Ready to Submit? (for Women)
Many Christian women currently feel like prime candidates for marriage. There is a popular feeling of “readiness” that often comes from simply being a Christian woman who is desiring a mate. We must realize, however, that there is a strong tendency to mistake the feeling of anxiousness for actual readiness. A woman may be willing to be faithful to the right mate, but many times when we deem ourselves ready, we fail to ask ourselves if our inward condition is truly one of faithfulness.
Consider the scripture in Ephesians 5:22, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.” Submitting to a husband as to the Lord seems simple enough, but if we would be honest, many of us fail to consistently operate in humility and faithfulness to the Lord, therefore we may not truly have a grasp of submitting to a husband in the way that we often think we do. When a woman is still inconsistent in submitting to God, who is perfect and unfailing, how can she truly be ready to learn submission to a mere man? Rebelliousness and self-reliance are two very big hinderances to anyone’s relationship with the Lord. These especially prove to be obstacles in marriage for woman who has not reached a point of spiritual maturity that includes consistent faithfulness to God. Some of us still refuse to submit to God if we can’t understand what He is doing, so are we truly willing to submit to a husband’s leadership when we don’t understand his decisions? Others refuse to walk by faith with God regarding the unseen, so would we be willing to receive a husband that doesn’t appear to meet our preconceived requirements? Some of us only love God when He’s giving what we want, so are we willing to love a husband when he isn’t giving what we want? When your husband isn’t behaving like Jesus, will you still be willing to carry yourself as the church should? Being a suitable helpmeet is not a matter of emotional anxiousness but spiritual maturity. In other words, readiness to become a wife often includes a certain degree of growth in your walk with God, not simply a feeling of impatience with the lack of male companionship. Some of us are desiring to be and even prematurely boasting ourselves as being “Proverbs 31” wives, but we often won’t dedicate ourselves to walking in the wisdom or understanding that the Word provides in Proverbs 1-30 beforehand. True submission to God and a solid, faithful relationship with Him is what’s going to truly prepare a woman to learn to be a suitable helpmeet. While many of us experience that eagerness to move forward in marriage simply because it hasn’t happened yet, we have to be mindful not to allow our emotions to give a false sense of preparedness when there is yet more room for maturing in the meanwhile. Be blessed!
