How can I encourage my husband
when he falls short?
Lead on.
Not
unless you're your next in line.
Question
Oh, no, no, I'm just going in order of
who's had the questions.
I was providential.
I ought to be a real pro at this.
Repeat the question.
How can I encourage my husband
when he is falling short?
Yeah.
Michael knows me well.
He said I was buying time.
Oh, well, that that is a good question.
I hope the heart of the
the wife is is right
before the Lord,
and that there is
is really a pure motivation
to encourage the husband
.
It's not it's not really cookie cutter.
Three steps, and he's encouraged it.
I think it really begins
with a true love for your husband
and and in a in a loving marriage,
there are things being
cultivated every day, good times and bad,
that will contribute
to this very moment in question
of what do I say to my husband?
How how do I encourage him?
Well,
whether you've been
married for 13 months,
13 years, 53 years,
you've got this whole history
that has been building
and giving you capital
with which you can approach
your husband in humility
and actually be a help to him
in a moment where he's fallen short.
So it's it's in a sense,
a process that you've earned
by loving him for years and years.
But but in the moment.
For me and my wife has has helped me
more times than I can count.
A tenderness and a humility on her part
goes 1685 Miles with me.
My my defenses are down.
I'm recognizing that
my wife in this moment
is speaking to me
as a sister in the Lord,
and I need to have ears to hear.
So tenderness and humility
would be the emphasis as well,
is relational love
that builds year upon year upon year.
I think we could
probably talk about this for an hour, but
can I say
honestly hope I don't know of anybody.
I don't really like these kinds
of questions dealt this
in this kind of a format.
We don't know the circumstances
from which the motivation
is springing for this question.
We have to assume so very, very much.
You know.
As Brother Lee has said,
I think there has to be humility,
there has to be meekness.
There has to be trust.
Your husband has to have trust.
I can take correction from my wife
because I know she has no hidden agenda.
She's not selfish.
She has proven that to me
that she does have my
best interests in heart.
But what what what does a man do
when he has a wife that does have
ulterior motives?
You say we're trying
to deal with something here that's
that's really sticky.
And I think we need to be
very, very careful.
I would also say I've had a lot of women
come to me who had unsaved husbands over
when I was pastoring over the years
trying to get counsel.
How do I deal with my husband who's
he's a bum, you know, he's a no good.
He's.
And I would oh, I didn't have him
in front of me, but I had her
and I would always deal with her heart.
The.
And I would tell her what the Bible says
about her attitude towards her husband.
She was the one that was in front of me,
so I applied the word to her.
And one of the things I would say
to Christian wives,
do you trust God enough
to do with your husband?
You have someone to go to
and you can go to him in prayer.
And if you can trust God
with your husband,
God can deal with him very aptly.
And when you put your hand to it,
you may go south
because you've not earned
what our brother had just said.
That respect from your husband,
you know, effusions
fires makes it very clear
he ends that chapter.
Husbands love your wives.
And what does he say for the wives
to say to do honor,
respect your husbands.
And that's the way
your husband knows you love him,
but that you honor him and respect him,
and that needs to be
cherished and protected.
Yeah, I would like to add that
this is going to be
shocking to most of you,
but men and women are very different
now.
Michael, I know and myself,
what I want to say,
first of all, preference everything.
And we're talking about a normal marriage
where there's no abuse.
We're talking about
just the normal problems
in a normal Christian marriage.
OK, so when we say that
the wife should respect her husband
and should seek to honor him, we're not.
How about a woman who's in an abusive
relationship and things like that?
There would be a different sort
of counseling going on.
But in normal problems
that all of us have.
Here's what you need
to understand, both of you.
The Bible says love
your wife, love your wife.
It doesn't say to the wife,
love your husband.
Not in the same way.
And here's the thing,
my wife, what does she
one of the problems men have is
they think their wife
needs what they need.
OK, and or that the husband,
the wife thinks the husband needs
what she needs and it's not.
You're going to really
mess up doing that.
I don't need my wife to call me
twice a day and say, I love you.
I don't need my wife to send me flowers.
I don't need my wife to write
poetry to me or send me little hearts.
OK.
I don't need that.
I can tell you that
if all the world is coming against me.
Slandered me, tearing me apart.
Whatever, if I know my wife respects me,
I can stand against anything
if I have a hint that my wife
no longer respects me.
I fall apart.
I need her respect.
Yeah,
my wife is coming to me so many times
and she has that look on her face.
And I know she's gotten
another lady has sent her an email.
How do I lead my husband to lead me?
I mean, she goes my
my wife, she's Latin,
so she just blows a fuze and she goes,
can you believe what
this woman has just written
when you hate to be married to her?
Yes. I would hate to be married to her.
I would hate to be anything you tell me.
I should hate to be you.
Look what she's saying.
She's going to lead her husband to lead.
She's going to browbeat her husband
to the point where he's respectable.
It doesn't work.
Your husband needs your respect.
He needs to know that you respect him.
Your wife needs to know
that you love her
unconditionally.
And ladies, I'll talk about it
in the family thing if you want,
but I preach a sermon on how to live to
women, on how to live in such a way
so that God will kill your husband
and that'll get your interest
so you'll come to the next class.
But it's basically
you can deal with your husband
or you can stand aside and let God deal
with your husband.
But if.
Oh, there's so much to say on this.
Your godliness lady.
I could say this for the man,
but we're talking about
your
godliness and Christlike response.
When your husband
doesn't deserve that Christlike response
is the thing that will cause him
to go to stop arguing with you,
go out into the garage, get a crowbar
and strike himself several
times in the head thinking,
how could I have done that?
But what when he comes in
and he's impatient and you fly
right back at him or he feels like
you think he's failed
and you fly back at him, guess what?
He's justified now in his anger,
his disappointment with you
and everything else.
But if you show him Christ
instead of what he's expecting,
it will shame him
and make him a better man.
But you're never going
to browbeat him or lead him
or mold him into your image
of what a man ought to be.