Experience the Happily Ever After

It’s funny, I’m a writer, and yet I don’t know exactly how to write what I’m going to attempt to write. So, I ask the Lord to help me brag on Him just a moment.

In 2007, I met a woman at a small writer’s conference here in Topeka who confessed to me that her greatest prayer was that God would turn the hearts of men back to their homes. That God would raise up men, young and old alike to take their place as God meant them. To be Godly leaders among their communities and within their homes. She was specifically talking about African American homes, but I saw the need in all homes! My heart cried out at the time, Yes, Lord! Yes, Lord! May it be so!!!!

For decades, churches have been filled with women who have sought to lead a Christian life, who have sought to teach their children and raise them in the Lord the best they could, many attended without their husbands and then went home to a place where her husband (if she had one) was the authority, not God.

Now I don’t know about you, but I believe God set things up in a certain manner for Christian households. Actually, if you believe scripture is God breathed (2Timothing 3:16) then you should too. I’ll probably get a lot of flack for bringing this up, but it’s scripture. However, I will state right here and right now, that I do NOT believe God wants anyone to be in an abusive relationship.

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church,his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Ephesians 5:22-24 (NIV)

As a woman this can be a hard pill to swallow, especially if said husband isn’t holding up the next verse, and let me tell you, I thank God for the Godly man He has yoked me with, but trust me my husband hasn’t always led the way I would have liked, or even in a Godly manner (another blog for another day), just as I have not always submitted to my husband.

Husbands, love your wives,  just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy,cleansingher by the washing with water through the word,and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. Ephesians 5:25-28 (NIV)

 

Wives, we are responsible for ourselves. If we believe God’s word then we are to submit to our husbands, but how are we to submit to an ungodly man when were are trying to live a Godly life? Not easy and I suppose you can imagine the chaos created within an unequally yoked household. A Godly woman trying to lead her family, but yet submitting to the authority of her husband, who may or may not believe in the Lord, but who isn’t cleansing his wife through the washing with water through the word, therefore leaving the wife frustrated and confused and the children in the middle.

What’s a woman to do? Pray and according to 1 Peter 3:1-6

Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives,when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes.Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to adorn themselves. They submitted themselves to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her lord. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear.

And do you know what Abraham asked Sarah to do? Read Genesis 20 and see for yourself.

Anyway, ever since our little church closed it’s doors a few years ago we’ve been looking for the right place, and we both believe we’ve finally found our home. No, that’s not the Yay, God (well it is, but not the one I wanted to share). The Yay, God?— I have never seen a church, ever, filled with so many young adult men who are loving and rejoicing, dancing, clapping, praising the Lord the way these young men are doing. It’s such a sweet, sweet fragrance. I can hardly contain the emotion as I sit here typing. God is doing an amazing thing! Yay, God!!!!! Yay, God!!!!! Keep drawing them Lord.

Thank you, JD and Callie for being obedient to the calling God has put on your lives. Thank you to the prayer warriors and to the praise team. You are starting a rumble right here in the heart of America that will leach out into the corners of the world, a rumble of young people who will not settle for mediocrity, but will go forth and praise the Lord as He was meant to be praised; in truth and in spirit. May you send out mighty warriors.

In the last days, God says,
    I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
    your young men will see visions,
    your old men will dream dreams. Acts 2:17 (NIV)