Helping Husbands Lead

[00:00:04] Hello and welcome to this episode of Become A Competent Biblical Counselor. I'm Dr. Dave Jones in today's episode is entitled, Helping Husbands Lead. Now for those of you who are studying the possibility of becoming a competent biblical

[00:00:38] counselor, this is one of the issues that you're going to be facing quite a lot. So I want to address that today. One of the questions that I hear so often is, how can I get my husband to a soon leadership in the home?

[00:00:53] Well, I think that's a good question and I think that's a bad question. So let's get started. It's good because we're here so often from the pulpits and in the books that we are just spilled

[00:01:06] out all over the place in Christian bookstore today that the husband is to be the leader in the home, the wife is to be submissive to her husband. Of course we've talked about it on these burnt brown cast some time to time and incidentally

[00:01:23] you better be very careful about what people say about this matter of leadership and submission because there are a lot of false teachings being said as you know. But it is good that a wife is concerned about her husband becoming the leader in her home.

[00:01:40] However, just the way that it is rooted so often as I hear it in counseling sessions and I word it at the way that I hear it so often as how can I get my husband to a soon leadership in the home?

[00:01:55] That's not so good because you see already the woman is assuming that she's going to take the leadership and getting her husband to become the leader in the home. And again, this is where so much fails. Now look, let's think about this for a little while.

[00:02:14] You're not going to make a husband leader by assuming that leadership role yourself. The Bible makes it very clear that when Sarah and 1 Peter 3-6-O-Bade Abraham calling him Lord that you too become her children if you do what is right

[00:02:33] and that's the conclusion of a section in which he's talking about how to live with an unsaved husband who is persecuting you. The whole book of 1 Peter deals with persecution, an inverse one of chapter 3, it says in the same way

[00:02:49] and that hearts back to chapter 2 where it talks about how Christ handle persecution and that the message is to be a dismissive of her husband. But you see, it doesn't say she will necessarily change her husband.

[00:03:07] It says that if he's going to be the one, it will be one by her becoming what she should be. Not by her trying to make him what he should be and therein lies the answer to this problem of how a wife can help a husband

[00:03:23] not get into a sum leadership but help him to become a leader in his home. And there's a tremendous difference between nagging him about leadership which doesn't result in any kind of proper answer

[00:03:38] because we read in verse 1, even if any of them are disobedient of to the word, they may be one without a word by the catch this. Behaviour of their wives as they observe your chaste and respectful behaviour.

[00:03:56] In other words, if she nags them about becoming the head of his home, taking leadership, becoming the leader he ought to be and all that kind of thing.

[00:04:07] He's going to find out, she's going to find out, she's going to do a lot more harm than she is good. He's going to resent this nagging.

[00:04:19] He's, if he's a sinner and he's not listening to the word of God, he's probably going to resent this and that doesn't excuse him, of course. He doesn't have to resent it but he probably will.

[00:04:33] And it's going to turn him just further away from leadership and he's going to resent you for it. So, you don't try to get your husband to become the leader of your home. That's taking leadership again out of his hands, what you must do is to help him.

[00:04:51] The wife's role in the home is to be a helper, a helper in all things, a helper in thinking through the answers to problems,

[00:05:00] a helper in physical ways, a helper in getting him to, in helping him to assume leadership in the home, but not in getting him to assume leadership. So your attitude must always be helpful. Now, what is helpful? What will make you are attitude helpful?

[00:05:23] And how can you be most helpful? Well, the first thing you have to do is to be sure that you are helping him by getting out of his shoes. I've seen and heard in counseling sessions where this problem has a risen time and time and time again.

[00:05:40] I have heard women and seen women protest that their husbands are not standing in the place of leadership and it's impossible for those to be in the place of leadership because their wives are already put down in that spot.

[00:05:55] They've got the husbands shoes on, they're wearing the pants in the home. They've got a hold of all the reins of the home. Well, down the world do you expect your husband to occupy the same shoes that you already occupy?

[00:06:10] How do you expect him to stand where you're already standing? How do you expect him to take the reins of your hanging onto them and hogging them and not letting him have them? Hard words yes. It's exactly what some women need to hear.

[00:06:27] You're trying to get him to take leadership by taking the leadership and getting him to take leadership. That's one of the examples that we've been talking about right here today. All right, now you let go of the reins.

[00:06:41] Take those shoes off and put them next to his side of the bed. Get rid of those pants and put on a dress that him have his own pants to put on. In other words, you stay out of that place of leadership.

[00:06:57] But if I don't take it nothing will get done just as well as something doesn't get done for a while. How do you ever expect him to get leadership or take leadership if you keep doing it all for him? Yeah, but the bills won't get paid.

[00:07:12] Well, so they don't get paid. So let's something come in. Let some bill collector get after him. But the children won't. Don't worry about the children either. They also buy some how or other.

[00:07:27] Just let him feel the weight of the responsibility a little bit and stop bearing his responsibility. For him and whatever they may be. Step aside. Get out of the way. In other words, that's the most critical thing that you can do.

[00:07:42] Now you may be one of those wives who thinks well, I'm so much smarter than my husband. And I can do things so much better than he. Why shouldn't I take the leadership? He's now the smartest I am. I'm smarter than he. Oh, come off of it. Life.

[00:07:59] I mean, that's really you really expect us to believe that. Well, if you were all that smart, why do you do marry a man who isn't as smart as you in the first place?

[00:08:09] But let's just assume for the moment that you are so much smarter than he is. Then it ought to be dark soon for you simply to be able to stand out of his way and to help him and unobtrusive manner

[00:08:22] to take that leadership that he so needs to take. I don't buy the story that a wife was so much smarter than her husband that she has to take the leadership.

[00:08:33] If she's that smart, she ought to be able to think through ways that I don't need to suggest to her today to help him to do what he ought to do.

[00:08:43] And not to order him, not to lead him doing it, not to become a nag about doing it, not to so do it for him that he doesn't need to do it himself.

[00:08:54] But to so help him through knowing when to move back, when to speak up, when to suggest something lovingly, when to make an observation, when to greet your teeth and not do what you should do on your own and solve the problem.

[00:09:12] But to let him solve it at that point, when to let him move ahead and take that leadership, when to so create a situation, a vacuum that he has sucked into the leadership by the fact that you have removed yourself from it.

[00:09:28] If you're all that smart, I think that you'll know when and where and how to do these things. In fact, the matter is I haven't met very many women down deep underneath who don't really want their husbands to take that leadership.

[00:09:44] But many of them are afraid to let him take it. Well, that's where your help comes in. You don't need to be afraid if you're standing there willing to help.

[00:09:56] Willing to back him up, willing to work with him, willing to bring all of your abilities and your talents and all that wisdom and all that smartness that God gave you to bear to cooperate with him in his leadership.

[00:10:12] But that's a different thing than assuming the leadership yourself. The fundamental answer to this problem is to get out of the place of leadership yourself and make it absolutely essential in that home for him to do so.

[00:10:28] Lord, we pray that wise women will learn how to move out of their husbands' shoes and to put them next to his side of the bed.

[00:10:39] So hopefully this was some use today that you learned something that you may not have known before or maybe you've heard of this before, but you've just forgotten it. Take it to heart and help your husband to be a leader.

[00:10:53] Thanks for listening and make it a blessed day.