The sad fact is that many wives are married to men who are insensitive clods. For them to obey the command to submit to their husbands seems to be totally unfair and onerous. Why would God ask them - no, command them - to submit to someone like that? What possible reason could God have? How can a wife ever be happy in a situation like that?
Let me offer you a different perspective. Maybe the primary purpose of your marriage isn't to make you happy, but to make you holy. have you considered that just maybe God intended your marriage to be about remaking you; that maybe this is about making you more holy? That would be a higher priority to God, wouldn't it? In Romans 8:29 we read, "For whom He foreknew He predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son."
God wants to make us more like Jesus. Maybe God is working to transform that wife into the image of Jesus Christ who humbled Himself even to the point of death, even the death on the cross. Maybe this is more about changing her than her spouse. Francis DeSales wrote way back in the 1600s, "The state of marriage is one that requires more virtue and constancy than any other. It is a perpetual exercise in mortification. From this thyme plant, in spite of the bitter nature of its juice, you may be able to draw and make the honey of a holy life."
Did you hear that? marriage is a "perpetual exercise in mortification." That means we must continually put to death our old selfish natures if we want our marriages to work. We must daily be crucified with Christ. As Galatians 5:24 says, "And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." Our selfish natures must be daily crucified. Our selfish natures must daily be put to death. No longer our flesh, but Christ must rule in our lives. As Paul said of himself in Galatians 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me."
The marriage relationship allows us daily opportunities to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Christ. Jesus told us to do just that in Matthew 16:24-26, "Then Jesus said to His disciples, 'If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?'" Getting your own way isn't going to count for much with God, is it?
Your marriage might be the place where you have to deny yourself daily and bear your cross. But it can make you a better disciple of Jesus if you do. Being married to someone, living with them day in and day out; that more than anything will reveal what is inside of us. That will show us more of our own selfish nature than anything else. It will be like a giant spotlight revealing our ugly side that needs to be conformed to the will of God.
As Katherine Anne Porter writes, "[Marriage] is the merciless revealer, the great white searchlight turned on the darkest places of human nature." Marriage will allow the wife who is submissive to God to truly make the changes in her life that will most glorify God; because the command to submit isn't primarily directed at the wife to submit to her husband, but for her to submit to God. Ephesians 5:22 says, "Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord." Submission first is to the Lord.
The issue is truly the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Is He really Lord of your life? Will you really do what He asks? Or will you do only what you feel will make your life easier and more pleasant? This shows what kind of a disciple you are, because in submitting to your husband, you are submitting to Christ.
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