(Formerly in Israel, if a man went to inquire of God, he would say, “Come, let us go to the Seer,” because the prophet of today used to be called a Seer. I Samuel 9:9)
Brotherly love, the sixth addition to the faith, begins at home. Loving one’s wife is loving one’s own self. She is one flesh with her husband. This is the first step in loving others. That first step is usually the hardest one. It takes us changing.
Change in us may begin its work in a flash moment, but it completes its work in decades of walking down Love’s humbling path.
I was having marital problems. I was young, stuffed with the pride of youth that directed my tongue. So, I broke down and decided to seek help. I barely had enough time to sit down, and before I had spoken a word, the Seer asked, “Troubles with the wife?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“The Spirit, if your heart is attuned, picks up on these things. It’s really not difficult to discern because ‘all things come alike to all.’ We all come up the same way” [1].
“My wife is always bringing me down. It’s frustrating. I’ll get a wonderful revelation about God, and I am so enthused, and I try to share it with her, and all she has to say is, ‘Yeah, that’s great, but would you help me, please? Could you do something around here? Help straighten up the house. Check on the kids.’ Things like that.”
The Seer just looked at me as if looking through a window at the wind blowing through a white oak tree. “We on our spiritual walk back to the Father’s heart must not get too heavenly minded to be of any earthly good.”
I looked at him as if he were speaking Chinese. “What? What do you mean?”
“It is all about taking the heavenly things like love and mercy, and putting them into action here on earth. Christ did it and then taught it” [2].
“She makes me mad,” I continued. “It’s like she deliberately throws on me all this negativity, like a wet blanket. Instead of rejoicing with me, she just smothers me. I try to correct her and get her to stop, but that just sets her off and we start fussing and fighting.”
“Oh, you mustn’t try to stop her,” the Seer said. “Goodness, no. Never try to prevent someone from doing God’s will.”
“God’s will?” I asked. “A wife so earthly minded that she can’t get past the pots and pans and diapers is doing God’s will?”
“They are your pots and pans and your children’s clothes. Let me explain what is spiritually happening. God Himself has created your wife exactly the way she is in every respect. He has made her to be your absolute complement. She, with all her faults and all her many unappreciated virtues, is exactly what the Great Physician ordered–for you and your perfection.”
“My perfection?” I asked.
“She’s your help meet, isn’t she?” [3].
“Yes.”
“Well, then, she is being a good help meet because she’s helping you meet God. Look. She is merely speaking what is in the script written by God–as if He had with a thoughtful quill inked upon her DNA the lines she speaks to help you mature spiritually. And her reactions to you and her ‘negative’ comments to you about your ways are all ordained, scribed, and orchestrated by God to get a rise out of you.”
“It does that,” I said. “But she should be honoring her husband and not putting him down all the time.”
“You don’t need a wife that praises your every word or whim. That would not bring you to perfection. In fact, it would ruin you for God’s purposes.”
“I still don’t get it.”
“You see,” the Seer continued, “You have many faults that must be purged out of your life before full spiritual maturity comes. God uses wives to help us grow from a babe in Christ to a young man. A ‘woman shall be saved in child bearing’ [4]. She not only rears your earthly children, but also helps to rear the spiritual child of God in her life–you, her husband. She cannot change the way she has been created. She is saying exactly what the Father has entrusted her to say to you.”
“It just makes me mad,” I said.
“There. Right there in that thought–that unjust anger is an example of the kind of things that God desires to erase out of your life. And your wife will continue to bring it out–not to be mean, as you suppose. She has to. She doesn’t even realize that God is using her for the purpose of burning out the dross that lurks around your new faith. Yet, she will continue saying her lines as a faithful player on the stage of life–until you get it.”
“Get what?” I asked, still not understanding the depth of the matter.
“When you finally understand these words I’ve spoken and believed them, then you’ll have gained several precious life lessons. Number one. That God is totally sovereign and in complete control. He uses anyone and anything He desires to effect a change in one of His chosen ones–one of His elect sons of God. Two. God’s ways are not our ways. We would not perfect us the way He does. We would much rather sit in the sunshine munching Oreos as the way to make big changes in our life. Third. We need to be grateful for God’s love to us. He has chosen us as His offspring. He did not have to pick us to reveal Himself in us. So, just be grateful for your wife and don’t be bitter towards her [5]. God is using her to do a great work in you.”
“It doesn’t seem so great right now,” I said.
“When you receive this truth that I’ve shared with you, you won’t get angry and frustrated with her. You’ll know the truth that it is all God’s doing, flowing out from His heart of love. Right now you are buffeted for your own faults [6]. What will you do when you are persecuted unjustly?”
“I don’t know.”
“When it happens, just know that it is still God doing His work of perfection in you.” The Seer paused. “But, enough of this now. Tell me. What is your wife’s favorite candy bar?”
“Almond Hershey.”
“Tell you what. Go buy her one. And with no fanfare, hand it to her and tell her that you love her.”
I did what He said. And that little gesture generated a smile on her face that said, “He understands.” But all I understood that day was the magic of chocolate. She would receive several Almond Hersheys throughout the years. But it would take decades for me to finally understand and appreciate the message he gave me that day. [This is Chap. 55 of my new book The Additions to the Faith.]
- Eccle. 9: 2
- Acts 1: 1
- Gen. 2: 18
- I Tim. 2: 15
- Col. 3: 19
- I Peter 2: 20
Immortality Road 