Just the Messenger

In the early years of my marriage, my lovely bride and I would have some long and intense arguments. They were usually centered around something that I did or said. My logic was telling me that I was in the right about whatever it was we were arguing about, yet her heart was telling me that I was wrong. As a stubborn man, filled with pride, I refused to believe that I could be wrong on so many of my lifelong beliefs.

Then one day, the Holy Spirit revealed the possibility that everything that my wife was telling me was actually feelings given to her by God. So, then if that was true, then God must be trying to tell me something and He was speaking to me through my wife. Could that be a possibility? Could what she was saying about me be true? That gave me something to think about.

Each morning after what seemed like another nightlong marathon disagreement, I would drive into work. I was a supercommuter so my drive lasted usually 1 ½ hrs or more. This gave me plenty of time to think. Ultimately, I would review everything that was said the night before, however now I was wondering if God was trying to get through to me. 

My sweet wife may not know a lot of different bible verses, but she holds on to those she does know like a pitbull with a bone. She would quote them during our arguments and say things like; “Doesn’t the bible say that men are to love and care for their wives like Jesus loves and cares for the church?” I would think about this during my drive and every time I had to acknowledge that what she said was true. Then, the very next words that filled my soul were; “So, what are you going to do?” I know that those words did not come from me and at that point I had a choice to make. Stay the way I was or change. Being what I hoped was a good Christian man, I decided to change. 

We read these comforting words found in Genesis 2:18, 21-22 that reminds us,  “Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.”  So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.” 

God always intended for the woman to be the helper of her man. Not his slave or his servant, but to be his helper in all things, physical, emotional and spiritual. She is intended to always be by his side, close to his heart. Since my wife responds to me from her heart, more so than her head, and since God often speaks to our hearts, it is reasonable to believe that God would use a woman to bring correction to her man. 

I realized that the feelings that she was feeling were the feelings that God was feeling. Once that realization settled in, once I realized that my wife was simply the messenger, then my choices were easier to make, and THAT is when the sanctification of the Holy Spirit in my life kicked into high gear.

For every man reading this, pray that the Holy Spirit would grant us wisdom and discernment in every discussion that we have with our wives. That we would ask ourselves if God was speaking to us through her. 

Pray that we would set aside our pride and humble ourselves to the possibility that God is using our wives to relay a message that we desperately need to hear.

For the wives reading this, pray that the Holy Spirit will fill your heart with the heart of God. Pray that He will intensify the love that you have for your husbands and that He will help you understand that in many cases, you are not the message, but simply the messenger.

Change is hard, especially when pride is involved. But change comes much easier when humility overrides our pride. The Holy Spirit has work to do in each of us and it is usually our pride that gets in our way. It is OK to be wrong. It is OK not to come in first. It is OK to understand that we may be the problem. For it is only then that the Holy Spirit can bring correction and abundant blessing that He so desperately wants to give.