The organization was founded by Belah Rose who saw the crisis of marriages everywhere and wanted to ring the bell of HOPE! She heard a speaker admonish the listeners: “Don’t decide what you want to do with your life based on what others think you should, the money, or even ‘the sure thing.’ Instead, answer the question: ‘What is the work that needs to be done?'” For Belah, Delight Your Marriage was the resounding answer to that question.

Marital Health Assessment

When you’re not sure why things aren’t changing, and you feel you’re throwing darts in the dark — it’s vital you know where you’re standing right now to improve strategically.

193-Part 4: I used to "submit" - Delight Your Marriage

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Here’s what is covered in today’s episode

There are a ton of “submit” verses in the Bible.
- They were used to abuse me in my first marriage.
- I think these also have made men feel that they had the right to abuse & justify their actions with the misuse of these scriptures.
But what people don’t realize is they are reading the Bible (and even translations of the Bible) through a patriarchial lense.
- Don’t believe me?
- What does “help-meet” mean?
  - This word which Eve is supposed to be to Adam.
  - Well, it’s not the supporting, secondary, servant role you may have always thought.
  - The original word in Hebrew is “ezer kenegedo”. Ezer is used 21x in the Old Testament
    - When speaking of Eve 2x in Genesis, it’s translated as “help”
    - Three times it is used to describe a powerful nation that comes to save the nation of Israel from their enemies
    - The other 16x it’s used to describe God as a military warrior, the powerful savior, giving desperate salvation from foes
    - Is that how you see women?
    - Is that how you see yourself?
What if more verses are viewed through this patriarchial lense and we just aren’t aware?
What scriptural references do we KNOW for sure speak of female leadership even in the New Testament (sprinkled among the books including “wives submit to husbands” verses are found):
- Woman apostle
- Paul honoring the 10 out of 28 people who have been colaborers
- Woman deacons

As a feminist myself, this material breaths life to my soul

BUT, what if there IS something to this “submitting” thing in the 21st century, Christian marriages with powerful, feminist women…?
What if there’s an empowering message for both men and women when done “right”?
This is a morsel of a much larger conversation, but God-willing it will leave all of us with a bit more of a softened heart to where God may be leading us.

This isn’t easy territory, but I pray that it is an eye-opening episode for every listener.

—

It was my husband’s birthday this week and I’m asking every listener to take 5 minutes to review the show!

If you’re not sure how, here’s a link for delightyourmarriage.com/itunes

Download this episode!

0:02
Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. This show where you hear from amazing and inspiring wives sharing their struggles, triumphs, and advice for this journey called marriage. Here’s your host belah. Rose.

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Oh, right. Welcome, welcome, I am so grateful that you are joining me on the delight your marriage Podcast. I’m not sure if this is your first time, if so, welcome. This is going to be less scary than you think it is with such a title. But I will say that this is a podcast where I really focus in on how to make your marriage, the best really as peaceful and purposeful and most fulfilling and in God’s well as possible, to really give you joy and fulfillment in this life, and most importantly, to bring most glory to God and ultimately, to do what is most important in eternal life. So today, I’m going to be talking about submitting, which is a really difficult topic to be talking about, I’m going to be talking about how I think so many people have got it wrong, and how I used to think about it that I think was absolutely wrong, and actually resulted in the abuse of my marriage. But I also want to talk about what could it look like when it’s actually done right? That you might be very surprised about. And it’s actually very empowering, and freeing and really just wonderful, in a very different way than probably you’ve ever heard about it. So I’m going to talk about that. Now, today, I want to just encourage you actually funny enough, I have recorded this podcast on my husband’s birthday, which was just last week, and I had a little surprise party for him with wonderful, dear friends of ours from church in the neighborhood. And it was really, really a special time. But as a gift to him, you may know that my husband is incredibly invested in this podcast, he prays for you all, he listens to every podcast before I post it, because He just cares so much. And I want to ask you for a little birthday present for him. If you would take a couple minutes this week, to post a review of the podcast on iTunes or Stitcher or wherever you listen to the podcast. Just a quick review a sentence or two? What is this podcast meant in your life, I know that we have heard really amazing stories about what God has done through it. And I just encourage you. Often when people are scrolling through podcasts on what to listen to, they look really only at the numbers of how many reviews a podcast gets. And so I’m just requesting that you go ahead and take a moment to add one additional review to that number right now. I think we’re at like 116 So what I’m hoping for by the end of this week is 200 I know that there are far far far many more of you that listen from literally around the world, almost every country which is just shocking, really, I never listened I never look at the numbers because I don’t like the way that it affects me positively or negatively or prideful or all these kinds of things. But I happen to need to the other day because I was switching background hosting thing so I needed to look at some of the analytics that way and it was shocking. So I just encourage if you haven’t taken a moment to do that I just asked if you could put that on your your goal list this week to just get it done. should take no more than five minutes. If you’re not sure how to do it for iTunes I’ve got a quick tutorial just step by step instructions that delight your marriage.com/itunes Yeah, thanks so much for doing that this week as a little birthday present to my husband and ultimately something that’s going to get more of the word out of delight your marriage and God willing to bring more listeners and more people into alignment with Jesus in their marriages and in their lives and peace and purpose and joy in their marriages. All right God bless let’s listen into yeah this difficult but God willing, really freeing content

