Do You Want a Better Wife?

We are so grateful for this powerful testimony from Dr. Bill Enslow.  Bill and Heather are the parents of 7 children and are deacons in their church. They have shared the message of Love and Respect through small groups, retreats, and conferences in their church and community. What a blessing they are to us! Read about how God showed Bill that he needed to focus on himself more than on his wife, Heather. 

I was going to be a real spiritual husband.

We married in between our junior and senior year of undergrad (college). I loved my wife dearly, but by far spent more of my time thinking about the “husband is the head of the home” scriptures. The first several months of my marriage I think I spent a lot more time “beating my chest” about those scriptures than thinking in particular about Heather’s concerns or my responsibility to her as a husband, even after she became pregnant a few months after marriage.  

Sometime around our 5th month of marriage or so I got it in my head that I was going to be a real spiritual husband and begin praying regularly for my wife. I would wait for Heather to go to bed and wait until she was asleep, then I would go in and pray. My prayers were usually along the lines of “Dear God, please make Heather a woman of prayer. Please make her a wise woman, and a good mother. Please make her a woman of your word.” Etc.  

The Lord drilled it into my mind - and heart.

One night about two weeks after I started doing this I went in to pray. I went to open my mouth and the Lord dropped a sentence in my mind and a revelation in my heart. The sentence was the verse, “Husbands, LOVE YOUR WIVES AS CHRIST LOVED THE CHURCH.” I had read this several times before but had glossed completely over it because of my lack of understanding, selfishness, etc. The Lord drilled it into my mind.  

At the same time He dropped a revelation into my heart, which occurred amazingly fast but essentially took me back through my married life with Heather and showed me just how much I had been putting conditions on Heather as to whether I would love her or not.  

Even the “praying” I had been doing was really my bringing to God a list of the things I wanted in a wife, more conditions to love her by. I was thinking “I will love her if…” I had never seen it, and I was floored, really speechless.

A very new time in our marriage.

When I finally started talking all I could say was to tell the Lord that I loved my wife over and over.

I stewed on this for a few weeks and then when Heather and I were taking a trip I took the concentrated alone time in the car to tell her about what God had convicted me of and to repent to her for loving her conditionally, and I committed to her to love her unconditionally. It was a beginning to a very new time in our marriage.

Step aside and let God take care of it.

I have always believed that one of the reasons why God could come and deal with me so severely (Thank Him for it!) was because Heather was not in disobedience (to God). It kind of had a feel of “Heather, why don’t you just step aside and let Me take care of this knuckle head for you…Whack!”

So I spent the next 14 years pretty aggressively going after “Husbands, love your wives...” We of course had our spats and failures, and whatever my desire was I certainly didn’t always love her as I knew I should, but it was my goal.  

I’m a Love and Respect Zealot.

Right now I am going through your material with a group for the third time and enjoying it thoroughly. I suppose I am a Love and Respect Zealot. I appreciate your example in the DVD teachings of holding up Love and Respect together to be valued. I seek the Lord to be balanced with the truth and watching the DVDs is a great help.

~ Bill

I salute Bill as a true man of honor!

As you read these verses, replace “your brother” with your spouse’s name:

Luke 6:41, 42 (NASB) says: “Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or, how can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.”

I am willing to ask God to show me the log in my own eye. Will you do that too?

Emerson