10 Ways to Encourage Your Husband’s Leadership (Part 2)

In Part 1 of this post I shared with you my story of ‘why’ I chose the path of nurturing my husband, and today I’m giving you 10 How-to’s so you can help your man blossom as a leader.

10 Ways to Encourage Your Husband’s Leadership

1. A man’s ego is extremely fragile so handle it with care.  That’s why a man needs respect more so than a women.  (Women generally gravitate to needing more love.)  And don’t be so naive (nor deceived by the Enemy) to think that just because your husband is physically strong that he is strong enough to handle constant criticism, discouragement, lack of patience and intolerance.  I have yet to meet a man who has flourished by his wife’s or anyone else’s unkind and harsh words.
2. Pour over him water of affirming words of who he is and what he does well.
3. Let him know you’re honored to be his wife.
4. Tell him you need him (everyone likes to feel needed).  This gives your man purpose.
5. Tell him he’s a wonderful lover.
6. Hug and kiss him daily, and do it with passion.
7. Practice having an attitude of gratitude.  Focus on the good that’s in him.
8. Pray for all of his areas of responsibilities and then ask if you can help him in some way.
9. Be gracious and patient with his leadership abilities.  In other words, let go of his failures, faults, shortcomings, and inadequacies.
10. Let the Master Gardener deal with your husband’s weeds and thorns.  As wives, it’s not our responsibility to convict our husbands of their sins, rather that’s the role of the Holy Spirit.

Extending him patience and grace as he tries to grow into the man God desires him to be is the same premise as you becoming a patient and gracious wife.  He’s needing to grow as a leader and you’re needing to grow into a woman with a gentle and quiet spirit.  Usually the difference between the two is that men aren’t  nearly as critical as women are!

Now we exhort you, brethren, warn those who are unruly, comfort the fainthearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all. See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all.  Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.  1 Thess. 5:12-18

Now you might be thinking that’s a pretty hard list to follow.  Well, you are right about that!  Our natural tendency in marriage, especially as the years have gone by, is to just look at ourselves and how we’re feeling or being treated by our husbands.  We typically don’t gravitate to the whole ‘die to self’ concept because emulating our Savior is difficult, isn’t it?

So where do we get our strength to pour into our husbands?

From the Son; Jesus Christ.

Spend time in His presence.   The more you bask and soak up His rays, the stronger you’ll become and the more you’ll reflect His Light.   Every flower needs light and your man needs the Light of God radiating on him so he can blossom.  He also needs water to survive; Living Water, that is.  As you immerse yourself in the Word of God, Living Waters will naturally spill from you and your man will benefit from this.  And usually when a man blossoms because of how his wife treats him, he may pour into you so you can blossom!

I’m going to give you a challenge with this post.

Look within yourself and uncover the areas where you feel insecure, where you’ve had past mistakes and failures, and the areas in your life where you feel like you’re flailing about.  Now consider someone condemning  and criticizing you for those shortcomings.  How would that make you feel?  Would you blossom under those kind of conditions or would you have a propensity to wilt?  Take this same premise and apply it to how your husband might feel (and how you view him) about his leadership skills.  This little challenge might help you become more gracious towards your man.

AND, choose at least 2 things from the list above that you can pour into your husband so he’ll blossom.

The wise woman builds her house, but the foolish pulls it down with her hands.  Proverbs 14:1

Now it’s your turn.  What else can you add to this list so a husband becomes a better leader?

Last up in this series I’ll cover when the roles are reversed in marriage.

Live a poured out life for Christ,

Jolene