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father, I come before you Lord, and I asked you got to I give wisdom. And I pray, Lord, that my words would be your heart, God and you would direct me. And I pray that the wife, on the other end, God would have a heart of discernment and wisdom and a soft heart, God, soften our heart. And I pray also for the husband that may be listening God, that You would also soften his heart God. And we would both look with fresh eyes at what you might want to speak to us through this conversation. In Jesus name, Amen. So this is the second time that I’m recording this, and I throw out a lot of my notes from the first time because it’s a really hard topic to have a conversation about submit is, is really wrought with, I think, misunderstandings, and it has been the basis of a lot of abuse of women through the centuries. And I think that there is a ways to understand what I hope that there are ways that I can open eyes to see what is biblical, and what might be our interpretation of things that are actually incorrect. So what does submission? What is it actually biblical submission? If you do a Google search, and a concordance search or something, and, you know, what does, what does the Bible say about husbands and wives submitting, you’ll find a lot of verses and there, there are a ton of them. And it’s, you know, it feels very, like, hard to see it any other way, but that the wife obeys the husband. And that’s, that’s the end of the story. That’s what it is. And that’s what it looks like in my previous marriage, you know, my husband would tell me what to do, and I would do it, and I would have resentment and anger, and I would fight back. But then eventually, I would do it. And I would apologize, and I would come back. And then shortly thereafter, I would, you know, have this resentment and that kind of thing, because I was being treated like a child. And you know, and not even maybe not even that extreme, you know, maybe there were times that I just, I wasn’t treated like a queen or a princess, you know. And so, I, you know, I felt like I wasn’t being taken care of, I felt like he didn’t care about my needs as a woman. And cherishing me and loving me and caring about me and taking me on dates and taking care of our finances and taking care of our family. I felt completely alone and lonely and abused. And and that’s what submission was for me. And so when I, you know, read about it in the Bible, I tried my very best to do it. But you know, I couldn’t I was I was grasping to hold on, because it was it was so I wasn’t getting what I needed. So how could I quote, submit? You know, but it’s so it’s so hard to describe, because there were things that I were I was doing as, quote, submission. So I would, he would tell me that I need to work on humility and pride. And so I would buy books on humility, and read them and underline them and do Bible studies on humility. And very literally, these are things that I would do, or he told me that I needed to work on sex. So I would go and figure you know, find books on it and read them Christian books. And I thought I was doing you know, what I was supposed to do as a as a wife who submits, now I would just do what he told me to do. And so, but resentment grew, I mean, it just very naturally grew was me just to resent whatever he had to tell me, because it was just a constant. I needed to change in this way. And he needed to teach me this. And he was always justified in doing the things that he was doing because he was the leader of our household and I wasn’t letting him lead if he didn’t. He wasn’t able to do certain things. So if you’ve listened to part one of this abuse series, you’ll hear more of the story, but

