Trust, Follow, Submit: How your relationship with God will affect your marriage.

The bible gives us a clear description of the character of a godly wife.  "Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything." Ephesians 5:24  And the verse continues on to say the husband is the provider and protector for the wife.  I don't know about you, but if someone is providing and protecting me, I think I would have a  large amount of trust and comfort with them.

Some of you disagree with me.  The thought of letting a man lead you while you blindly follow scares you to death.  That's fear creeping in, and that fear is not of God (1 John 4:18, 2 Timothy 1:7.)  This fear of not being in control, and not knowing the outcome of our future, reflects our faith in God.  In fact, it starts with God.  If you can't blindly follow God, and trust that he will provide for you, how do you plan on following your husband?

As a single woman, you should be using each experience and circumstance as a way to fall back and depend on God more and more.  That is, after all, the Christian walk (Luke 9:23.)  The more we depend on God, the more we let go of our own life and plans.  This is part of the life-long sanctification process we begin in Christ.  

Our earthly relationship with our husband is a reflection of our heavenly relationship with God, both directly influence each other.  Do you remember when you first fell in love with God?  Perhaps you are still there.  Everything is fresh and new in the morning.  You can't get enough of this wonderfully rich Bible!  Hours upon hours you spend praying and weeping, asking God to take more of your life to glorify himself.  Your every word hangs on him, and every conversation somehow turns to Him.  Your heart feels like it just might explode if you don't tell everyone about this wonderful new-found joy you are experiencing!  

God remembers your first love too...

"I remember the devotion of your youth,

how as a young bride you loved me and followed me

through the desert,

through a land not sown."

Jeremiah 2:2

See, not only do you need God, but he needs you.  His heart aches for that special place only you can fill.  He longs to be your sole provider and protector--forever!  He makes promise after promise to you, in hopes of capturing your heart, only to be pushed and kicked away by each selfish plan and claim you make.

"Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you..." Hebrews 13:5

"I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness..."  Jeremiah 31:3

"...Call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you."  Jeremiah 29:12

"Trust in [me] with all your heart, and [I] will make your paths straight."  Proverbs 3:5-6 (paraphrase)

In chapter two of his book, God tells Jeremiah the two things his people have done that he considers sin.  First, they turned their backs on God, then they "dug their own cisterns that cannot hold water."  This means they took matters into their own hands by trying to control their own lives--obviously this didn't work because their cisterns didn't hold water.  (Jeremiah 2:13)

God wants to provide for you.  He wants to lead you and protect you, just like your earthly husband will.  Practice falling into God's arms now, so submitting and trusting becomes a natural habit that brings you peace and contentment.