wives, adapt! husbands, love!

From "The Mark of a Man" - Following Christ's Example of Masculinity

written as advice to Elisabeth Elliot's nephew...

It's just some of many blessings I got from the book, just wanna share with you - men or women - then, you may want to read the book yourself ~ eyn ~ :)

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Look for one (woman) who is prepared to adapt to you.

If you find a woman who is ready to go where you go and do what you do without brooding about being "her own person", you'll have found a treasure.

She will have to be a woman who has submitted herself to God, first of all, because otherwise she'll be listening to the insistent voices around her, telling her that she's got to be independent and autonomous, that she ought not to be "only" somebody's wife or somebody's mother, that she needs to seek fulfillment for herself and that can only be found beyond the bounds of home.

If, having submitted herself to God, she understands that what He had in mind when He made her was response - in order that both man and woman be fulfilled - she will be at peace with the arrangement.

A woman cannot properly be the responder, unless the man is properly the initiator. He must take the lead in order that shey may follow, as in a dance. The willingness of each to perform the "steps" that have been choreographed gives the other freedom.

If the husband can look upon his gift of initiation as a privilege, instead of as a right; and if the wife can look upon her gift of response in the same way, instead of as an obliglation, both might be surprised to find that Jesus' promise actually comes true for them: the yoke proves to be easy, the burden light.

Real women will always be relieved and grateful when men are willing to be men.

Sometimes people talk about how they are "struggling with" certain things, or "working through" them, when what they really mean is that they are delaying obedience.

You, wives must learn to adapt yourselves to your husbands, as you submit yourselves to the Lord.

A woman is must fully and freely a woman in relation to a man who is willing and glad to exercise his gift of initiation. The man is most fully and freely a man in relation to a woman who accepts her role of reponse.

A man's willingness to offer up his life, for his wife, or for anybody else who happens to need him, is not the end of everything. It's only the end of himself.

I know it's true. There are times when everything in us resists taking the step forward that must be taken.

.... Everything in these men must have said, NO! Every thing except one : their desire to please God.

He who is fully a man has relinquished his right to himself.

When Paul writes to the Colossians,

"And whatever work you may have to do, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, thanking God the father through Him," he says immediately what sort of "work" he's talking about : wives, adapt! Husbands, love!

They would do much better to direct their energies toward trusting God and leave the wooing to the man God wants them to have.

Trusting God is doing the greatest thing anybody can do. Trusting God to take of your love life is a rigorous daily exercise of faith.

To aim at loving instead of at being loved requires sacrifice. Love reaches out, willing to be turned down or inconvenienced, expecting no personal reward, waiting only to give.

But that's an impossible standard for a human being's love, you'll say. You're not Everlasting Love - far from it. The unavoidable fact, however, is that this "impossible" standard is the standard. There isn't any other standard we are to measure our love. "...love one another as I have loved you," Jesus said, and paul said, "the husband must give his wife the same sort of love that Christ gave to the church, when he sacrificed himself for her......"

A Christian knows that there is One who can make the yoke easy.

To suffer simply means "to bear under". A leader is a man who does not groan under burdens, but takes them as a matter of course, allows them, tolerates them - and with a dash of humor. He knows how to keep his mouth shut about his difficulties and how to live a day at a time, doing quietly what needs doing at the moment. People will follow that sort of man.

Again I have to say, you don't do it alone. ... We need to recall constantly that it is Christ who calls us; it is Christ who enables us; it is Christ who promises His presence and His strength.

Pay attention. Notice when she's tired or cold or upset or needing your arms around her.

"The love a man gives his wife is the extending of his love for himself to enfold her. Nobody ever hates or neglects his own body; he feeds it and looks after it. And that is what Christ does for His Body, the Church."

Courtesy is sacrificial symbolism. We've been talking about sacrifice, which runs deep through all Christian truth. "Every High Priest is appointed to offer gifts and make sacrifices," Hebrews tells us. As Christians, as "priests" to God, we, too make sacrifices : our bodies, first of all; and our praise, our thanksgiving and our faith. These are all called sacrifices in the New Testament. It goes without saying that we human beings haven't got a thing to offer up to God, except what we've been given; and your mandhood is a gift that you offer back to Him. It's also a gift you offer your wife. Without that offering, she is not free to be fully a woman; for to be fully a woman means to respond, to receive, to be acted upon, to follow. You've got to give her the gift of manhood - initiating, cherishing, leading. This is what women want, in their heart of hearts.

I say that courtesy is sacrificial symbolism because each act is a very small sign that you are willing to give your life for hers.

Courtesy has to become a habit, "a characteristic condition of mind or body, disposition; a thing done often and hence done easily; a tendency to perform in a certain way."

