Trusting Her Discernment

"In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior. Your adornment must not be merely external--braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses; but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God."
1Peter 3:1-4

Nicole and I have recently been reading through 1Peter and when we came upon these verses, we stopped to discuss how they fit in the context of what we have been learning with our prayer counselor, Mona. Something that I have come to understand and respect a little more fully is the fact that I am more cognitve and Nicole is more emotional. My primary downfall in the first year or so of our marriage was that I thought being cognitive was right and being emotional was illogical, thus not valuable. Our counseling times have brought me to a better understanding that as a man, I am to lead my wife with my congnitive understanding of things, but I am to listen and take heed to my wife's "feelings" and discernment of people and situations and allow them to be an imporant factor in making decisions...especially descisions that effect us both. It seems that women, especially Christian women with the help of the Holy Spirit, can pick up on the motives, and even thoughts, of others that completely breeze right over men's heads. So, if my wife starts crying about something, she could be irrationally emotional (especially while she's pregnant and her hormones go up and down like a merry-go-round) OR, as tends to be the case more often, she is picking up something on her female spirit's radar that maybe I can't discern.

The way this has come into play most obviously has been as I have tried to listen to the Lord in being a witness for Him. I have discussed before that I struggled with being compelled by guilt, rather than love in telling people about Jesus, and Nicole, the blessed woman she is, got dragged into my guilt-driven world of demonic pressure, fear, and fleshly pride. She always discerned that I was obeying from ill motives, but I wasn't open to receiving it because I had all the Scripture verses to "refute" her "mislead feelings". Through our counseling, and by God's grace, I have come to recognize that I am not chiefly an evangelist, but simply a child of God and also that my wife can feel when I'm moving in the Spirit and when I'm not...many times, better than I can. Whereas before I would have disregarded her comments to check my motives and rest as laziness, I now know that God has strategically placed her in my life to be a team with her so that the fruit of our labor in God's kingdom together would be far greater together than it would have been seperately; all by the grace of God. If God is showing her where the fish are biting better than I do, then I ought to listen to her.

In light of the verse above, how is my wife supposed to act when she believes I'm walking in the flesh but she's supposed to submit to me and my leadership? We've heard before that she is supposed to simply obey what I say, and only pray that I would see the truth, since she will be judged according to how well she submitted to me, not if she was right. There is something to this that is healthy, but I know that I definitely need a "gentle, quiet" kick from her discernment sometimes, so how do the two sides balance each other? As much as I'd love a book on marriage to tell me the answer, I think the answer is for both of us to be attentive to the Lord, "praying without ceasing", and do like Jesus did when He said,

"Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner." John 5:19

We must simply do what we believe we see the Father doing, and know that the Lord loves to reveal His will to those who seek it. I will know that Nicole is doing what she is seeing the Father doing if she is doing it in a "gentle and quiet spirit" because these are the fruits of His Spirit in her that she couldn't bear on her own. I know that, by God's grace, my encouragment and action will make her a better fisher of men (and women), just as her discernment and emotions will make my hard and proud heart of stone one of humble flesh instead (Ez. 36:26); easily moldable for the Father to shape in me His love. What a beautiful balance God has created between men and women...may we all pray that God may help us appreciate and act on these beneficial differences He has created in the sexes that we may be conformed to the image of His Son.