My Wife Won’t Let Me

The scene was a familiar one to me. We had traveled for the weekend to a new church and had met a group of sweet believers that offered us hospitality, kindness, and more food than you could shake a stick at. The kids had sung “Here Am I, Lord” in the service. Mike had shared our pictures and our hearts. He had preached on the need for willing men to surrender their lives, their hands, and their talents to serve the Lord. My job - as always - was to keep the children from behaving like little heathens during the service and to make sure we didn’t leave behind any dirty laundry - or any little heathens.

The evening service was over, and our family was standing by our display table, which was still full of ministry brochures, doctrinal statements, and prayer cards. One or two elderly ladies had come by with promises of prayers and a piece of candy for each child. One man hung back waiting for the “crowd” to clear.

Finally, he approached my husband and pulled him to the side a bit. With tears nearly spilling down his cheeks, he hesitatingly said, “I really appreciate your ministry, brother. I’d be following in your footsteps, doing exactly what you are doing, if I could. But my wife would never let me.”

At that point, my ears pricked up. Surely I had heard wrong. His wife wouldn’t let him? That couldn’t be right. But he continued talking.

“She says there’s no way she’s homeschooling the kids. She could never leave behind her parents. Her role in the choir here is pretty important, too. Plus, how would we pay the bills? I wish I could go, but I’ll pray for you.”

I looked at my husband with questions and tears filling my eyes, too. This man’s wife was telling him that he could not obey God? That he could not follow a burden that God had obviously placed upon his heart? I wanted desperately to go find that man’s wife and share a word or two.

Friends, I say this gently, but truthfully: refusing to obey God’s call on your life - and that includes your husband’s life - is sin.

Putting the comfort (of yourself or others) above God’s commands is idolatry.

Putting happiness above God’s plan for you is selfishness.

And refusing to obey God’s leading is rebellion.

Please don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you could NEVER do something God has called your husband and you to do. It really is a choice:

Deny God and obey self, or deny self and serve God.

Can you imagine the audacity? What saved person in their right mind would tell God no? And yet, sadly, we hear echoes of this same story often in our ministry. It seems that women everywhere are telling God no. The thing is, they don’t actually realize it. They think they are only talking to their husbands - as if that isn’t bad enough.

Ladies, do you realize that your words, your attitudes, and your choices affect your husband? Not only that, they affect his walk with the Lord, too.

• Remember that Adam took the forbidden fruit from Eve. She had been deceived, but he knew exactly what he was doing. He chose to disobey God and to side with his wife.

• Abraham begat Ishmael with Hagar at Sarah’s bidding, just as he also sent Hagar and the boy away at Sarah’s bidding.

• Do you think that Noah would have remained faithful to God all the while he was building the ark if it had not been for his wife? I can just hear her cheering him on, building him up, filling him with her confidence and encouragement as he obeyed God, despite the scorning, mocking, and laughing.

• In Proverbs, a wife is exalted as a crown to her husband and one in whom her husband can trust. Her industrious, God-fearing lifestyle lifts her husband to a place of prominence at the gate of the city.

• Think of the New Testament wives, too. What was the difference between Ananias and Aquila? Perhaps it was only the difference between a Sapphira and a Priscilla.

The Scriptures teach us that the wives of men who desire the office of a deacon must be grave, not slanderers, sober, and faithful. What does this mean? These women must be mature, not acting frivolously or foolishly. Their tongue must be filled with the law of kindness. (The Greek word for slanderer is the root word from which “diabolical” is derived.) Sober means temperate and self-controlled in light of alcoholic drink and any other form of addiction or out-of-control behavior. And faithful means just that - faithful, trustworthy, reliable, and full of integrity. Whether your husband desires to be a deacon, to start a ministry, to change the course of his life - and thereby your course, as well - or he wants to simply be a faithful man of God, these are good goals to strive for.

As a wife, your attitude and your words have the power to shape your husband’s image of himself, his work ethic, his willingness to respond to God’s leading, and more. If he feels that you trust him and respect his word and his work, he will be more likely to be a man of integrity by keeping his promises, striving diligently to provide for his family, and willingly allowing God to stretch him. If you reject everything he wants to do for the Lord, he will eventually quit trying. And if you mock his sensitive heart, he will harden it, as well as harden himself to you, too.

But if you respond with genuine willingness to help him with these things - with an attitude of joy and softness to God’s work - he will accomplish much for the Lord. There may not always be large numbers to go along with his work, but God is looking for faithfulness, not popularity.

How can you help your husband in this regard?

1. Commit to keeping your relationship with God warm, fresh, and open.

2. Resolve to never mock your husband when He feels God is leading him to try something new or different.

3. Be willing to try new things along with your husband.

4. Don’t dig your heels in and fight every little thing. Ask God to give you a willing, adventurous spirit to match the call on your husband’s life.

5. Help your children to be excited about what God is doing in their daddy’s life, too. Your response will greatly affect theirs!

6. Recognize that your trust is really in God, not in your husband, although you are trusting your husband to correctly administer the things God gives him.

7. Pray for him!

8. Believe in him!

Rather than limiting your husband and yourself in pride, selfishness, and idolatry, why not commit to keeping your heart open and tender to the Lord’s leading? His ways and plans are far better than our own. And through this endeavor, your marriage will be strengthened, your intimacy will deepen, and your love for one another will be multiplied.

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

“I can do ALL things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” (Philippians 4:13)