Bringing Harmony Home Let’s go deeper into God’s word with Rev George Sukhedo, author of Preparing for and Fostering Harmony in Marriage. This interactive Bible Study focuses on the wife’s role in nurturing a healthier marriage.
A wife can make or break a man and her marriage. She must take care in how she lives, as commanded by Paul in Ephesians 5:15-16: So then, be very careful how you live. Don’t live like foolish people but like wise people. Make the most of your opportunities because these are evil days. (GW) A wise wife will be sure to maintain a right relationship with God and with your husbands and guard against people of evil influence. Paul warns believers in 1 Corinthians 15:33: Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good morals.” (NASB) Even your family or best friends can lead you in the wrong direction and create havoc in your marriage if their influence is not godly. With God’s help, you can discover your God-given responsibility in marriage. This means recognizing that: 1. You should support and help your husband. Don’t try to rule him, manipulate him, or act on evil influences as Eve did in the Garden of Eden. Genesis 3:6: “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was delightful to look at, and a tree to be desired in order to make one wise and insightful, she took some of its fruit and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband with her, and he ate.” (AMP)
2. While God designated your husband as the ‘general manager’ of the home, your husband can only function with you, a good chief administrator. 3. God designated the wife as the helper and not as a replica of her husband. You are meant to complement him and assist him in his duties. Genesis 2:18: God said, It is not good for the man to be alone; I’ll make him a helper, a companion. (MSG)
whether he is right or wrong. • Accept his thoughts and feelings and help him to overcome the negative ones. This is an act of love and makes your marriage stronger! • Accept him despite his failures and help him rise from defeat. Do not criticize, nag him, or compare him with other men. That emasculates him and corrupts his potential and self-image.
4. You can and will fulfill God’s design through dependence on His guidance and power. John 15:5: I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. (NIV)
Love is unconditional sacrifice. Make your husband a priority in the following ways:
Upon accepting God’s design for marriage, there are other responsibilities to remember. You should love, support, and respect your husband.
• Be available in terms of time and energy.
HOW TO LOVE YOUR HUSBAND Titus 2:4 …train the younger women to love their husbands. (NIV) Love is an attitude of unconditional acceptance, expressed like this: • Accept your husband as flawed. Don’t only accept him when you judge his actions as right, but accept him based on his value as God’s gift to you—
• Give him quality time, listen to him, talk to him, and encourage his wholesome pursuits.
• Give him physical attention, as we see in Solomon 7: 10-12: I belong to my lover and his desire is for me. Come, my lover, let us go to the countryside, let us spend the night in the villages. Let us go early to the vineyards to see if the vines have budded, if their blossoms have opened, and if the pomegranates are in bloom—there I will give you my love. (NIV) Here, the wife invites her husband to spend quality time together at both the end and beginning of the day.
