While it is enough for you to know God, you must also assure yourself that God is with you in your relationship. Assure yourself that God does not fail and that your relationship will be a success. He definitely wants the very best for you and your partner just as He has declared in His word in Jeremiah 29:11
You also need to determine to make the relationship work. There is a position of collective work in every relationship. Just as Paul writes in 1st Corinthians 3:6, there is a need for individual efforts alongside God's grace to hold a relationship together. Your relationship is a product of your efforts to sustain it and should turn deaf ears against any form negativity. When partners put in this determination to make their relationship work, they can fight any breakup scares together.
There is also a need to sew your garment where it's torn. In every relationship, you gradually get to know certain basic things about your partner and can tell whether or not it is sufficient to cause a break up in your relationship. When you find out these loopholes, you can call your partner's attention to it and ensure that they work on these tears in the relationship.
With all of these, we still assure ourselves that God's word stands at all times. His word spoke life to our relationship and only His word can turn off that life. It is also true that a broken relationship is better than a broken marriage, but at the same time it is only a successful relationship that can yield into marriage. Put all hands on deck and shut out every form of negativity and you will not experience a breakup.
It is very possible for a female partner to be more spiritually mature than her male partner. Especially if the man became a true follower of Christ many years after her. I’ve been a poor leader of my family, especially in spiritual matters. But by the grace of God I’m growing in my faith, and I’m slowly starting to take the reins of leadership in my family. My wife’s discernment, desire, and dependence on the Lord are incredible examples, and I often ask her advice and discernment in my search and reading through Scripture. So how can I better lead her?”
Let’s start with the foundations:
Hidden, But Now Revealed
The husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. (Ephesians 5:23–25)
Now that’s all very, very radical in every culture on planet Earth. It is a restoration of what God established in the garden of Eden and a transformation of the mess that the relationship became after the fall. It recaptures what God originally designed, and it redeems what was ruined in that design by sin. That’s the point of Ephesians 5: it restores headship or leadership, and it transforms that leadership by modeling it on the self-giving love of Christ for his church.
“God’s design of male and female, from the beginning, included this glorious destiny.” Tweet Share on Facebook
When Paul was finished in Ephesians 5, describing the relationship of husband and wife in this recovered and renewed dynamic, he said in verse 32, “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” So, the mystery of marriage refers to Christ and the church. And the reason he calls marriage a mystery is not that it can’t be understood, but that it was kept secret for thousands of years, and has now been most fully revealed in relation to Jesus and his church.
In other words, the secret that human marriage is modeled on the coming relationship between the incarnate, crucified, risen Son of God and his blood-bought bride, the church, is mysterious. That’s the meaning of the mystery or the secret. There were hints of it, the mystery, in the Old Testament because God called himself the husband of Israel. But this full-blown pattern of Christ and the church is a new revelation and very radical in every culture on the planet.
Christ and His Church in View
The reason that calling marriage a mystery is relevant right here is because it tells us that when God created man as male and female, he already had in view Jesus Christ and his church as the model for Adam and Eve and all marriages to follow. This means that the wisdom of God created male and female in such a way, with such male and female natures, that in their most godly manifestations, they would rejoice in and flourish in the living out of Christlike headship and church-like submission. He made them that way; that’s the mystery. It was the model from the beginning.
The distinct calling of each of them would fit their created design. The calling would fit the design. They would be perfectly suited for this dynamic of leadership and submission. In other words, calling this relationship a mystery in Ephesians 5 assures us that God’s design of male and female, from the beginning, included this glorious destiny of the man echoing Christ in his role as husband, and the woman echoing the church in her role as wife.
Governed by Infinite Wisdom
And one of the reasons I’m stressing this is that I want you to have a clear sense of why you are called to lead your wife even when she is superior to you in significant ways. What is your calling to lead rooted in? Because if you don’t get that clear, you’ll probably just bail on this and say, “Well, there’s no point in trying to do this.”
And I don’t want you to say, “Well, the reason I am called to lead is because I am called to lead.” There are a lot of people today who more or less take that position: men should lead their families on the basis of the fact that men should lead their families. Or to put it another way: God says in the Bible that men should lead their families because men should lead their families.
I want to discourage you from thinking that God flipped a coin in the garden of Eden when he was deciding about leadership in the home. I want to encourage you not to think that God said, “Well, here we have two human beings that I have made. There’s nothing about them as I have created them that would make it fitting or especially beautiful for either one to always be the leader. I have not made them that way. Nothing about their male or female differences makes it better or more fitting that one should be the leader. But I want somebody to be the leader, so let’s flip a coin. Heads — Adam leads. Tails — Eve leads.” Flip. Heads — there you go. It’s settled for all history and codified in a book. God said so. “This is the way it’s going to be because I say so. I flipped a coin.” I don’t want you to think that.