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I mean, I was absolutely abused in that marriage. And one of them was finances. I made the money because I was working three jobs and he was in school, but so was I and anyway, he had to have the most expensive everything. Even like polo T shirts, rather than like going to the thrift store and buying $3 T shirts, no, no, it had to be brand new polo shirts is what was required for him. And so much so that I was an RA, we weren’t living together, I was an RA to save money. And so during spring break, I wasn’t allowed to go stay with him at his apartment. Instead, I had to stay at a friend’s apartment because she went home to her family. I stayed at her apartment, and we had no money, so much so that I bought a pack of protein bars. And I ate one protein bar a day, for a week, until I was able to go back to my job as an RA, and they pay for your food. So I was able to eat. And so I mean, that’s the level of control he had over me and justified it with me submitting to him. And there’s verses in the Bible that you could read that concordance search, and you could be like, yeah, he was doing just what he was supposed to do. And, you know, in your heart, that’s not right. You know, it’s not right. And so when we look at the Bible, we have to look at it in context of what they’re really talking about. And we have to look at it with humility, to say, You know what, it says this, but I’m wondering if that’s God’s heart for this world. And and, you know, does that align with some of the other things I know about God of, of other stories, and, you know, the ways that he made it. So for example, something that is very sad, that we have understood for, you know, I’ve understood my whole life. It wasn’t until my pastor talked about this just a few weeks ago, several weeks ago when they did series, but it was the helpmeet. Word in, in the creation story, where when God created man and said, It’s not good for man to be alone. And so he created a quote, helpmeet for for Adam, and that was Eve, and that word as a connector help meet, I want to just break it down. Connect Oh means equal part of a hole. So it’s perfectly corresponding to the other part. It’s like you have half of a circle, and then the other half is an equal, equal parts needed. Victor Hamilton actually says what God created for Adam, will exactly correlate with Adam. It’s like the North Pole and the South Pole. No one debates about who is better, but they’re needed for this world to turn properly. So as are that other word helper, that’s actually used 21 times in the Old Testament, two times in Genesis, it’s used to describe women. Three times it is used to describe a powerful nation that comes to save the nation of Israel. They are the helper that saves the nation of Israel. It’s not it’s not just a someone that comes in serves the nation of Israel, like a slave or servant. No, no, they save the nation of Israel. And then the other 16 times in the Bible, it’s used to describe God, God as the Savior, as the powerful almost, and a lot of times in a military context, where someone is desperately needed, when being saved is desperately needed. And that’s where God comes in. A couple of verses to describe this as the verse I lift my eyes up to the hills, where does my help come from? Which is, My help comes from you, the creator of heaven and earth. So it’s not just a servant helper. That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about savior, help, needed desperately. All right, and so then. So, when you look at scripture, it actually has been interpreted in a patriarchal worldview, because that’s what we’ve been living through for generations. And so when we look at Scripture, we have to realize that it’s not

