Part I: When Love Grows Cold
- Instead of asking, “How holy can I be?” we prefer to ask, “How far can
I go and still be called a Christian?” And how far we go depends upon the
benchmarks set by our peers rather than by God.
- Proverbs 4
23 Above all else, guard your heart,
for everything you do flows
from it.
24 Keep your mouth free of perversity;
keep corrupt talk far from
your lips.
25 Let your eyes look straight ahead;
fix your gaze directly
before you.
26 Give careful thought to the paths for your feet
and be steadfast in all your ways.
你的眼目要向前正看
你的眼睛当向前直观
- Job 31
31 “I made a covenant with my eyes
not to look lustfully at a
young woman.
我與眼睛立約，怎能戀戀瞻望處女呢？
- Paul allowed his relationship
with his brothers to take precedence over his position in his dealings with him.
Part II: Starting to Breathe
Again
Page 88-90
- The sacrifice of male submission will always set a godly example, of
course, but its primary purpose must be to release our wives to live fully
and blossom to their full potential.
- Exodus 21:2,5-6
Imagine the scene. A broken Jew awakes one morning with no options.
Mired hopelessly in poverty, owning nothing but an empty stomach, he stands
starkly upon the auction block of slavery. Shoulders slumped, his pride long
since stripped away, his ashen face conveys only a searing shame, gaunt eyes
staring aimlessly into the distance.
Suddenly, a man with gentle eyes appears before him, a man he’s never
known. Somehow this man sees a shred of value in him. Did I see a trace of love
in this man’s eyes? the slave wonders. It couldn’t be, but his hope rises as
his master pays the price to bring him home. His master does love him. Clothing
the man well and feeding him richly, the master speaks gently to him and calls
him “brother”. Six years quickly tick by, and within the slave’s heart grows a
deep love for his master. He longs to repay his master for his mercy and grace.
When the day of the slave’s leave-taking finally arrives, his master,
with moist eyes, offers gifts for the freed man to take on his way. The man
declines but offer his own gift in return: his once broken life now restored by
the master. Setting his lobe to the post, he joyously receives the mark,
submitting his rights and future for the honor or serving and pleasing his
master for as long as he lives.
We recognize this picture. It’s our life in Christ. Once we were slaves
on the auction block of sin. We stood broken by every evil and foolish thing we’d
ever done. Yet our pure Master inexplicably saw value in us, paying for our
freedom with His blood that we might serve Him. Experiencing His great love, we
returned His love by working in His Kingdom, happily marked by the Holy Spirit
(see Ephesians 1:13).
But while I may not literally be her bondservant, my love for her
must mirror a bondservant’s love for his master, and my marital leadership must
be as sacrificial and life-giving as his. After all, husbands are to love
their wives as Christ loved the church, and the Lord’s love for His bride has
always been sacrificial and live-giving.
Part III: Manifesting Your
Bondservant Heart
Page 109
- Acting from a servant heart means blessing your wife and giving
her chance to blossom fully.
Page 114
- I quit negotiating with her over time. In the old days, whenever she
would ask me to do something, I would negotiate to perform the task at some
other time, or some other day, or during some other week. Now though, I
dropped what I was doing and just did the chore immediately. I became like
a computer with a return key: All Sandy had to do was punch in her request and
I was on it. This seemed like a small thing, but in her mind it was huge. To
Sandy, my action was a visible difference in commitment and acknowledgement.
Page 116
- With our four kids, Brenda and I don’t get much time together during
normal waking hours. Yet I’ve learned over the years that she needs time just
to sit and talk with me. She draws interpersonal intimacy from sharing
conversation. Trouble is, I am a morning person, and I am practically on
life support when 10pm rolls around. If I lie down on the bed, I am fast asleep
for the next eight hours.
Yet again, I have had to remind myself that my time is not my own. If
Brenda needs to stay up and talk, I have to do everything I can to engage her –
and not fall asleep. So I’ve made a rule for myself that when I retire on
the master bedroom at night, I can’t lie down on the bed immediately. Instead,
I sit down in what I call my “talking chair”. I can stay away and talk with
Brenda if that’s what she needs. I have learned to spell love T-I-M-E.
It’s a small act of oneness that honors her vital need as I would honor
one of my own.
Page 125-126
Imagine your wife’s freedom to serve God before marriage. When God
touched her heart to do anything, she simply did it. When God asked her to give
money for a missionary in need, she obeyed. She honored the Spirit’s
convictions without any interference. She could rest when needed to and pray
when she desired. Now everything must pass through you right?
But she expected even more freedom after marriage. Did she get it? Have
you made room and shouldered burdens so that she can really blossom?
Page 130
Preparing for bed, I sat down in my chair and said, “Brenda, you’ve got
to tell me something. I went to Jack’s though I knew it really wasn’t
necessary. I did it just for you, and for you alone, simply because it seemed important
to you. Does that mean anything to you?”
I expected a simple, understated response. I was amazed by her animation as she exclaimed, “Oh, yes, it meant everything! I have been on this push to be neighborly. I don’t feel we do enough that way, and as Christians, we should do a better job. I thought you were doing something important along those lines, and it meant the world to me.”
I expected a simple, understated response. I was amazed by her animation as she exclaimed, “Oh, yes, it meant everything! I have been on this push to be neighborly. I don’t feel we do enough that way, and as Christians, we should do a better job. I thought you were doing something important along those lines, and it meant the world to me.”
We must make room for what God places in her heart and respect her
gifts, although those gifts may be tough to recognize. Yet our effort to
make room for her gifts frees her essence to find its place in the marriage.
