I just finished watching a show on marriage. A Christian marriage counselor was talking about Ephesians 5:17-33. Here's my summary of the verses, simply to promote my own understanding, followed by my own thoughts after listening to his message...
vs. 17-12: Don't be dumb, understand the will of God. To do so you can't have distractions that fill up your mind, you must be filled with the spirit. Hymns and scriptures should flow through your mind regularly, putting your heart in the right place. Then keep your blessings front and center in your life, working for them and towards them. That is real gratitude. (As in everything else, you must personally connect to heaven before being a successful anything, but this is particularly true of being a celestial wife.)
vs. 21-24: When it comes to marriage you need to submit to each other, putting the needs of the whole ahead of your own. Wives submit to your husbands in the same way you submit to the Lord. Allow him to lead you. (How do we submit to the Lord? We trust his word, we seek his counsel, we support all righteous goals and efforts with gratitude and service. We submit to wisdom and love. That is how we submit to the Lord. We DON'T submit to selfishness, laziness, or sin.)
vs. 25-27: The husband needs to learn to love and lead a family, that is his calling and destiny, even as Christ is the head of the church. He must use the word of God to continually cleanse the family from the world so he can present his family, whole and pure at the last day. (Let him lead. Respect the role that he has been called to fill. That is a man's number one need in a relationship, respect. That is the most vital gift we can give our husbands. It is the key to their hearts. One of the greatest ways to communicate disrespect is in your tone. For example, you can say "could you please take you the trash?" as a gentle request or a scathing indictment to his laziness just by using different tones.)
vs. 28-31 Men need to live up to the respect given to them by their wives. Even when, or especially when, her needs make no sense to him he must honor them without demanding an explanation. He should see her as an extension of himself. If your arm itches you don't demand an explanation before scratching it. A marriage is two people becoming one. (Our number one need in a relationship is security through sacrifice. We need to see our men sacrifice for us. It secures our hearts to them. When they sacrifice for us we would follow them anywhere, am I right? I think men were not meant to fully understand women. When they seek to fill our needs, even without a complete logical explanation, it shows us their dedication and commitment.)
vs. 32-33: This is one of the great mysteries of Godliness, this balance of opposing roles. It was modeled perfectly by Christ and his sacrifice for the church. Now it is up to us to apply this principle for celestial potential to our marriages. Men love your wives as yourselves and women reverence your husbands. (I love how at the end of the whole explanation it changes women's role from submit to it's "higher-law" name: reverence. Think of the times you feel most reverent. The word respect has so many different connotations in my mind (R-E-S-P-E-C-T find out what it means to me). But reverence is a much narrower category in my mind. I think of the temple, the sacrament, beautiful hymns, personal revelation. That's the kind of respect we are asked to give our husbands.)
So what do I need to do? What is my part? Gentleness, kindness, and valuing his input and opinions. I need to stay open with him, letting him know how thing affect me. I need to contribute to the decision making process with my own wisdom and insight. In the end I need to respect his decisions even if I don't agree. We both have our agency but the goal is to be united, to be together. And that's goal behind this principle that Paul calls a "great mystery of Godliness."
Thanks Em, this is a great addition to my recent study of the priesthood, and as I continue to try and better understand the partnership that is a celestial marriage. I really liked that "higher-law" interpretation of submit to reverence (that verse always seemed to rub me the wrong way, but that interpretation makes total sense). As I learn and ponder more about what it truly means to be equal partners under the umbrella of the priesthood, I realize that it's less about the details of which path you take, rather how you travel down that path together. I see the wisdom in your comment "but we'll be united. we'll be together." That really is the goal, right? But that unity does require sacrifice and compromise on BOTH parts in order for us to be truly united, otherwise it's just unrighteous dominion.
ReplyDeleteThis may be slightly blasphemous, but I'm going to share this thought anyway. Will brought up the thought the other day when I was frustrated with him that our Heavenly Parents probably don't see everything the same way and that counsels are still had between the two of them as decisions are made on how to handle each of us, their children. I had never thought of this before, and it really threw me for a loop. I guess I had hoped that one day Will and I would think exactly alike with the same reactions and emotions and have no reason to ever disagree. But the more I think about it, the more absurd that sounds. I am not saying that we won't be celestialized perfect beings, united in purpose and extremely on the same page, but we won't all of a sudden have the same personality and point of view. No wonder it's so important for us to learn how to be united and act as one here on earth!!! It's a skill we will be drawing upon throughout the eternities.
I loved this as well, Em, thank you!!! And Liz's comment rang true to me as well! I have been studying a lot about Adam and Eve recently and I think their example and the things we learn from them are so far reaching. Perhaps this should be a blog post in itself but I will explain the little I have learned here. There were two trees in the garden, the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. Both have their purposes and their divine roles. It is so symbolic of Adam and Eve and their purposes, along with ours. Eve was the first to partake of the knowledge of good and evil, and how suitable for her to do so! She was the first to have the veil lifted from her eyes, and was the one to administer the fruit to Adam, leading him through the first veil. And still, our gift and stewardship as women is to bring spirits into this world, through the veil, to give them a body and an earthly experience.
ReplyDeleteThe second tree is the tree of life, the goal of eternal life that we might live with our Heavenly Father again, or preparing to go through the SECOND veil. I believe our stewardship is the first veil and theirs is the second. This can only be done through the atonement AND the saving ordinances administered by the priesthood. The tree of life is symbolic of men and their stewardship. It is their role and responsibility to use their priesthood to get their families and others back to our Heavenly Father. We help them and support them in this role, but we can not do it without them because of the priesthood they hold.
The more I understand about our divine roles and stewardship, the more so many other gospel principles ring true to my spirit. The more we listen to and feel of the spirit, the more inclined we are to receive our own confirmation that our husbands are leading in righteousness, because we only hearken to them as they hearken to Heavenly Father. And how do we know they're doing that? By the spirit and confirmation WE feel. I can also say I will always support and "submit" to my husband in his efforts to get our family to the celestial kingdom, but I will not submit to selfishness, laziness, or sin. We also need to allow our husbands the opportunity to grow in their "apprenticeship" to becoming like Heavenly Father! Allow them to lead, listen to their counsel, help them and support them in their role as the priesthood leader that will get us back to our Heavenly Father. I loved Emily's comment about how our Husband's sacrifice secures our hearts to them. It is a huge trust we have in our husbands, and a serious covenant we have made to them, but as they serve and sacrifice, that trust and the willingness to covenant with them comes so much easier. As we learn the balance of our roles and learn how to counsel with each other, we are learning SO much about our lives together for eternity! I loved Willie's take on our ability to counsel as Heavenly parents, it makes total sense to me. I feel that our husbands will need us to balance, encourage, counsel, and give comfort when needed, just like they do now. I don't believe Heavenly Father does it alone, and I don't believe our husbands will either (assuming I even get there through all my mistakes and shortcomings).
Thanks Emmy for the post, I need to be better at supporting Cesar, and I am grateful for this reminder. I cook for him, I do his laundry, I take care of the kids he helped create, I clean up after him all the time, and sometimes it's hard to remain focused on WHY I do it all while he's gone all day, or locked in our room studying. I seriously never see him any more, except when we say prayers with the girls at night, and on Sunday after church for a few hours. I need to remind myself that this is his way of serving and sacrificing for me in order to continue to secure my heart to him! It's good to read and study and remind myself of eternal goals as well, while we are working so hard on earthly goals.