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it’s God breathed. It teaches us it it of edifies us, but we have to do it with humility, because we are fallible humans, God is not fallible, but we are fallible, so our interpretations may be wrong because because that’s the way it is we’re we’ve got to interpret the scriptures, you know, languages, I don’t know if you’re familiar, but you know, a language, a language to another language to another language, there’s so many nuances just between words that things don’t, easily or clearly, or automatically line up with another word. And so we have to, you know, in the Bible, they’ve had to take shortcuts where one word that might have a rich variety of meanings, or basically a phrase, that would actually mean the meaning of one word, and they’ve had to shortcut it into helper rather than savior, powerful military context. You know, help in in the terms of needed, you know, support. So. So, yeah, so that’s just understand, like, what you might have understood as all of this submission, and all this stuff that you have understood yourself as a woman is actually that God made you as a warrior, a Savior, to your husband, totally equal in half of the whole, right. And then, you know, part of scripture in Eve, it talks about, you know, when, when they sinned, God cursed Adam and Eve, and he cursed Adam, with him having to labor and toil with the ground of the earth, and that it was going to be, you know, hard, hard work. And tons of history can tell you that, you know, men have been out there slaving in the fields, and a lot of men are currently doing that in is hard, hard work. I mean, there are so many people around the world that are just slaving away at the Earth. But that’s not the way God wanted it to be. That was a curse. That was a curse. And a lot of men are not doing that anymore by God’s grace. And they’re, they’re able to enjoy so many other things. They don’t have to slave away in the earth. And the the curse that was on a woman, right was pain in childbirth, and that man rolling over her. But that is a curse. That is not the way it quote should be. It’s not that a woman should have to have pain in childbirth. So you know, in what is it when you get the shot in the back where you know, you’re numbed? That that’s not sacrilege and against what we should be doing? No, that’s no, that’s a gift. Great, great, let’s do it, bring on the mat. Uh, you know, if you want to medicated birth, if you want an unmedicated birth, now we have the options, that doesn’t mean that you are sinning because you aren’t ascribing to what a curse was. And that’s the same thing with a male ruling over the female. That’s not God’s intention. That was a curse. And so we are constantly supposed to be moving towards his kingdom on earth, you know, and that’s what Jesus came, he was able to break the curse, and he was able to break the curse of sin. And that’s what we have been living under. And we don’t have to, as followers of Jesus, we don’t have to live under that curse. So So yeah, just just a dollop of maybe your worldview has been shaped by ways that, you know, we haven’t been asked to live, that. I encourage you to just look with fresh eyes and, and just have some some fresh understandings. I haven’t read this book, but my pastor recommended is called half the church, and it’s about women in church. And anyway, I just encourage you to start reading about this stuff. If this is like, you know, revolutionary, and stuff that you just really can’t handle me talking about. Because I encourage you, there’s, there’s just tons of understandings out there that that are very well, based in the history of theology. In fact, let me talk about just the first Christians that were women. So in Romans 16, you know, Paul was talking to the church of Rome, and he was saying, you know, greet these particular people. And he wanted them to greet them with,

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with, with respect, and so it says, it starts out it says, I commend to you, our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church at sin Cray, that you may welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints and help her in whatever she may need from you. For she has been a patron Have many and of myself as well. And greet Priscilla and Aquilla my fellow workers and Christ Jesus who risked their necks for me, to whom not only I give thanks, but all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks as well greet also the church in their house, greet my beloved EP and nittis, who was the first convert to Christ in Asia greet Mary, who has worked hard for you Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners, they are well known to the apostles and they are in the church, Christ before me. All right, I’ll stop there. He continues on and names 28 people, and 10 of those people are actually women. So that might be shocking. But let me tell you about some of those women that he lists. Phoebe is actually described as a deacon. And so the same word that he uses to describe himself, Paul, and also some other male leaders like Timothy, and Deacon, that word sorry, that’s used for Deacon is also translated as servant. And certainly Paul and Timothy are also servants. But in a lot of translations, when it’s referred to as a male, it’s referred to as Deacon and when is describing a female is referred to as servant, but it is the same word. So once again, with our patriarchal view worldview, a lot of translations have been infiltrated and have been, have been blinded to the quality of women and men, even in the church, history, and Priscilla and Aquilla. Now that’s a wife and a husband, and Priscilla is that couple has mentioned six times in the Bible and four times she is actually named before her husband, which is unique, and acts. There’s a great preacher, a polis, and Priscilla and Aquila actually explain they take him into their home and explain the ways of God more adequately, they basically are teaching him a proto, you know, where they should, where he should be, where his theology is a bit off. And so, so that is an example of Priscilla teaching a teacher. And then there’s another area where they leave Ephesus, and they’re teaching the both of them, and then talks about Jr. In Romans 16, seven, Andronicus and Junia says, outstanding among the POS of the apostles. So it’s actually describing Jr, this woman as an apostle. And this has caused a big ruckus because Paul and Peter are considered apostle, that’s the highest leadership in the church. And so how in the world could Jr, be an apostle? And so for years, actually, they actually, some people that were transcribing the Bible thought, well, it must not be a woman, it’s got to be a man. So they actually changed the name to Junius, which is a male’s name. And they use that translation from 1927 to the 1990s. And it wasn’t until that around the 1990s, that evidence came out that for sure it was a woman. And the translations have now mostly changed back to Junia as a woman, Apostle. So any there’s a there’s many others I could discuss with you, but don’t have the opportunity at this time. But the point is that many women were church leaders, and even at the very beginning, and if that’s not been your experience in the church, why? Why not? And so I just encourage you to maybe there’s a way to consider this differently. And so now you might be like, okay, all right, fine. So there were Christian leaders, all that kind of stuff. What about submission? You could, you know, do that concordance search, you can see all these words about submission? Well, I want to say, maybe you haven’t been interpreting the scriptures appropriately. Maybe there are other ways that when you look at the character of Jesus and the character of God, and the ways that he used women, that the scriptures have been used to abuse women, not to

