Day 10: 5 Ways To Encourage Your Husband To Lead
Missed some posts in this series? You can read them here.
Throughout scripture we see how we are structured, God – Man – Woman – Children. Man is not more important than Woman, we just have different roles in accordance with God. As read in scripture, the man is the “head of the wife” {1 Corinthians 11:3}, but we are suppose to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ {Ephesians 5:21}. Basically, the Man is charged with leading his household toward Christ. This is not always easy and attainable because our husbands are not perfect. But, as wives, we are charged to be our husbands helpmate.
An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life. — Proverbs 31:10-12
I’m not saying that I have this down, because I feel like I am constantly failing in this area of encouragement to my husband, but I am striving to be his helpmate and biggest fan. Here are some practical ways we can encourage our Husband’s in their role as spiritual leader of our homes.
3. Ask Him: For advice and for wisdom. I think its easy to think that you “know” what you husband will say or advice, but “ask him” for his advice. You might get the response you were thinking, but you might be surprised and he might be encouraged that you asked.
4. Follow Him: Submit to his leadership and decision making. This also means respecting him and honoring him. Read this post about practical ways to respect your husband. By no means am I saying that you should not have an opinion or voice, I am simply saying to let your husband take the lead by not solving every problem yourself.
5. Pray for Him: To me, this is the most important. I firmly, irrevocably believe in the power of prayer. Only God has the power to change and mold your husband into who He wants him to be. Pray for your husband’s walk, integrity, strength, fears, triumphs, failures, thoughts and actions. Pray for God to teach him how to be a good Husband and leader for your family. Also pray that you would be his helpmate, partner and source of encouragement.
I love number 5 – pray for him. I’m with you on this. I’ve seen God work almost overnight changes in my husband when I’ve gotten on my knees in loving prayer for him. It’s as if God is reminding me He wants what’s best too. 🙂
Wonderful reminders, Marquis, to uplift our ‘warrior-husbands’ in these ways! Thank you for this encouraging post.
Such great advice to encourage him to lead! Some men are not comfortable leading at first and sometimes we ‘knock them down’ so many times that they stop leading. These are great ways to encourage him to lead and help our heart and mind to submit. Thank you for this post!
Marquis, I loved that you shared this very important truth! My husband loves it when I ask for his advice and help. He tells me it makes him feel like a man. 🙂
Thank you, Marquis, for a very thoughtful post and good advice. In Jolene’s introduction to this series she said that we are going to be very open and not wear masks. So I’m going to throw off one of my “masks” and say that I struggle with some of the Christian “language” surrounding issues of marriage and leadership. I think it’s more of a struggle with the language than the concepts. For example, I have great respect for my husband and consider him the leader of our home, but I have never used the words “submit” or “submission” in regard to our marriage. They just carry too much negative baggage for me. So all that to say, I really loved this sentence – “I am simply saying to let your husband take the lead by not solving every problem yourself.” That just seems like such a positive, do-able concept. As wives we often feel like we have to handle everything, solve every problem, etc. But we don’t. And we shouldn’t.
Thank-you so much for this reminder to be constantly encouraging my husband. It’s easy to be the “nagging” wife and point out everything he’s doing wrong. I love these 5 points you mentioned. Unfortunately, my husband’s not there yet at leading. It’s hard to be on a higher level than him spiritually, but I pray for him and I ask you guys to consider praying for him also. I look at #1 for instance and would love to be able to say, “…our children will learn so much from you biblically,” but it’s not. Therefore, I guess I have to take the other route and praise him in other areas. (So, you wives who are able to say that about your husbands, don’t take that for granted, because I would LOVE to be able to say those words to my husband some day!) He’s just not there yet, biblically. He goes to church, but I couldn’t tell you the last time he opened his Bible. I love the points though. They are encouraging to me to just be able to pray to God for my husband to someday “see the light” and lead our family by His will.
I definitely need to remember to ask my husband’s advice and help more often. I also need to not nag him when he’s doing something I asked him to do. Then he gets frustrated and doesn’t want to do it! It’s so important to respect my husband and what he does.
Asking for his advice is really a great tip. It really helped me to get him talking!
Excellent tips!