“You should feel a uniquely masculine burden that the buck stops with you.” Tweet Share on Facebook
I think that notion of why you should lead, because God just flipped a coin or God said so, dishonors, discredits the wisdom of God. I don’t think God decides anything by flipping a coin — ever — for the simple reason that if he did, he controls which way the coin lands every time. There’s no point in flipping the coin. God never does anything whimsically or randomly — ever — because he’s governed always by infinite wisdom.
“O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all” (Psalm 104:24). That’s what you do. His decisions always reflect the profound suitableness and beauty of what he decides. That applies to the decision that husbands are called to be the leaders of their wives, and we’re both fitted to these distinct callings.
Lead from Below
So, here we are at your question, and you were pointing out that it doesn’t necessarily look like you are especially fitted for leadership, and she especially fitted for submission. You say that she is spiritually more mature than you are, and that her discernment, desire, dependence on the Lord are wonderful examples for you. So, how are you going to lead her?
By being thankful and expressing thankfulness to her and to others that she is as mature and discerning and godly as she is — and by not being the least intimidated or resentful of it. That’s your first job: confident, Christ-exalting thankfulness that you have such a wife. Oh my, what a gift.
And realize that what makes your leadership fitting and beautiful is not your superior knowledge, or your superior wisdom, or your superior insight, or your superior language skills.
She may be ahead of you in all of that, and yet the fitness of your leadership is still firmly in place. I’m not denying that knowledge and wisdom and the ability to speak are helpful in exercising leadership, but they’re not the essence of it. No, no, no, no, they’re not. Nor are they the essence of what a godly woman hopes for in her husband’s leadership. The essence of this God-given call on your life as husband is a mature, loving sense that you bear a primary responsibility for the relationship.
Special Kind of Care
Let me say that again because that’s the heart of the matter: the essence of the fitness for your leadership is that you sense a call, because it’s there from God for every man — a mature, loving sense that you bear a primary responsibility for this relationship, especially the flourishing of the spiritual life of the relationship. You should feel a uniquely masculine burden that the buck stops with you for making this relationship work. When anything is not working in this relationship, you feel the primary responsibility to get it fixed — even if she has the wisdom to fix it, and you ask her to use it.
God created men to bear this burden of mature, loving, Christlike, primary responsibility for the relationship. She has her responsibilities, but you take special initiative and bear primary responsibility before God that God’s pattern be joyfully fulfilled. That’s your calling. And it does not depend on being her superior; it depends on faith, and courage, and initiative, and sacrifice.
August 23rd every year marks my baby, Adeola’s birthday. My birthday comes on the 9th of June which is almost two months before. I have noticed overtime that both dates are perfect in timing and except you are unserious with your relationship life, it really doesn’t cost you anything to be intentional about your partner’s birthday.
The devil has a reputation as the father of lies
When the devil comes to you, he brings up seemingly interesting discussions such as "how will you be able to handle a relationship if you’ve never been in one? You need to learn how to talk to people of the opposite sex. You’re awkward... and all that" He also tells you that, dating will help you be prim and proper for when you meet the one. However, this seemingly harmless advice can turn harmful. Soon enough, you will need to practice kissing, intimacy and other things in order to be prepared for your significant other. Incidentally, when you meet the person God has for you, you might be broken and dealing with soul ties.
This is why it’s best to trust God’s timing and not force situations to happen. Feeling that you need practice does not indicate your trust in God. God will use experiences, tests and even the mundane parts of your life in order to prepare you for your future spouse (read the book of Ruth). Trust that God is working all things for your good.
If you are having a crisis because your biological clock is ticking, you should know that it's the devil's lie at work. Do not fear because God’s timing is not always the same as yours. The devil will usually come through your relatives and friends who will begin to pressure you into a relationship because you’re almost 30. You’re panicking because with each additional year, you feel that your opportunity of meeting someone significantly decreases. However, God can place someone at a bus stop who can completely transform your life. We must have child-like faith and trust that God knows what we need.
If you are older and haven’t met your spouse, you are in good company. Jesus started his ministry at 30 (and was single whilst on earth) and Joseph began serving Pharaoh when he was 30.
No one likes you. You’re too weird, fat or (fill in the blank with the lie the enemy has for you). Counter these lies with God’s truths. You have to be aggressive in casting down the taunts of the enemy! God says we are fearfully and wonderfully made. When lies are entrenched in your psyche, it affects your countenance, how you talk and your self – esteem. When God finally blesses you with a good thing, you may be constantly doubting yourself. As a result, the relationship suffers.
Counter these lies by soaking yourself in God’s word. Mediate on His promises. Be proactive in what you allow your ears to hear, eyes to see and lips to utter.