God's Design and My Heart for Marriage

So lately I’ve been thinking a lot about relationships, marriage, and what that looks like as a believer.  I’m 26 years old, and what I like to call “super single.” J  The desire of my heart is to get married, serve with my husband, and have a family.  And, trust me when I say I pray fervently about these things.  And while God hasn’t blessed me with a man who would be a godly husband yet, He has and continues to teach me what a biblical marriage should look like.  He’s shaping my heart in this waiting period, and while it’s hard to wait for something you long for, I know there’s purpose in the waiting and that He’s preparing my heart for beautiful things He has for me. 

One thing that’s been on my heart lately is biblical marriages.  What do they look like?  What does a godly wife look like?  Is this even possible?  In my super-singleness I’m not sure why God has laid this on my heart, but He has, so I’m learning, praying, and letting Him shape my heart.

Here’s some of what He’s been teaching me, and my heart and desire for my future marriage…

Submissive. The word itself culturally has negative connotations. Many often entangle and intertwine submissiveness and weakness.   Personally, I disagree.  I think being submissive under the right authority and leadership is a sign of great strength and wisdom.  The Bible has a lot to say about being submissive.  And while some would argue that the verses that speak to women being submissive partners in a marriage relationship are outdated and irrelevant in the 21^st century, again I strongly disagree.  The Word of our Living God is timeless, it is no less applicable today then it was a thousand or two thousand years ago.  God isn’t bound by time; He defines it.  Therefore, I think it’s safe to say that God’s Word doesn’t have an expiration date or even a “best if used by date.”

I don’t think many would argue that the Bible calls women to be submissive to their husbands, that’s just truth you can’t deny that the words are there.  Now you can disagree with it’s application, relevance, etc.  But it’s there, quite clearly.   I’m doing a She Reads Truth study of 1 Timothy right now, and the verses for today’s reading were 1 Timothy 2:1-15.  We see Paul urging women to be submissive in verses 11-15.  We see the idea of being wives being submissive to their husbands again in Ephesians 5, and 1 Peter 3.  It’s there.  We cannot deny that. 

For a while I really, really struggled with this idea.  Honestly, it seemed degrading, disrespectful, and honestly just downright out-dated.  My heart had been so influenced and brainwashed by culture and the world—I didn’t like the idea of being under the leadership of someone else.  I didn’t like the thought of being this meek little woman in a marriage with no backbone or no opinion, who sat in the kitchen and made sandwiches.  Not me, no thank you.   

Well, the more I studied God’s Word and prayed about this, the more He revealed.  To fully understand, I had to start in the Garden.  In the first three chapters in Genesis we see God’s beautiful design for creation. Can I just say how enthralled I am with our God???  He really is a beautiful Creator. 

He designed us with such care, detail, and purpose.  Back to my point—When God created man and woman he created them distinctly different, not just in physical form, but in every way imaginable.  God created us differently; another truth I don’t think many would disagree with.  God created man and woman to delight in each others’ differences.  We were created with very distinct and unique roles, but equally as important. 

For a time in the Garden, Adam, Eve, and God lived in perfect unity with one another.  Adam fulfilling the roles that God had called him to as a man, and Eve fulfilling her roles as the woman.  Bliss.  Harmony. Perfection.  There was NOTHING evil, dishonoring, or discriminatory about God’s creation.  We were created to be dependent on our Creator, and function within the roles that God had given us.  Well. You know the story.  Sin enters the world, and everything changed.  Separation, opposition, discontentedness, and discord replaced the harmony, unity, peace, and perfection that God intended for us. 

There were and are many repercussions because sin entered the world; the one that is most relevant to women and submission is in Genesis 3:16.  God tells Eve that she will desire to control her husband, but he will rule over her.  Now, the curse isn’t men will rule over women, God’s design from the beginning were these distinct and unique roles; the curse is that we as women, will want to assert control over our husbands. 

When I finally understood this, by the grace of God, it made so much sense to me.  It’s where my heart once was, I didn’t want anyone to lead me, if anything I wanted to be the leader.  Thankfully, through prayer, counsel, Scripture and the grace of God my heart is no longer in that place.  I can see God’s perfect design for men and women.  He created us to live in unity in our distinct roles that He has called us to.

You don’t have to agree with what I have said about God’s design or what I’m about to say about my desire for my future marriage, but it’s what the Lord has revealed to me through His word.  Now I’m no expert on marriage, or even relationships for that matter.  But I know what type of marriage I want.  I know what type of wife I want to be, and I’m praying that God-willing some day I will be.  I know the type of husband, I want to serve and serve with.  So with that being said, I want to be a submissive wife.  My prayer even now, in my singleness, is that God is preparing my heart to love and serve my husband well. 

       Hear me out.  I want a biblical marriage; one where two imperfect people who love the Lord, come together to serve Him, and love others and each other.  The idea of being submissive to my husband is only exciting to me because I’m trusting that the man I’m going to marry is going to be committed and unquestionably sacrificed to Jesus.  When I pray for my future husband and marriage, I pray first, that God would give me His best, and that whoever that is  that he would love Jesus more than anything in this world, and that we would share a Kingdom vision and eternal perspective.

       When I think about the man I want to marry, I have high expectations, I’m not afraid to admit that.  But as a woman, and someday as a wife, I believe that I’m called to submit to my husband’s leadership and authority, and I want to have a husband who LOVES our God, because that’s the leadership and authority I want to be under.  So yes, I have high standards, and no I won’t settle.  

I want a dead man.  Sounds gruesome, I know, but it’s not; it’s beautiful.  I want a man who is dead to himself, whose own life means nothing to Him, who doesn’t want a Sunday morning Jesus, but is branded by the very God who has beautifully wrecked my entire life. 

       I seriously can’t imagine the joy I will have serving along side, and submitting to the leadership of that kind of man.  We will be equal.    We both have value, but we are called to VERY different roles in our relationship.  The bible calls me to be submissive, while it says my husband will love me as Christ loved the Church. 

I know relationships and marriages aren’t rainbows and butterflies, and that my husband won’t love me perfectly, neither will I love him in that way.  We’ll fail.  We’re humans.  Only Christ can love us with that perfect kind of love, BUT can I just say how exciting it is to think that the man I marry is going to love me like Christ loves His bride.  Christ laid down His life for the Church, and that’s the way my husband is called to love me.  WHAT A GIFT!!!!  Being submissive is still a hard thing for me to wrap my brain around sometimes because I’m opinionated, passionate, and tend to be a little okay, maybe a lot argumentative.  But, if someone loves me sacrificially, and unconditionally, I can and want to submit to that. 

Some of you might not agree, I would say with some degree of certainty the world would call me nuts, and feminist probably want to shake me, but that’s okay.  This is something I will wait for, and will not compromise on.   This is what I’ve chosen, this is what I believe to be truth, this is what I believe God wants for me as His daughter.    

Two years ago, if you had told me that I would someday want to be a submissive wife I would have laughed, and said NO WAY.  But God has done and continues to do big things in my life.  He continues to change my heart and make me more like Jesus.  This is me, this is my story, and this is my heart.  I have seen in Scripture the beautiful design that God intended at Creation, I have seen the beautiful design of marriage in Scripture and through the lives of people I love, and hopefully God-willing some day I’ll get to be the wife that the Lord has called women to be in marriage.

These are my thoughts, and this is my heart all because I fell in love with a man with holes in His hands, who came, died, and continues to fight for and pursue His bride.  I want my life to mirror the love story I have with my Savior.