Wives, you have a lot of power in your marriage. Barbara Rainey writes about the power of a woman in protecting your husband from temptation, particularly the temptation of sexual sin.
You have the power to protect your husband from temptation by making sure his sexual needs are met by you and you alone. I have a good friend who said it this way: “If you don’t want to do his laundry, your husband can take his clothes to the cleaners. If you decide you don’t want to cook anymore for him, he can go out to any number of great restaurants to eat. But if your husband isn’t getting his sexual needs met at home with you, and he goes somewhere else, God calls that a sin.”
Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. If your husband sins in this way, he’s responsible before God. But at the same time, understand that you play a powerful role in helping him not yield to temptation. God created us as men and women with profoundly inherent differences. If you love him, you’ll want to protect him from the limitless temptations that the enemy of his soul floats by him day after day. You are most powerful as a wife when you become a student of what your husband likes and then use that knowledge and your feminine skill to protect him from temptation and sin.
This is part of what I spoke about on Saturday morning of our retreat – wives, respect your husbands. Part of respect does involve respecting the way God created him as a sexual being, often with greater desires in this area than his wife. And there are ways in which he can increase the romance in your marriage. But I believe Scripture teaches wives to respect their husbands in spite of their imperfections, in order to encourage and empower the husband to be the best man he can be through your unconditional love and respect.
Wives, your love and encouragement empowers us to be better men, husbands, and fathers. Read Barbara’s whole article, which is an excerpt from Dennis and Barbara Rainey’s book, Rekindling the Romance, available at Amazon.
I Commend Joy! 