Are You Enjoying the Ride?

Imagine with me a family ready to leave on a once-in-a-lifetime vacation. Excitement builds as they set out in a car packed with the sundry items a father, mother and assorted children need for a leisure trip. Dad gets behind the wheel while Mom settles into the passenger seat. The children are in their seat belts and child safety seats. They have decided on their destination and all are anticipating the arrival there. For the first hour all is well, then Dad takes a turn off the interstate. "What are you doing?" asks Mom. "Oh, I thought we'd take this route," he replies. Mom protests, "But we'll never get there if we don't take the interstate!" This, of course, is not true. Dad's way may take a bit longer, but there may also be better scenery or roadside stops along his route. Yet Mom focuses not on arriving at the destination but how she would get there if she were driving. She finds dissatisfaction and expresses disapproval in Dad's driving for the rest of the trip.

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All too often this scenario goes on in Christian homes. (We'll leave the discussion of a non-Christian spouse for another time and place--and blogger.) Wives like you and me listen to preaching on submission and nod our heads in agreement. Oh, yes, we want spiritual leaders to follow! We will back them up and sweetly submit to their firm direction for our family. We jump into the passenger seat, but they decide to take a different route than we thought they would. Our destination is Heaven and there is only one direction to go in order to arrive there. However, when our husbands don't do things just the way we think they should, we whine, "What can I do? I try to submit to my husband but he just won't lead." We sigh and shrug our shoulders and take over the driver's seat. Oh no, we don't push our husbands out of the way! That wouldn't be "submissive". We just sit in the passenger seat and pout and whine and feel sorry for ourselves for being bereft of a spiritual leader.

The truth is the father in my family vacation scenario was leading his family. He was on his way to their agreed upon destination. He didn't go south when he should have gone east. He was headed in the right direction. However, his methods were different than the ones the mother would have chosen, therefore she accused him of not leading them to their destination because he wasn't leading the way she thought he should.

Maybe your husband doesn't lead family devotions or maybe he doesn't lead them the way you would lead them. Maybe he doesn't take the position at church that you think he should. Maybe he reads His Bible at night instead of early in the morning like you do. God just says, "Submit". No exception clause other than a husband leading us into sin.

Before we accuse our husbands of not being spiritual leaders, let us ask ourselves: Are we going in the right direction to arrive at our Heavenly destination? If so, then sit back and enjoy the ride. No vacation is complete without a few surprises!