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hold them in the proper place that they should be. So that’s my first point there. The second point is that I want to use a word called surrender, not submit, because I think submit is wrought with so much negativity and is so misunderstood and misinterpreted by men, and by women who have sadly been I think infiltrated by the patriarchal society that we live in today. And have been for generations, and the Bible has been interpreted for generations that way. But excuse me, um, surrender, I think is a biblical notion. And I want to describe what that word means. And I think it is biblical. And I’ve talked about the surrendered wife many times on the, on the podcast, because I think it basically teaches a 21st century understanding here That’s Biblical, even though this is not a Christian book. But I think it gives us wisdom as wives, that actually accords with the Bible in these very hard to understand scriptures. So surrender. I believe what what that looks like, is relaxing, releasing control, freeing yourself up. Treating your husband with respect, and receiving the pleasure of life and joy, that He longs to give you, your husband and receiving the protection and the ability to be taken care of, and receiving the good things that a woman wants in a marriage. And I want in my marriage. And that’s what surrender allows for. But surrendering does not mean being. being told what to do, having to obey Him, not having a personality, not having an opinion, being beneath him, being the primary take care of take care take caretaker of kids, believing that he’s smarter than you that he makes all the decisions that you don’t get to say what you think that you don’t get a say in things that you don’t get to respond that you get to be insulted. And you just have to deal with negative comments and a negative, disrespectful way that he is to you. That’s not what I’m talking about. That’s not surrendering. I don’t think that’s what God wants either. But surrendering is being dignified as a woman is respecting yourself, and being cherished in your own home. And being honored. And having the freedom to do what you want, without the pressure to have to control what’s going on. So that’s what my marriage looks like now is that I am my highest value in my relationship with my husband, in the way that I treat him is respectfully, what that used to mean, in my first marriage was what I kind of described was to do whatever he said, and that was respect. But it also was a pattern of criticism and resentment and anger and, you know, just unrest and strife. And that wasn’t respected at all. You know, and kind of combating his teaching with my teaching and, you know, trying to justify myself and all that kind of stuff. Instead, what it looks like now is that I’m not critical. And I don’t try to teach or make him change those or that doesn’t speak respect to me anymore. Now I, I try to encourage the things that I think are wonderful about him. And I try to hold my tongue when I want to criticize when I want to bring him down a peg, I try to hold my tongue. And I try to encourage the things that I think are wonderful about him. And by God’s grace, he becomes more of the man that I think is wonderful about him because I’m giving such wonderful feedback. And I’m so happy with those things. Because he wants me to be happy. He wants to treat me like a queen. But if I don’t give him the space to do that, he doesn’t have the ability. He doesn’t have the freedom to take, excuse me full responsibility to go ahead and make me happy. And so