Page 141
Your wife did forsake her individual freedom in clinging to you,
believing you would provide love and strength. Your wife is still God’s little
ewe lamb, regardless of the pain and sin she’s been through and the character
wounds she carries. Don’t forget: God has entrusted her to you. Will you
resent her, or help restore her? Does your heart warm to the task of
restoration? Is there any nobler act than pouring out your mercy on your precious
one?
Part IV: Igniting Your
Bondservant Mind
Page 183-184
Jesus taught us submission by laying down His life for the sake of our relationship
with Him, even though we were sinners. That being said, we husbands must keep
the proper emphasis on the word leader as well. Yes, our responsibility as
husbands is to command the ship along the course we’ve set as a couple, and
though we must often serve by submitting our rights for the sake of oneness, we
must never forget our duty to lead the ship safely to harbor.
We must study our wives carefully so we don’t confuse their essence
with their emotions as we lead. From the beginning, Brenda dreamed of being a
stay-at-home mum when the children arrived. This dream meant two things. First,
we had to locate in an area that would give me the best chance to earn enough
money to make that possible. Second, I would have to like my work.
Those early years were difficult because of her father’s death and my
trampling. As our married life unraveled, Brenda pushed to return to her
hometown of Moline. She said I could get a job at one of the large production
plants there, and then we could be near her family. She could get her old job
back, and we could return to the church she grew up in. To her, everything
would be better immediately if we would only move back to Illinois.
While she was probably right in the short term, I couldn’t see a Moline
move working in the long term. I enjoyed my work far better than the
suggestions she offered about opportunities in Moline, and I couldn’t move my
business to that area because of competitive situations. I knew keeping this
business was my best hope for supporting her dream of being a stay-at-home mum.
Yet Brenda remained adamant, so I had to study her closely. Was she
expressing her deep emotions, or was something deeper transpiring? In her heart
of hearts, she wanted to build new life with her husband, distinct and separate
from her extended family. She could do that best in Des Moines. She had dreamed
of being a stay-at-home mum since she was a little girl. She didn’t have to
return to Moline to have that lifestyle. We could eventually find a good church
with lots of young friends, and when we did that in Des Moines, we began
forming friendships as cochairs of the Young Couples Activities Committee.
There was nothing in her essence that wouldn’t be met in Des Moines.
Her desire to move home was based on pure emotion. As leader, I had to find
room for her essence, but in doing so, I knew I couldn’t allow her emotions to
determine the outcome. I told her I thought we should stay put.
Page 185
Wives don’t expect or need to get their way in order to feel one with
us. They only need to feel honored as fellow heirs and to genuinely sense that
their thoughts and gifts have been put into play with ours. Deena said, “Gary
always considers my viewpoint and really listens. He makes it a safe place for
me to express my opinions, right or wrong. We will talk about the issues, and
ultimately he will make the decision. But I always know he has listened, and I’ve
truly been heard.”
Page 186-187
Romance
It’s knowing what sparks her romantic motors.
When we are romancing our wives, we have to do what they think is
fund and what they think is romantic. That shows we know them and care for them.
Woman loves it when you prove you know them, spring little surprises
on them, and somehow show you’re sacrificing to do things she loves. That’s
romance.
Page 190
Sure, picking up the slack for Brenda on weekend mornings was a good
start, but I knew I had to do more than that. I had to become her equal as a
caregiver. She had to know I was able to slip equally into her role at moment’s
notice, or she’d feel uncomfortable depending on me. If she were sick, I
wanted her to lie restfully in bed and get better without worrying that her
world was collapsing around her.
Page 192-193
The Story of Diapers
Tom has learned to put diapers on the same way I like to see diapers
put on. I know this sounds funny, but I am very picky about the way I diaper
Bethany. I don’t want the diaper tabs cutting into her legs. The diaper also
needs to be pulled up high enough so it covers her tummy but doesn’t cut under
her tummy. After watching me several times, Tom does it just the way I do it
for her.
Page 212
Is there ever a time when prayer with your wife seems more desirable
to you than sex? If not, your prayer life with her needs attention.
Part V: Enjoying a
Resurrected Relationship
Page 250
Intimacy Through:
|
Women
|
Men
|
|
Touching, Sharing, Hugging & Communication
|
Sight/Vision
|
Page 252
We husbands have to at least be sexually attractive. One thing that
always makes you sexually desirable to her is oneness.
Page 253
For example the point of a gun forcing her to have sex when she’s not
in the mood with someone who isn’t sexually attractive. She must open her most
intimate, private place to a man who not only has kept her from blossoming in
marriage, but who has picked on her weaknesses and selfishly asserted his
rights at every turn. This person sounds more like a prison guard than a
husband, which means sex can fell disturbing close to being raped by a prison
guard.
Page 261
Our love didn’t bring oneness, but our actions do. We submitted
and met these terms of oneness. On my part, I made a rule that I couldn’t crawl
into bed at night without first talking a seat in the “talking chair” in our
master bedroom.
Conclusion
Page 290-291
But it wasn’t natural for the Ephesians to think in those terms at all
because the word head carried an entirely different meaning to them. In
Greco-Roman cultures, the head was
not considered the governing centre of the body. Instead the head
was considered the source of life for
the body because the loss of the head always destroyed life. Therefore, in that
culture, the definition of kephale
was more accurately defined as the “source of life”. When Paul uses this word
in relation to a husband’s headship, he is not
saying that the husband is to be the governing
center over his wife but that the husband
is to be a physical, emotional, and spiritual source of life to his spouse,
just as Jesus is toward to church.
Paul used the word kephale for a specific reason. If he had
intended to simply define the status quo of marriage in those days and leave
the husband in place as ruler and Chief Tiebreaker, he would have used the word
heart instead and perhaps written, “For
the husband in the heart of the wife”. That’s because in those days, the heart was seen at the governing center
of the body, not the head.
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