or not. I love your thoughts!!
Thankful for this post!
Thank you!
Thanks for coming by, Abigail!
I used to worry myself over my husband not being a spiritual leader. He was raised without a father figure and I always thought our household was missing out over that. Then God gave me some eye-opening experiences and I’ve discovered how blind I’ve been. Does he father or husband the way others do? Nope. He’s very unique, but he is passionate about our family and very expressive of love in ways that many fathers and husbands don’t find easy.
I’ve learned to recognize his gifts and try to be very vocal about what I appreciate about them. I’m also honest with him when there I times that I need him to be “the decision maker” in matters I can’t seem to come to peace about. He always steps in and handles it gracefully. Sometimes he just needs to know I trust him to lead and hear that from me. I fear I’ve often stifled his leadership with my own desire to control every situation. Building trust is key to him growing as a leader (and me growing as a helpmate) in our home. It’s nice to see others struggle with these thoughts. Thanks for posting this.
Tara, that is EXCELLENT! Thanks so much for sharing your experience to show that God builds our husbands into the leaders HE wants them to be! Wonderful.
New wife of a blended family. After being a single parent for soooooooo long, I welcomed not to have the heavy load of being HEAD of the house any more, something that I truly hated. Thus far hasn’t turned out like that at all. Which is a major disappointment. I feel like my load has increased 10 times. My prayer is that GOD works on my heart and helps me to focus on the things he my husband is good at. One day at a time is all I can do. This weekend, he sort of made an attempt to clean our bedroom and I forgot to praise him for it. I will remember to do that this evening. Little by little bit by bit, I am trusting GOD to work on both of us.