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what what I think trips a lot of people up is it’s like, okay, well what about Christ in the church, that metaphor that describes husband and wives? Because isn’t that like, you know, the church has got to just lay it all down and follow Jesus and That is absolutely the ideal is that, you know, Jesus is laying his life down for her, the church, and she is submitting or surrendering to what he is, you know, leading her to. So, you know, I don’t know where you are in your marriage, I don’t know what your marriage looks like. But when you get to a spot where you are able to do that, I, I want you to do that, you know, my husband would absolutely lay his life down for us, for me, my kids. I mean, he even says that, and it’s absolutely true. Like he is a man of honor and wisdom. And he’s incredible. He’s an incredible man. That’s not how he’s always been. And I have not always been the woman that has surrendered, and has been able to encourage who he is that looks like Jesus. And slowly but surely, he’s become more of the man to be like Jesus, and I have become more of a woman that is happy to be led in the ways that he is leading us and moving us towards Jesus. But you know, what’s interesting is that, because I have not exerted the control that I used to exert, he then is freed up to take full responsibility of our family, because he doesn’t have to contend with me, as to whether or not I’m going to fight him for whatever it is, where I’m like, I know that you’re following Jesus, I know that you are leading this family to where you feel convicted, it needs to go. But you know what that is? That is responsibility. That is serious responsibility. When you are charged with leadership, that is responsibility. And that means eternal responsibility, right? And so when you actually give him that responsibility, he feels it. There is a weight on his shoulders now, because he can’t just, you know, blame it on her. Now he is responsible. Because that’s what happened in the Garden of Eden, right? She gave him the fruit. And he took the fruit and ate it. And then he blamed on on her. Well, it’s the wife that gave it to me. God was like, no, no, no, you are responsibly, sir. And so that’s what it’s like, if you don’t give him responsibility. If you don’t surrender, he can’t be responsible. He can’t be the man that God wants him to be. Because he’s like, Well, I don’t have, I don’t have to, like, he just throws up his hands. But he, when you actually surrender, when you actually be like, well, we’re gonna drown if you’re not the one that saves us. So, you know that I mean, I was coaching a woman just the other day that, you know, I was like, if you’re, if you died, your husband would take care of your family, you know, he would, he would step it up, you know, he would, so that he can step up, so that he can feel the weight of responsibility on his shoulders, because you trust Him, you make him feel like he is a man that can do it. And then he does, and then he shocks the socks off of you, because he does. And you might be like, you know, belah, you don’t know my husband, he doesn’t have the capability of, of leading our household, you know, I’ve got to tell him what to do with all the finances because he can’t do it himself. Like, there’s no way he could do that. You know, I’ve got to teach him XY and Z, because he is so far away from wise choices in that realm. Well, let me tell you a tiny bit about my story with my current husband now, because I was in those shoes. I was like, but there is no way he can, for example, handle our finances none. We had to have argument after argument about it. And there was so much tension and strife and I was just like this, why is this not working? I know how to do all these other things in our marriage. Why is the finances not

