June 22nd, 2011 by Kristi Stephens

Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday we looked at God’s amazing covenant with Abram – a reminder that though His timetable was not what Abram expected, He was completely in control of it all.

And then, we turn to Genesis 16.

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; so she said to Abram, “The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her.”

Genesis 16:1-2

Oh, dear.

I’ve heard people be pretty hard on Abram and Sarai. I’ve been pretty hard on them myself at times. But how many times have I found myself running ahead of God? I know He has set me on a certain course, so I recklessly charge ahead rather than waiting for His direction and timing. My timing seems more… reasonable.

Sarai felt that she had waited long enough. She must have misunderstood God’s plan – He said Abram would have a son… perhaps she was the weak link.

Sarai’s plan, which Abram willingly endorsed, was an attempt to help God – to fill in an apparent oversight on His part. The outcome was not what she had hoped.

Abram agreed to what Sarai said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.

When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me.”

“Your servant is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her…”

Genesis 16:2-6

Sarai’s “helping” caused (not surprisingly!) a huge rift in her marriage, hostility between her and Hagar, and eventually ongoing hostility between Ishmael and Isaac, the son God had promised to them who would be born years later.

God is a covenant-making, covenant-keeping God. When God calls a husband or a wife to a great work, He calls them both. They are one, bound by the covenant of marriage. For those of you who are married, your marriage matters to God. While there certainly can be times when one spouse’s desire to follow and obey God wholeheartedly may cause stress on a relationship with a resistant husband or wife, God does not call us to disregard, fracture, or violate the covenant of marriage.

I am a dreamer, a big-picture excitable thinker who is idealistic and passionate and tends to figure things out as I go. God has blessed me with a husband who is careful, deliberate, realistic, and hesitant to make a quick decision. When God lays something on our hearts, I’m ready to GO and do it NOW. NP rarely is. Does that mean he is a spiritual handicap to me, a hurdle that I should leap over in a single bound? God has taught me time and time again over the years to slow down, allow NP to lead me, submit to his leadership, hold my excitable tongue, and pray that God will give us a unified heart and mind in His timing to show us exactly what He has for us to do. Learning to pray and wait has been a lesson in trusting God’s timing all of its own – and I can only imagine the heartache and poor decisions God has spared me from under the protective umbrella of my husband’s leadership.

Are you running ahead of God? Are you running ahead of your spouse?

Friends, God doesn’t need you to “help.” Do you feel unclear, uncertain, not sure of how the timing will unfold? Pray for clarity. Trust His sovereignty. Wait patiently – and know that God will never call you to violate Scriptural principles in order to accomplish His will.

If you’ve missed anything in the One Summer, One Story series, you can find all the posts indexed here!
This post is linked up to Women Living Well Wedensdays.

May 13th, 2011 by Kristi Stephens

This week we’ve spent some time reflecting on how our words can impact our marriages.

• We talked about annoying his soul to death with the constant dripping of our words.
• We took some lessons from Job’s wife – don’t kick your man while he’s down.
• We looked at how our words aren’t always sinful or malicious – sometimes they are ill-timed. And sometimes, they reveal that our faith in the wrong place.

The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.

Proverbs 14:1

Are the words you are using in your marriage building your “house,” or tearing it down? What’s been on your mind this week?

Leave a comment, link up a post with your reflections, send me a note… I’m wondering. Is this series making you think? It sure has been stepping on my toes as I write it!

Missed any posts in the One Small Spark series? All the posts in this series are being indexed here. Hope you join us next week as we look at the power of our words in  our parenting.

May 11th, 2011 by Kristi Stephens

Sometimes our words aren’t necessarily bad or malicious… sometimes they are simply ill-timed.

I rely on my husband. When something really wonderful happens, I want to tell him and have him rejoice with me! When something really terrible happens, I want to tell him and have someone listen and understand. When I’m not sure what to do, I want to tell him and have him counsel me!

The thing is, timing is not always my strong suit.

• Water begins to bubble out of the basement drain, and I rush to the phone to call NP. He is sitting with a client or in a meeting – what can he do? Nothing. Just listen to a hysterical wife on the other end and tell her what she already knows to do!
• An email with concerning news knocks me off balance. I stew and worry, and finally feel like I am about to burst. He calls me to say he’s on his way home from work… and instead of waiting 15 minutes, I lay the news on him right then.
• A terrible day with my children. They are disobedient and whiny, the baby is crying, my nerves are shot. He walks in the door from a long and difficult day at work, and I dump it all on him – sending the children straight to him for discipline, complaining about my day, handing him a crying baby complete with a dirty diaper that I ask him to change.

I frustrate my husband when I don’t carefully consider the timing of my words – telling him what he truly needs to know now, waiting for the best time to discuss everything else with him.

