. . . s Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror (1 Peter 3:6).
Susan believes that the man she married is a very nice man, and so she does not really know why she is so frustrated with him. When she gets angry with him, she feels guilty not because of the anger, but because it has no apparent cause. She is deeply dissatisfied, and yet feels that no one could really understand why she is frustrated. How could they, when she does not understand it? Why is she so upset with such a nice guy?
In the Christian world today, there are countless marriages which have not really been spiritually consummated. The marriage covenant has been made, and there has been physical consummation, but the marriage is still not right. It is not right because a marriage cannot be spiritually consummated when the husband is a spiritual eunuch. Such a eunuch is one who is impotent in his masculinity as distinguished from his maleness, which is merely biological.
When a husband is like this, the result for the wife is a temptation to deep-seated frustration and resentment. When she gives way to the temptation, the symptoms of this frustration can manifest themselves in many ways obesity, drunkenness, unfaithfulness, to mention just a few.
The irony is that spiritual eunuchs are almost always nice guys. And because the symptoms of this spiritual neglect overtly appear in the wife, the external world usually wonders what on earth got into her? As a consequence, she feels even greater frustration and resentment. I have seen enough examples of this pattern that I have given it a name the Nice Guy Syndrome.
Now of course it is important to qualify this. Not all husbands with troubled wives are "nice guys." The Bible warns men not to be hard on their wives (Col. 3:19). But this Harsh Guy Syndrome is not hard to understand; when a woman has a man who treats her like dirt, there is no mystery as to why she is unhappy. The purpose of this column is to address those situations where a woman is thoroughly frustrated in a marriage with a nice man and is consequently confused.
There are countless nice Christian men whose wives are in this state of continual frustration. And the more frustrated the wife gets, the nicer the husband tries to be. Unfortunately, this "niceness" is not biblical gentleness; it is wimping out. From time to time, the situation gets to be too much, even for him, and he loses his temper over her frustration. But he knows that that is wrong, and so he apologizes, and goes back to his old pattern of indulging his wife, instead of leading her.
As our text indicates, women need to understand they are being led by a lord. Unfortunately, many women are led (if you can call it leading) by men who believe themselves to be nothing more than walking, talking, living, breathing impositions. How many Christian women today can be considered as daughters of Abraham? How many of them could imagine calling their husband lord with a straight face? Him?
A husband is one who cultivates with authority. Now it goes without saying that this authority must be exercised by a man with a Christ-like disposition to service. He must not wield his authority in a self-seeking way. But he must wield it; he is a husband. It is tragic that in our culture the word husband is understood as nothing more than a male legally tied (for a few years) to a particular female. But as the etymology of the word should indicate, much more is involved. Husbandry is careful management of resources it is stewardship. And when someone undertakes to husband a woman, he must understand that it cannot be done unless he acts with authority.
He must act as though he has a right to be where he is. He is the lord of the garden, and he has been commanded by God to see to it that this garden bears much fruit. This cannot be accomplished by hanging around in the garden. The garden must be managed, and ruled, and kept, and tilled. For many husbands, this is an alien concept; they certainly spend all their time in the garden, helping themselves to whatever fruit happens to grow, but they always have the furtive look of someone guilty of criminal trespass.
If someone wants a garden full of weeds, no husbandry is necessary. And if someone wants a wife full of frustration, nothing needs to be done there either. All a man has to do is leave her alone. And nice guys are very good at leaving their wives alone.
A harsh man goes into the garden to slash and burn. He is a destructive presence. And there are men, tragically, who fit this description. But in the Christian church today, there are far more with the opposite problem. They do not do anything destructive directly. But they do stand around and watch the weeds grow. They are unsure of their right to be there, and pulling up weeds means that the man has assumed responsibility for the state of the garden better not do that. Such abdication is an abdication of stewardship; it is an abdication of husbandry. And the wife is frustrated because she does not have a husband.
Some men may object by saying that their wives demand to be left alone. All they are doing is respecting their wives' wishes. There are two responses to this. One is that whether or not the wife has demanded to be left alone does not alter the fact that Christ has demanded that she not be left alone. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it (Eph. 5:25). The head of the woman is man, and the head of the man is Christ. And Christ has commanded husbands to imitate Him and this necessitates a love which does not walk away, or stand by. Secondly, wives need to be led with a firm hand. They will often test their husbands in some area, and be deeply disappointed (and frustrated) if he gives in to her. It is crucial that a husband give to his wife what the Bible says she needs, rather than what she says she needs.
So a godly husband is a godly lord. A woman who understands this biblical truth, and calls a certain man her husband is also calling him her lord. It is tragic that that wholesale abdication on the part of modern men has made the idea of lordship in the home such a laughable thing. A man cannot get by with good intentions. He cannot get by with a pleasant demeanor. He cannot get by with a sweet disposition. He cannot get by on the good reputation he has in the church or in the neighborhood for being such a fine fellow.
In a world of spiritual eunuchs, it is good to find a man who is more than simply male.
