All I Need Is Just A Little Respect

     Today I have the pleasure and honor of being the Featured Member at Faithful Bloggers (click here to read)! I hope you'll go over and check out their site. Then come back and leave me a comment, if you do!  I have been so blessed by their website.  Kelly and Courtney, you are doing a great job!

Respecting Our Husbands

      I've been thinking today about how we can better be the helpmeet to our husband that God wants us to be.  (Genesis 2:18, 22--"And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him...And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.")  Men and women are different--you already knew that, didn't you:)--men need respect, while women want to be loved. (This is a simplification, yes, but generally speaking, it's true.)  God commanded husbands to love their wives, but women to reverence their husbands. Ephesians 5:25, 28, 33--"Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it...So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.  Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband."
     I've been married 31 years, and I don't claim to have this down yet, but, I've learned some things that I would like to pass on to you today. (I will be working even harder on practicing what I preach after today's post:).
     Here are some ways to show your husband respect.  1) When your husband is talking, look at him and show genuine interest in what he's saying.  (Remember how you looked up at him when you were dating?)  2) If your husband makes a suggestion, or has an idea, don't give him a counter-idea or tweek his idea.  Our girlfriends may like this, but this shows disrespect to our husbands.  This may make him feel that you think you always have a better idea.  (They may ask for our ideas at times, and then we should share them, but still with respect.) This is hard for me, as I am an idea person--I always have 6 ideas and 100 suggestions on how to do anything--unfortunately, even when I don't have a clue what I'm talking about! I can still make it sound good. I'm still learning to shut my mouth and not interrupt with, "Oh, yeah! and we could do this and this and this, too!" but, instead, to let my husband fully share his idea and smile and nod and be encouraging. And then just say, "That's a good idea!"  3) When talking to friends and people outside of our family, let's be loyal.  We should never ever speak negatively about our husband to someone else.  We must always seek to lift our husbands up in others' eyes and cause others to respect them.  I'm not talking about obnoxious or insincere boasting about our husband, but I am saying that we must choose our words carefully when speaking about our husband to others, and be very careful never to cast him in a bad light. I think this is one of the things the writer in Proverbs 31:11 is talking about, when he says, "The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil."  Can our husbands trust us to show respect for them, no matter where we are?  4) Don't treat your husband like a child. It's easy to fall into the habit of talking to our husbands as though they were just another one of our children.  "You're not going to do that, are you?"  "Be careful."  "Make sure you don't forget ________."  We get so used to giving direction and advice, reminders and correction to our children, that it is easy to forget that our husband is a grown man.  If he's a patient man, he may never say anything about it. But we need to show him that we respect him, and trust that he is capable.  We should not "mother" our husbands--this is not how we should treat our "man."  Instead, 5) Look to him for advice and direction.  Ask him what he thinks about the decisions and choices you have to make.  Make a practice of asking him for counsel and direction, knowing that God will lead you through him, and then do what he says.  If you have a husband who generally says, "I don't care," when you ask him what to do, it may be that you have been asking him, but also all your friends, as well, for advice, and he knows that his is just one of many opinions that you will consider! This was my situation a number of years ago.  You may find it takes awhile for him to get used to the fact that you actually mean to take his advice and do it.  When he shares what he thinks, listen and do it, and little by little he will begin to respond knowing you value his opinion, and him.  This is one very important way to show our husbands respect.
     Proverbs 31:26--"She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law of kindness."