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you know, why is there strife here? And eventually what happened was, you know, oh, well, let me tell you a little bit about our backgrounds is that I went to college I graduated I became had various, actually kind of three or four other careers and I, several of them I had to manage budgets, and even up to, I think it was more than a million dollars is probably the biggest budget that I’ve managed. And so that’s actually been part of my role to do those kinds of things. And I really love strategy. And I really love just Yeah, I mean, I love kind of thinking about things like that sometimes so. So, um, you know, to think that I was the most equipped person to handle our finances is probably an understatement. And so my husband, though, was grew up in a very, very poor, far under poverty level, and family and he had to work at a very early age, which means he did not get to focus on studies, his highest education was finishing high school. And, you know, I actually am kind of mad at his high school teachers, because I think there are a lot of gaps there that he has to, he has had to learn all by himself, which hasn’t been fair. But anyway, he is a brilliant, brilliant man. But in terms of formal education. That’s, that’s it. And he didn’t actually have exposure to computers, and the Internet and that kind of stuff until he was in his 20s. And so, or late teens, at least pretty, I think it was 20s. Anyway, he. So there was no reason for him to be able to understand even how to do this, everything was in my name. All the bills were paid, you know, online stuff that he had no idea of, so why in the world, would that be something that I would surrender to him? I mean, that seems to make no sense at all. And yet, there was so much strife around it, and I read, surrendered wife, and I was like, You know what, I, I’m gonna just do a crazy thing right now. And I’m gonna surrender it. And I’m just gonna say, You know what, God, if it takes him five or 10 years of, you know, wasting money until he gets it, or if it, you know, kills me, at least I’m happy because I don’t even know what’s going on. Maybe we’re 30 or $300,000 in debt, well, it’s up to him, he is good. He’s gets the weight, he has to feel what’s wrong, you know, I don’t, I don’t see it. It’s not up to me. And so it took a while, took some months of him to actually trust that I was giving it up. And he started to move, he started to really take ownership of those finances. And he even went and took a class, a financial class, Financial Peace University, he took that class, he paid everything online, every little bill that I had, you know, swept under the rug and been like, Oh, it’s just a medical bill, I don’t want to pay that, or whatever, it just these, these things that I myself was, was not attending to, he just flew with it. And now I don’t think about it, like, you know, when it comes to mine, and I, you know, started getting concerned or whatever. And I’m, I mentioned it, and he’s like, babe, I’ve got it, you don’t have to worry about it. And it’s like a huge relief on me that I don’t have to be concerned that it’s up to him to take care of our family, and the kind of power and the kind of respect he feels, because he has that full responsibility. And so then he can treat me like the queen. I deserve to be treated like he can say, Hey, honey, let me take you on a date. Let me buy you flowers, or, you know, I, I bought some food for us, or we’re going on a picnic with the family or whatever. He is the one that knows the money that’s available. So he is the one that can then buy me dinner. And that’s all up to him. And it’s beautiful. I feel so romantic. I’m romanced by this man rather than before. It’s like, well, we don’t have the money to do that. But now it’s like, I don’t know if we have the money or not. But my husband’s saying we do. So I get to just enjoy I don’t even have to think about it’s like we’re dating again. And so that’s what surrender looks like it doesn’t look like

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it doesn’t it doesn’t look like what it used to look like. And this is what it was required though. He wouldn’t have been able to get there if I hadn’t have surrendered control and not criticized and not been having my fingers on it at all, but just honey, I can’t I can’t do it anymore. It’s too stressful. And and then give it all to him all of it. So that’s just one example of what surrender looks like in my marriage and and how we have a peaceful marriage and how, you know, God is able to lead us because that’s my, my posture. And once again, it’s not something that you know, now I have to do everything he says or, or whatever. But ultimately what it is, is it’s respect and it’s you know the way I describe something that I want is I describe it as something I want not as something we have to do or something he should do. I describe it as like, Honey, I’d really love to go to this place, do this thing. And then, because he wants to make me happy, because he loves me, he wants to make it happen. But he also knows the confines of our finances. So he’s, he might have to be like, well, you know, could we wait till next month, or, you know, I don’t think we can do that right now. But for the far majority of it, and we don’t, you know, we’re not brilliantly rich, we actually are pretty humble means at this point, and yet, he wants to make it happen for me, because he loves me. And if you think about that, as Christ in the church, it’s like, wow, he loves me. And he cares about what I want. Because he loves me. And he wants to lay his life down for me, like, Wow, that’s incredible. You know? So, um, so yeah, it’s different, it’s very, very different than you may have ever thought about it. And, you know, can I give a little bit of insight, or a little bit of advice to the husband, you know, demanding that, that she submits, and all this kind of kinds of things that actually it’s, it’s abusive, it’s not helpful. But what it can be is for you to, to love her in a very different way. And to look into this, like, read, read half the church, read that book, start to read feminist understandings of the Bible, so that you can start to treat her like she should be treated, she is equal to you. She is a savior and powerful and a warrior. She’s not the housekeeper. That is not what the woman that bears god image is supposed to be. But then as the woman surrendering, your marriage is freedom, and it’s in it’s joyful. And I love it. And, and I have managed men, many times, and I have come home to respect and love my husband in surrendering to Him. And, you know, you don’t respect and surrender, because he’s this incredible man. But you will be shocked when you do how much he becomes more of an incredible man and becomes an incredible man. And when you look at it, in the scriptures in that context, you start to be like, Oh, maybe that’s why it says, when I am essentially a woman of dignity, then he will be one over to Christ. Hmm, that starts to change your perspectives. And it doesn’t change it quickly, may or may. Not necessarily does your marriage change quickly. But I would say literally, you will see changes within three months. You absolutely bar none. And so So yeah, men, masculinity, the ones that you probably more than likely what you have been taught, growing up is wrong, it’s absolutely dead wrong. You do not become a man because of the way you abused women, the way you use them sexually, or the way you think about them, or that kind of thing. That is not what it being a man is, what being a man is, is laying your life down for women. And, and and what I am talking about does not mean that we’re demonizing men, at all, is that men need our voices. Women need our voices. You know, so many men have reached out to me on my podcast, because they’ve said, you know, the way you talk about men is not disrespectful. And so they have been encouraged when they listen to the podcast. But I just want to encourage I want to just challenge you men, you have been in an abusive

