Grow Up already!!

If God called you to do something new, something different, would you do it for Him?  Many of you immediately answered "yes."  That's a good answer, but are you sure you would do it?  If you're like me you'll say "yes, some day I'll do that for you."  Then you'll never get around to doing it.

I fought that battle with my first husband.  He was a good man.  I struggle with things he was asking me to do.  I would say "yes, I will do that, but first I want to do (A), (B), and (C).  Then I'll do that for you.  He died having never had the gift of me giving my full self to him.  I have many regrets about that.

Now I'm married to another wonderful man who loves me and my girls and to whom I also promise things ... someday.  I'm finding myself falling back into the comfortable routine again.  A routine that centers around me and what I want rather than a routine of serving my husband, and therefore serving God.

God has commanded wives to submit to their husbands as to the Lord.  This means when my husband asks for something, whether it be another scoop of potatoes, help with taking out the garbage, or something he craves from you in the bedroom (as long as it is not illegal), I am to submit to his request as if God Himself asked me to do it.  If I wouldn't say "no" to God, then I shouldn't say "no" to Lew (husband).

I'm not saying this thinking comes naturally, nor is it easy.  Quite the contrary.  Transforming a lifetime of selfishness into an attitude of submission is hard.  It's uncomfortable.  It will cause stress.  But it is what God expects of wives. 

We are to be our husbands' help-meets.  How can I possibly expect my husband to resist temptation when I am making certain that he is unsatisfied with me?  Someday I'll be ready and willing to do that for you.  or When you've done this and that I'll do that other thing.  Would I ever dare to talk to God that way? 

I would like to say I wouldn't but the truth is that whenever I lead my husband on, telling him that someday I'll do the things he asks when I know in my heart I have no intention of doing them,  I have in fact been deceitful to him as to the Lord.   
 
When Lew stopped initiating sexual intimacy with me, I didn't know what the problem was.  I found out the problem was me.  It wasn't that we never made love, it's just that it was always the same.  We had built a routine, and as many ways as Lew (husband) asked for something else, I had just as many ways of putting him off until he stopped asking altogether. He said "I figure it's pointless to keep asking.  I'm never going to get it anyway."

Just like God will leave a sinner wallowing in his/her sin, so my husband left me wallowing in my decision to stay comfortable and not give him something that he so desperately desired.  We have started to work through it, but I have to tell you it isn't easy.  I'm stretching my comfort zones and he is still very reluctant to make any requests.

I know some of you have done this to your husbands too.  You've put off doing that certain something for him and now he won't ask for it anymore.  It doesn't mean he isn't desperate for it.  It just means he has resigned himself to the fact that you aren't going to be his helper.  He will find other ways to fill the void that would otherwise have been filled by you.  Maybe he will start a new hobby.  Maybe he'll discover video games or pornography.  Maybe he'll seek gratification elsewhere.

If this sounds like you, then I pray that you see the destruction this is causing to your husband and to your marriage, and that God will help you take the first step, second step, third step, and so on to get over yourself and grow up already.  Your husband needs a help-meet in all areas of his life.  You are it.

I'm finally starting to grow up and act like my husband wife.  Won't you do the same?