Serving Your Husband

One year ago, my husband and I would routinely sit in our living room with hot morning coffees and begin the day reading the word of God, spending time together in prayer.

We would then go on with our morning and. if we felt the Spirit leading us, we would pray some more throughout our time together. If it was my husband’s day off, we would go on to read or study more of the scriptures, watch a preacher on YouTube,and talk or pray about what we had learned.

Six months ago, God blessed us with a beautiful baby boy, and with all of the wonderful joy and excitement a new baby brings to the average everyday life, my husband and I became a bit lost routinely and spiritually.

Our time became consumed with this new life, and suddenly, we might only pray once a day or read one or two scriptures. We both felt overwhelmed and distant from God.

As we began to slowly recover from this spiritual pit, we received a call that my grandma had a stroke, during this time we stayed at my mother in law’s house and as most have felt when dealing with a major death it can be very difficult to retain any structure.

As time went on, with the passing of my grandmother and the business of life, it continually left little to no time for my husband and I to seek Christ together. He was not our first priority, and we are now seeing the consequences of not maintaining the health of that detrimental part of our marriage.

What does any of that have to do with Serving Your Spouse? Complete honesty here, I have in no way been the Proverbs 31 wife lately, and sadly, I have been short with my husband and recently hit my breaking point where I actually snapped at him while he was praying for us that he wasn’t praying with the authority he used to.

Seriously, who was the one with bad heart condition? Not him. My response was wrong and it was definitely not how Jesus would have responded to the situation. 1 Peter 3:1 shares “Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives." My role is not to correct my husband, but pray for him and trust in God to allow the Holy Spirit move within him.

Through all my anger and bitterness towards my husband as I assure you he felt fully, he gets up and leaves the room only to start cleaning our bedroom. My love language is acts of service and this is the typical response from my God fearing husband, I snap at him and he serves me.

So my question to you: what if we all responded in this way? Where if our spouse wrongs us, we respond by serving them. Imagine the difference it would create in our marriages and how easily a situation could be turned around if our first response was to serve our spouse. Phillipians 2:7 tells us “..rather, He made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant." Isn’t our goal to be more like Jesus? Christ came down to earth to serve us, in love He took our transgressions from us so that we may become children of God.

I encourage you to serve your spouse each day, to stop the "I'll do it tomorrow" or "not right now" or "I don't feel like it." Serve your spouse right now! Start helping around the house, doing an errand, giving a shoulder rub, watching a show they like or simply listening to them talk about their own individual interests. Find new ways each day to serve your spouse.

1 Peter 4:10 tells us “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in it’s various forms."

It does not matter what point we are at in our marriages; we each have the choice to stop everything we are doing and serve each other humbly and in love.

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free.  But do not use your freedom to indulge in your flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. (Galatians 5:13)

3 Practical Ways to Serve Your Husband:

Food – Men love food, an awesome way to serve your husband is through his stomach, cook his favourite dinner, bake some yummy chocolate chip cookies or get up extra early tomorrow and cook a fancier breakfast than you normally would. Though not a necessity, since you are serving your husband I highly recommend he doesn’t lift a finger either so that includes you cleaning up afterwards as well. This also gives your husband time to pray or read the scriptures before he heads off to work for the day, what a blessing to give him that gift first thing in the morning.

Words of Affirmation – It is so important for your husband to hear how great you think he is, make a habit of telling your husband how proud you are of him, how thankful you are for his hard work, how sexy he looks in his work attire. If your husband has been eagerly trying to improve in a certain area, make a point to compliment him in that area. Begin by not only complimenting him on his physical features but also his character as well, tell him he is an honourable man or a faithful man, any of these will certainly boost his mood!

Physical Touch – This one is so easy to ignore with our dear husband’s , it is so easy to give into how tired we are but physical touch is huge in any marriage. Tonight after the kids go to bed sit down with your husband , grab some lotion and give him a good back or full body massage, not a five or ten minute rub, I would aim for at least thirty minutes. Put on relaxing music in the background or take the opportunity to dive into a deeper conversation then you normally would. My husband and I will sometimes look up questions to ask your spouse on Google “where do you see our family in five years?” , It’s always fun to dream together and you both will feel so much closer by the end of it.

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Follow Danisa Clarke on her blog or follow her on instagram at @clarke.everyday! Image by Jonelle Andrew