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society that has abused women in so many respects, and your wife has been abused in the society and it’s not okay. And so for you to take a season to understand what it means to biblically, look at womanhood, to really look at it and seriously go to the extremes of Christian feminist thought processes. I mean, half the half the churches, not as extreme as it comes, but go there and just see just open your eyes just just in case. You might have been misled to think help meet means that you get to have a housemaid for your wife like that’s not at all what it means. And actually the burden you carry to lay your life down for the church. I mean, the the burden that Christ carried for the church? Is that what you’re doing when you think about your wife? And so I just encourage you, man, when you think about woman, how do you think about her, and I encourage you, daughter of the Most High, there is more, there is far more, far more joy for you. It’s different than what you thought it was. I promise you that it’s different. It’s hard to articulate. That’s why I had to pray and, and just trust that God’s gonna use this somehow, some way to get through. But it’s different than what you thought it was. So let me just pray again. Father, you are good. And you know better. You know the best. And you know that we are fallible and higher are the heavens than above the earth or your or your ways higher than our ways and your thoughts higher than our thoughts God and we trust that what we needed to hear from this episode we heard, and we are encouraged and edified and challenged God. And I pray, Lord, that the wife, the husband, that is on the end of this podcast, Lord, that You would take them by the hand and say, let’s walk on this together. Let’s do this together. And Lord, if there is repentance that is needed God, I asked God for sweet repentance, that it is your kindness that leads us to repentance. It is your kindness. It’s not shame. It’s kindness, that you love us. You want us closer. You want more goodness in our hearts, you want to broaden and soften it so that we can love more we can give more. Lord, I pray that you would make dramatic changes in the lives of those that are listening. In Jesus name.

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Amen. Thanks so much for listening in. I’m just praying that whatever God wanted you to hear and the nuggets he wanted you to pull out that’s going to be relevant to you in your marriage, that that would be what you process and think about this week. And I pray that you’d come back next week, we’re going to be talking about sexual abuse. Very hard topic, topic, excuse me, but something that we absolutely need to be talking about one in four women are sexually abused and will be sexually abused this year. So it is definitely something that I want to discuss with you. And if you know anyone or have been abused yourself, I hope that you’ll tune back in to process that with me. In the meantime with I’d love to receive a review from you to learn how go to delight your marriage.com/itunes And yeah, an honest review of how delight your marriage has impacted your life. That would be phenomenal. Thank you so much. God bless you. I’m praying for you. I love you so much.

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Thanks for joining. If you’ve been inspired by this show, would you help spread the word? If you take a moment to review and subscribe others can find us more easily. Find out how to delight your marriage.com forward slash iTunes. Until next time, live with love, wisdom and passion

193-Part 4: I used to “submit”

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