Rosh Chodesh Sameach! This post is actually going to come out a couple of days after the New Moon is sighted in Israel.
One day, I was online looking for some more to add to my prayers for my husband and I ran across the 30-Day Husband Encouragement Challenge from Revive Our Hearts Ministries. The initial response in my mind was not positive so I had to do some self-examination and ask myself why. My husband and I have a great relationship. We've been together for 31 years and married for nearly 28 of them. The only answer that I can think of that would have caused that response is maybe some residual feminist thought patterns from my upbringing.
Every now and then, an article makes it's rounds on Facebook or Pinterest from 1955.
Even those who have very little inclination towards feminism are likely to look at this and say, "Oh, hold on one minute here!"
The 30-Day Husband Encouragement is NOT asking you to check your brain and sensitivities at the door. It is giving us as wives the opportunity to put Yehovah to the test. Consider the following Scriptures.
James 2:17, "Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead." Faith is not fluffy clouds and feathers. Faith is doing the hard things that YOU are able to do and trusting that the Almighty will do what HE is able to do. If you have been praying for your husband to change, maybe the Father wants to work through you to do it, but you haven't been a willing vessel.
The Amplified Bible breaks down 1 Peter 3:1-2 like this: "In like manner, you married women, be submissive to your own husbands [subordinate yourselves as being secondary to and dependent on them, and adapt yourselves to them], so that even if any do not obey the Word [of God], they may be won over not by discussion but by the [godly] lives of their wives, when they observe the pure and modest way in which you conduct yourselves, together with your reverence [for your husband; you are to feel for him all that reverence includes: to respect, defer to, revere him—to honor, esteem, appreciate, prize, and, in the human sense, to adore him, that is, to admire, praise, be devoted to, deeply love, and enjoy your husband]."
Are you able or willing to be a wordless witness fit for the Master's use? Do you REALLY trust Yehovah? "Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me." Matthew 16:24 What if for the next 30 days, taking up your cross is bridling your unruly tongue and speaking positive words over your husband? Hmm.
Proverbs 31:11:
In this verse, the Hebrew word for heart is lev. It is a spelled with the Hebrew letters lamed and beyt. Lamed in Paleo Hebrew (pictographs like Egyptian heiroglyphics) is a shepherd's staff. Beyt is a pictograph of a tent or house. This word tells us that a woman of valor shepherd's her husband's heart. Her husband is secure in the knowledge that his heart is in a safe place.
Following verse, Proverbs 31:12 in the Amplified reads: "She comforts, encourages, and does him only good as long as there is life within her."
I always say, this walk is not about how much Word you KNOW, but how much Word you LIVE.
This is the beginning of the 11th Biblical month, let's put some feet to our faith!
Find me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Donalacasa
