A Wife’s Submission Depends on her Husband’s Love – True or False? What Russians Are Taught by Lindsay Marks Harold for Russian-Faith
“She can’t feel loved until she rests under her husband’s leadership and follows him. This is the way she was made. Being led makes her feel loved.”
As a wife myself, I often take notice of how people discuss marriage and relationships, both in society and in the church. I have noticed that a lot of Christian women today refuse to submit to their husbands until he meets her standard of perfect love, and the church too often encourages this.
If the church teaches submission at all, it always includes the caveat that the husband has to love his wife as Christ loved the church, so the take away for most women is that they don’t have to submit until the husband loves her properly first.
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Who gets to decide when the husband is properly loving her? Why, she does, of course. When she feels loved enough, then she will start submitting. That’s the way most women today approach this issue.
What is so ironic (and sad) about this vicious cycle is that it will never satisfy her, no matter how much her husband does. The reason it will never satisfy her is that women don’t feel loved unless they are led. It is precisely the man’s leadership and authority over her that allows her to feel his love most directly.
When she refuses to submit and tells her husband to follow her emotions in order to get approval from her, she is doing exactly the opposite of what will make her feel loved. Then she blames her lack of satisfaction on her husband when it’s really her own fault. She can’t feel loved until she rests under her husband’s leadership and follows him. This is the way she was made. Being led makes her feel loved.
This is the reason it is so backwards to claim that a husband’s leadership just means being a servant. The claim is that husbands lead by serving, which means doing whatever their wives want — letting her call the shots — and then calling that “leadership”. That never works. It is completely opposite of reality. These claims of “leading by serving” invert the God-given roles and make both husband and wife dissatisfied, because they are not living according to their design.
In reality, a husband serves by leading. Leadership — real leadership by making goals and asking her to follow him — is a service she needs him to provide, so that she can feel secure and loved. He serves her by leading her.