Does this sound bad? Is it necessarily hollow just because it's a habit? I don't think so, for if you're in the habit of being courteous, then, even when you're not thinking or feeling rightly, you'll still act rightly; and it's action that counts with other people. It's this because you're responsible for before God, not for the vagaries of emotion or mood. What you do to or for others you do to or for the Lord.

A real man is quick to see what is truly admirable in another. He identifies with him, contemplates what made him what he is, and tries to appropriate the man's methods to reach his own goals.

Make no mistake. If obedience is what marks a man, it can be nothing less than obedience that marks a real woman. The trouble with all of us is that we're disobedient. We're a bunch of "miserable offenders," as the Book of Common Prayer says, "and there is no health in us." Women often ask me what they can do to help men see their responsibility in church and home. The first answer I give is : Be women! If you try to take the responsibilities the man have abdicated, you're not being women, and your disobedience will not help their disobedience. It only adds to the dehumanization of everybody.

What if a husband, in faithfulness to God and love for his wife, must rebuke her or perhaps speak to her about the relinquishment of something she is determined to hold on to? "What's the point? She'll only be hurt," you say, or "She wouldn't listen to me, anyway, or she'll get angry. It won't do any good." And you back off.

Wait a minute. A woman wants a man who is capable of standing up to her. She wants him to be a godly sort. That is, she wants him, like Daniel, to have his "windows open," and like Jesus, to have his "face set" toward Jerusalem. If that's the direction he's headed, his obedience will be her liberation.

No marriage can survive without forgiveness. Marriage is a long term, intimate, all-inclusive, no-holds-barred, day-to-day, and year-after-year commitment between two sinners. How will they get along without forgiveness?

A man must at times be hard as nails: willing to face up to the truth about himself and about the woman he loves, refusing compromise when compromise is wrong. But he must also be tender. No weapon will breach the armor of a woman's resentment like tenderness.

You may not understand her. You may find her unreasonable and illogical and unreachable by any means other than honest tenderness. If she can believe, even for a second or two, that you really want to understand her, that you are earnestly trying to see things from her point of view, she will budge. I know. I'm a woman, and I appear unbudgeable to some, but I also know what a man's arm around me will do to my defenses.

Can you imagine yourself a father? I’m sure you can. Have you ever thought much about your paternal instincts, as such? If you love a woman and find yourself longing to protect her, take her in your arms, and keep her from danger, that’s the beginning. There is certainly something of the paternal in a man’s love for a woman. But no one can describe to you or prepare you for the actual experience of fatherhood.

… I am convinced that one of God’s reasons for giving us children to care for is to humble us. They begin by breaking our hearts. The total sweetness of a newborn child, the innocence, the abject helplessness, the mystery of knowing that this being is the product of your genes and your love: these things will break your heart.

Then, every day, if you take being a father seriously, you’ll know that you’re not big enough for the job, not by yourself. And that’s humbling. The job at the office maybe you can handle. The job of being a husband you might have thought you were doing pretty admirably. But being a father will put you on your knees if nothing else ever did. It will save you from yourself, because you are forced to attend the very small person for whom you and his mother are responsible.

What are the essentials, if one is looking for a good wife?

Checklist :

1. Femininity and faith

She's got to be a real woman, and she's got to be a Christian. She ought to be glad she's a woman. A Christian woman acknowledges Christ as her Lord and Master. In so doing, she places herself under obedience, which means that whatever the Lord says to do, she is bound by.

2. A sense of humor.

She must know how to laugh - first of all at herself. That's a saving grace.

Find somebody who does not take herself so deadly seriously that she has to be always talking about who I am, and how am I relating, and how do I really feel about myself?

3. Any woman you consider for a wife ought to be willing to put her husband and her children first : above her own interests, including a career.

4. Sacrifice .

There is no getting around the fact that to give yourselves wholeheartedly to the rearing of children for God will eliminate you from lot of activities your friends are enjoying and often from activities that seem to be obligations.

5. Look also for "the unfading loveliness of calm and gentle spirit" - the secret of the beauty of holy women.

6. Look, finally, for a woman knows that love is not a feeling. It's great if she has lots of loving feelings for you. It's great if she makes you feel loving. Thank God for feelings, for without them we could not respond to all the sensory data in our world. As physical and psychological beings, we are bundle of feelings. But, as we've already seen, they're no anchor for a marriage. The love that sustains a marriage - and is sustained by marriage itself - has to be action.

.... Godliness with contentment is a great gain....

Five ways you can help that woman who will be your wife be the woman you want her to be:

1. Be a man.

It is in response to the fullest expression of your manliness that she will be most womanly.

2. Make her glad she's a woman.

- Notice things, an honest compliment can make her light up.

- Be courteous. Courtesy is a way of reminding each other that you're a gentleman and a lady

3. Understand that leadership is for her help and redemption and be willing to take charge.

4. Love her with the love described in 1 Corinthians.

5. Remember that you are heirs together of the grace of life.

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