This post is the fifth in my series, “Don’t Be Afraid to Obey.” In this series, I am exploring what God has taught me about obedience and trust in marriage. Click here for parts one, two, three, and four. Subscribe to follow along as new parts are released.
“For in this way in former times the holy women also, who hoped in God, used to adorn themselves, being submissive to their own husbands; just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, and you have become her children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear.” - 1 Peter 3:5-6
Special note: In this series, I am addressing wives of good men, not abusive manipulators — but do not be quick to put your husband in that category. If you think your husband is, you should be speaking with the elders of your church.
What does an obedient heart look like when you disagree?
First, “wives submit to your husbands in all things”1 does not mean agree or pretend to agree at all times. We are to be our husband’s helper, and agreeing all the time is not helpful.
Reconciling this in my mind, it has been helpful to think about my kids. I expect them to be obedient. If they don’t understand, I still expect obedience. But if they want to understand and ask me questions, I am happy to talk with them about it.
Furthermore, my desire, especially as the kids grow in maturity, is for them to come to me if they think that I’m wrong about something, and for me to be willing to listen and change if I agree. Disagreeing with me does not mean they are being disobedient. In fact, it’s obedience to what I’ve been teaching them: God’s Word is our highest authority. Having done their part, they are not responsible for my response. If I don’t heed them when they’re right, they ought to accept that without bitterness.
So obedience does not mean thoughtless submission - though it is submission.
It does not look like giving no feedback when your husband proposes something. I may not know your husband, but a habit of doing that would certainly not please mine. He actually gets quite frustrated if I try to obey in a rigid, rote way and don’t tell him what I think. He tells me he actually didn’t marry me because he wanted a robot to do chores and help with children and agree with everything he says.
Tim Bayly has likened wives to editors. “Some of you men don’t let your wives edit your lives, and it shows,” he said. An editor who doesn’t criticize is no help at all, and we are called to be our husband’s helper. When I say you are to obey your husband, I am not saying that you should never disagree nor express disagreement with your husband’s choices. You should. My husband has pushed me to grow in this area. Somehow, I’m able to fail at both ends! I need to learn to submit quietly, and I need to learn to share my counsel with my husband.
And if your heart is like mine, if you want to avoid any discussion, it probably means you have some rebellion or irritation or bitterness in your heart that you need to work through, not that you are happily submissive. If I can’t speak without giving vent to that, it may be time to listen silently and then pray through it before I respond. (Just do a better job at letting your husband know that is what you’re doing than I usually am - he knows a silent, unhappy wife is not submissive or a joy!)
There was a time when I consistently pushed back against what Parker said, and eventually he forbade me to argue. He expected obedience, no questioning. It was humbling. You may need to do this, perhaps self-imposed, if you have bad habits to break. But this ought to be a limited time of training. It is good, if you are committed to working through it.
Think of disagreeing with your husband like the boy who cried wolf - it better be significant to be worth opposing him.
I don’t mean issues of preference, when neither of you really cares what the other thinks. If you both enjoy debating the proper way to measure flour or who has the best basketball team, have at it.
This also isn’t the same as talking through significant issues that you need to be on the same page about, such as how your family does things — unless that turns into a fight. People define disagreement and arguments differently. You can have different opinions and work together on what you’re going to do about them. If you can do that without significant frustration, that’s not the disagreement I’m talking about. I’m talking about when you know what he thinks, you’ve discussed it together, you still don’t think it’s good, and you’re still trying to get him to change his opinion by some means other than loving (not manipulating) prayer. That should be rare.
Your default should be joyful obedience. Until you understand that and are working on implementing it, you should not be talking about exceptions.
If you fight with your husband a lot (or you don’t but only because you’re not submitting and he’s letting you, so you’re realizing you need to), don’t expect this to be fixed immediately. My husband and I have a variety of disagreements. Many of them should, in an ideal world, not have happened, or at least not the way they did. However, they slowly have become fewer, easier to work through, and faster to recover from.
I also have been avoiding calling these fights, because to some people that means yelling and physical contact, and while I won’t say that raised voices have never been part of our disagreements, it’s rare and hasn’t happened in a long time.
How do you know when you’re being helpful and when you’re just avoiding submission?
Consider being a helper versus being responsible. If you’ve ever had to lead a large event, you know that having people who know the difference is important. I’ve been in a number of VBS meetings, and I’ve noticed how the people who are supposed to be helping respond to the people in charge. There are three types of helpers.
First, there are people who wish they were in charge. They will tell the leader what to do, complain about decisions, and when their advice isn’t followed, they talk about all the bad consequences that follow (I know, because after years of doing VBS, I thought I knew how to do it well and had to restrain myself from being this person!).
Second, there are people who don’t want to help. They will not make suggestions, will barely show up, and only do the bare minimum of what is required. If they talk, it’s to make complaints formulated as questions or direct complaints. They’re not invested or interested. You wonder why they are there at all. They may help with physical needs, but they are no help when setting goals or making plans.
