Rewards
Of course, the big reward is heaven. If we can just make it to the throne…if we can sit around the throne of God with our spouses and our children in the New Jerusalem, singing praises to the Lamb…our marriages will have rendered the ultimate reward. But there are more immediate rewards of honoring the Christian commitment in our marriages.
Our prayers are not hindered when we do marriage God’s way (I Pet. 3:7). Have you ever tried to talk to God when you have argued in anger with your husband or failed to abide by His decision? You will find that you cannot approach the Highest Authority until you have submitted to His delegated authority. If you find yourself in that awkward place, go apologize to your husband and then come back and talk to your Father.
Our daughters receive invaluable training for submission in their own future marriages. This is training that they will rarely receive in other venues in our world of feminism. In fact, their guidance counselors at school will, almost always, scoff at girls who would like to marry and bear children in lieu of having a career. Their role models in secular society mock at the rare woman of God who openly speaks of submitting in marriage. So this gift of a godly mother’s example is crucial. We must be constantly aware that we are countering a very convincing culture when our children watch us interact with our husbands. Our window of opportunity to indelibly etch this vision of what God wants and rewards in the hearts of our sons and daughters is extremely limited.
Our husbands will be better able to slay the dragons in their hectic and often godless worlds as they go about leading and providing for our families. A warm and loving haven where there is respect and admiration for a man enables him to do the tough stuff for his family in a culture of disrespect. He can take almost any courageous action for his wife and children if there is peace, harmony and respect around the dinner table.
But the biggest reason is the one listed beneath the admonition to be obedient to husbands in Titus 2:5. It is this: “…that the word of God be not blasphemed.” If we knew nothing else about the rewards of doing marriage God’s way, this would be enough. I have seen this blasphemy in the words and demeanor of teen girls and young wives who wear the name of Christ, but whose moms failed to teach them the principles of respect in marriage. One teenage girl in class responded to a lesson on submission in marriage by asking “Are you telling me, Mrs. Cindy, that I will one day have to obey the man I marry?”
I responded “No, Heather. I am not saying that. God said that.”
…To which Heather responded with folded arms and a steely resolve in her voice…“Well, I’m not doing that!”
This was a harbinger of disaster in Heather’s future marriage. It was blasphemy. It most certainly would, one day, represent a breach in some promises she had made when she had taken His name. Heather had decided not to be a daughter of Sarah. She had decided not to do well. May you and I do well and may God help us to teach our daughters to do well.
