I received a comment on one of the Thirty-three day Challenge posts sharing that they were doing the challenge, but they felt like a failure…
Ladies, God is honoring your efforts. Just as I shared with this woman I will share with you, don’t feel like a failure, just persevere! Keep going. Our God is not a performance based judge. He judges according to the heart.
Day Seven:
Today as we focus on becoming a woman of sexual and emotional integrity we will focus on our thoughts toward our husbands or future husbands….
She doesn’t compare her husband to other men, discounting his personal worth and withholding a part of herself from him as punishment for his imperfections.
~ Shannon Ethridge
I think that quite possibly this is one of the leading causes of infidelity and divorce when we get down to the heart of the matter. Comparisons.
“When women compare their husbands with other men, they are toying with a threat similar to the threat a man plays with when visually lusting after other women. Whether the comparison is physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual, we not only show disrespect for our husband’s uniqueness, but also undermine our marriage and emotional integrity.”
“At the very least, when a woman’s comparisons of her husband with other men (real men or fictional men from a book) heightens any disappointment or disillusionment she feels with her own husband, it can prevent her from getting excited about him sexually or emotionally. These comparisons encourage her once-glowing passion for her husband to fade to a mere tolerance of him as she forgets all about the wonderful man she fell in love with.”
~ Shannon Ethridge
Ladies, for the rest of our challenge… stop comparing your husband with other men. Don’t watch a movie or read a book or listen to a song or look at the man you work with or go to church with and say..
“I wish my husband would spend that kind of effort toward me”
“I wish my husband would say things like that”
“I wish my husband would come to church with me like her husband”
“I wish my husband would lead our family like he does”
“I wish my husband was like that father”
“I wish my husband would meet my needs like her husband does for her”
STOP!
What you are doing is not fair. You are comparing your husband to fleeting moments you see in others. You don’t live with any of these men… and honey, none of these men have to live with you.
Think about that for a moment.
You have to love your husband through eyes of grace. He is not perfect.
However, he is yours.
Love him with 1 Corinthians 13 love.
Love him with the grace you have received from God and with the grace you desire to receive from him. Don’t get caught up in just trying to survive in your marriage. Don’t get caught up in escaping reality by burying your heart in a world of a fantasy. Instead, open up the Word of God and study up on grace.
“If we crave genuine intimacy, we must learn to seek it only in this kind of grace-filled relationship.”
~ Shannon Ethridge
Spend today remembering all those little things about him that you fell in love with. I understand you may feel like you have been abandoned and lost in the shuffle of his life. You may feel last on his list. He may even be horrible to you…
If you are to find the life God wants for you, you must do one more thing- you must forgive. This may be the last thing you want to do, but it may be the very thing you need to do most. Your husband may never ask for your forgiveness. Or at times he may say he is sorry only to repeat the offense in a short time. He may be the worst of the worst, but no matter how “bad…” he is, you need to find a way to forgive him. Not for his sake, but for yours.
The longer you refuse to forgive him, the longer he has control of you. You may think he doesn’t “deserve” forgiveness, but you deserve living beyond the bitterness and resentment that hurts only you. You deserve the freedom that will only come when you let go of all you have against him. This is not an easy or instant process. You may have been so badly hurt that it would take years to forgive him totally. If that is the case, all the more reason to begin the process now.
Many men do not even know the depths of hurt and pain we have caused the women we love. We have a way of rushing through our lives and stumbling over the most important people in them. Please forgive us for the hurt we have caused. Please forgive your husband so you can unshackle yourself from a past you can not change and destructive feelings you cannot afford to harbor. Forgive the unforgivable and move into the life that is waiting for you.
~ Stephen Arterburn
Ladies here is when you begin to put the Word of God in action. When you finally begin to apply the truth of grace and forgiveness to your life and to the lives of those closest to you, even the one’s who have hurt you the most. Let me assure you that His Word never fails. Love never fails because God never fails.