But more than frustrating him… what does this reveal about me? Am I turning to my husband for comfort and counsel and peace that only God can provide?

In 2 Kings 4 there is an account of a wife who fascinates me – because her reaction to tragedy is so different from what I think mine would have been.

The woman conceived and bore a son at that season the next year, as Elisha had said to her.

When the child was grown, the day came that he went out to his father to the reapers. He said to his father, “My head, my head.” And he said to his servant, “Carry him to his mother.” When he had taken him and brought him to his mother, he sat on her lap until noon, and then died.

She went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, and shut the door behind him and went out.

Then she called to her husband and said, “Please send me one of the servants and one of the donkeys, that I may run to the man of God and return.”

He said, “Why will you go to him today? It is neither new moon nor sabbath.” And she said, “It will be well.”

2 Kings 4:17-23

The Shunammite woman held her precious boy as he suddenly fell ill and died – the miracle baby that God had given her. She calmly lays the still body of her boy on Elisha’s bed in the room she and her husband had provided for the prophet. She isn’t hysterical, she is quiet and full of faith – she simply asks her husband to allow her to go and see Elisha. Her answer to his inquiry often rings in my head – “it will be well.”

This kind of answer reveals the object of her faith – she turns to Elisha {not her husband} because God {not her husband} was the one who could address the crisis she faced.

Girls, do you suffer from a bad case of ill-timed words, a habit of crisis calls to your husband? These patterns in our lives reveal that we have placed faith in our husbands to do what God alone can provide for us. We frustrate them because we want them to solve our dilemmas when they are powerless to help.

A wife with her faith solidly placed in God alone has a soul at rest – and can say to her man, “it will be well,” even on the worst of days.

Like apples of gold in settings of silver is a word spoken in right circumstances.

Proverbs 25:11

Want to follow this series and make sure you don’t miss a post? You can follow along easily by subscribing to this blog by email or in an RSS reader! All the posts in this series will be indexed here for future reference, as well.

May 10th, 2011 by Kristi Stephens

I’m also posting over at Scripture Dig today, looking at two of my favorite Biblical moms: Lois and Eunice. Hope you join us there!

Wives can be scary.

We see our men at their lowest points. We see them weep in grief when many may never have seen them shed a tear. We know what makes them angry, we know what breaks their hearts. We know the insecurities they have dealt with since they were little boys. We know the sin they battle on a daily basis, what can make them cringe in shame.

Marriage uncovers us not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually, as well. It is very hard, nay, impossible, to protect ourselves behind walls and build intimacy at the same time.

How easy it is for us to kick our men when they are down.

If there was ever a prime example of a wife attacking her husband when he was already in deep emotional, physical, and spiritual pain, it’s the wife of Job.

So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes. Then his wife said to him…

Job 2:7-9

Job. The man had, in the blink of an eye, lost every one of his children, his wealth, and even his standing in the community. He was a righteous man, but even his closest friends assumed he was living in sin because of the affliction that had come upon him. He literally sat in the ashes and scraped his open sores with a piece of broken pottery, seeking even the slightest bit of relief.

He was the definition of a broken man.

So, here comes Mrs. Job.. Perhaps he saw her coming and longed for a word of comfort, for companionship from his wife in this time of deep loss and suffering and confusion. I wonder if he hoped she would build him up and affirm that she knew he had done nothing wrong. She nears him and opens her mouth and speaks the anticipated words of blessing…

“…Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.”

Job 2:9b

Wait… what?? Like balm to a wounded soul, isn’t it?

Using wise words in marriage can be hard. No doubt, Job’s wife was in shock over losing her children, trying to figure out what was going on, and she may have assumed (as his friends did) that it was all Job’s fault. When our men are hurting, we are hurting, too. When they are grieving, we are usually grieving at the same time. When they are mourning over their sin, we are often struggling with anger and a sometimes even a sense of betrayal.

Our words have great power when our men face these times of vulnerability. Will we speak truth, encouragement, love, affirmation, reassurance of our commitment to them – or will we kick them when they are already down? My husband is also my brother in Christ – am I seeking his ultimate good, or am I going to use the sharp dagger of my words to wound him in revenge for how I may have been hurt?

The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain.
She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life.

Proverbs 31:11-12, ESV

Lord, please open our eyes to see our men as you see them. They are far from perfect, yes, and so are we. Reveal to us the sin and self-righteousness lurking in our hearts that bubbles out of our mouths when we are hurt and vulnerable. Show us where we have wounded them, give us courage to confess and seek forgiveness from them, heal our marriages from the damage we have inflicted with our tongues.

This post is linked up to Women Living Well Wednesdays! Want to follow this series and make sure you don’t miss a post? You can follow along easily by subscribing to this blog by email or in an RSS reader! All the posts in this series will be indexed here for future reference, as well.