Finally, there are people who are happy to follow you. They will share ideas, ask questions, and then keep their mouth shut once you have made a final decision. They want to understand what is going on, they’re thoughtful and give advice, and they never undermine your leadership. If something goes poorly, they don’t come with an ‘I told you so’ attitude — rather, they see this as an opportunity for the leader to learn and do a better job next time. When you’re leading, this is the person you want on your team.
You should not be trying to take over. Nor should you be dead weight, a mere body to do deeds. A good helper on a team doesn’t simply say, “whatever you want,” all the time (the second type). That’s the job of an underage worker — a gofer, as my dad would say. It’s not the job of a partner or a right-hand man, the sort of helper your husband needs. They have thoughts, give counsel, make decisions, and lead those under them, but in accordance with the leader’s goals, not their own.
On the other hand, a good helper doesn’t try to lead what the leader hasn’t delegated. They use their experience to help the leader make good decisions, and then they let the leader take responsibility for those decisions, and try to help things go as well as they can.
Remember, God made you to be a helper to your husband. Your husband needs your help. Your job is to do that without trying to take his job. His job is to be responsible. Even if he accepts all your ideas, the outcome is on him. Understanding this allows you to give all the advice in the world without being rebellious.
Seeking to be a helper to a responsible leader will help you discern how to respond to various situations.
Say your husband tells you you shouldn’t agree to lead the committee at church. You’re too busy. You need to be spending more time at home. You disagree.
This could go several ways, depending on your situation and history. One, you keep your mouth shut, trust him, and spend more time working at home. Another, you ask him for an explanation. What are the things he thinks are missing? Is there something that, if you were able to fix, he would find it ok for you to lead it? Alternatively, does he think it would be ok if you join the committee rather than lead it? Sometimes, you might present an argument. “Would you be ok with me sharing my thoughts? I know I’ve been busy lately, but everything has been running well at home. I think I should add this on, and if it becomes too much, I can cut back on how frequently we have people over. I think they really could use my help.”
Notice the attitude. It’s always coming from a heart with a desire to respect your husband, his opinions, and his wishes, even when in disagreement — and with a willingness to submit to his preference if your thoughts don’t change his mind.
How do you know when you should speak? Here are six things to consider as reasons to speak:
What he desires to do is clearly against Scripture. (At least you think so - but be open to being shown otherwise.) Of course, this need not always be the case, but it does tip the scales towards speaking when it is.
It is not your habit. You have a habit of going along cheerfully with your husband’s preferences even when you don’t agree.
He hasn’t asked you not to speak.
He has asked you to speak.
You are willing to be wrong, and also to submit if he isn’t convinced to change by your disagreement.
You can bring your opinion to him in a submissive posture, with a desire to help him, not to prove you’re right.
If some of these things are true, it may be proper for you to talk to your husband about your thoughts. The most important piece here is that you are actively cultivating an obedient heart, like we discussed in the last article. How can you help your husband do his job if you refuse to do yours?
Remember, you are called to obey your husband, and you are called to help him. Those two things should not be in conflict. Rather, they should work together.
This may all seem difficult if instead of having high expectations your husband does not lead you. In that case, this is an area you may need to speak, at least if he is a believer. But again, your job is not to lead him to be a leader. It’s to help him be a leader.
Obedience requires discernment. If you’re jealous of my husband (reasonably, for sure, he’s pretty great), be careful. I am sharing my story, but you must love your own husband. That means you need to know your husband, including his weaknesses, and help him be a great leader. My husband is encouraged to be a good leader by me listening to him and reminding him to be patient. Your husband may be encouraged to be a good leader by you listening to him and reminding him that you want him to lead.
The best way to help your husband lead is to follow any leadership he shows. Most of the Christian men I’ve seen who do not lead their homes tried and gave up because they didn’t like making their wives unhappy, and they would have had to fight their wives (for a long time) if they tried to lead. Their wives taught them that if they lead, their homes will be miserable, and then often they complain that their husbands don’t lead!
This is where we were heading. And if my husband didn’t have the foresight and perseverance necessary to oppose my (oh-so-sweet and innocent-looking) refusal to follow him, we’d have continued to have a happy-looking marriage, and then slowly reaped the fruit of disobedience, especially as our children grew. The trajectory of our marriage, happy as we were, was not good. Unless God was very gracious and somehow got through my thick head the need to change without working directly through him, we would have ended up in a bad place if Parker had not insisted that I change.
Perhaps reading this is God’s grace to you.
If you’re not being very purposeful to follow any leadership your husband shows, how can you complain that he is not a good leader?
Do not allow yourself any excuse. With or without your husband’s help, develop an obedient heart and a submissive spirit even in disagreements. Become a thoughtful helper to your husband.
Emotions often make this difficult, so there’s another big area we need to discuss. We will talk about that in our next article.
But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. - Ephesians 5:24