Loving and Leading by Lowering (Chapter 1, Day 3)

If this is your first time here, go back to the first day.

Dear sons,

Text messages from last week:

Melissa: Hannah ask if we can dog sit for a week until she comes back for Heather’s wedding next weekend.

Me: No on dog and i mean no!

Melissa: It's only a week.

Me: It has already been a week. "No" isn’t that difficult of a word.

We have a shelter in town and she has a job and an income.

She can pay for a shelter.

That was then: in our text messages.

This is now: with Pepper in my living room eating a stick.

Bible: Wives submit to your husbands as unto the Lord.

Humanity: Yeah, right!

   How do we balance “Love your wives as Christ loved the church” with “Wives submit to your husbands” and “Submit yourselves one to another in love.”

   So how do we lead if we are to submit?

   I’m getting ready for doing the ceremony for Heather and Rory and I am looking at some of my old notes in marital counseling and weddings. It’s interesting and a little disappointing that Batterson doesn’t talk much about husbands loving their wives in Chapter 1 on love. As I point out in counseling and I think I did in my ceremonies with you two "boys", love is the most repeated command for the husbands in the Bible.

   Virtually everything Jesus did while on earth was in submission, not to the church or to humanity but to God. When Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, or was carried away to Pontius Pilate or carried his cross to Calvary, it may not have looked like He was leading, but it did look like He was loving.

   Leading by love sometimes, even oftentimes, but not all the time, means leading by lowering ourselves below our wants to meet the needs of others. (You know that now even more as husbands and especially now more as dads!). We don't lower ourselves under or beneath our wives but we always lead by lowering ourselves under the Lordship of Christ.

    To love the way Christ loves the church means our love has to be, as Batterson says, as tough as nails. The nails on the cross however were not what held Christ to the tree. It was his love.

    I think it is interesting what Polycarp said as he stopped them from nailing his hands before he was put to the fire, “He who gives me strength to endure the fire will enable me to do so without the help of your nails.” (page 8)

    To love and lead our wives doesn’t take nails. It takes a lot of prayer and truly hearing from God. Don’t ever put your foot down in your decisions before you put your knee down! Loving and leading takes discernment from God. Ask yourself, “Is this what God wants or what I want.”

    And sometimes love looks an awful lot like a dog eating a stick in your living room.

I love you sons,

Dad/Pops