God’s Plan For A Supernatural Marriage
From the beginning, God created man and woman and set them in the beauty of the garden to start fulfilling His plan for the earth.
God instructed them to be fruitful and multiply, to replenish the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over it (see Gen. 1:28). This instruction was not just given to Adam, but to both Adam and Eve. God intended for them to work together as a team, each with his and her unique giftings and abilities to accomplish His purposes.
Eve’s name means “life giver” or “mother of all living” (Strong’s H2331). She was God’s original picture of what a woman should be. Women should be life-givers in all they do. They should bring the life of God into their homes, release that life to their children, and minister the life of God to their husbands. Women have the power to release this life in the world system, which is so full of death and darkness. Women should be life-givers in our schools, in our communities, and in the marketplace. We were created to give not just natural life, but spiritual life as well.
Man and woman were commissioned to work together to accomplish God’s apostolic mandate in the earth. However, sin came with its resulting curse, which disrupted God’s original intention of co-laborship between man and woman. Consequently, Adam and Eve were driven from the garden and lost certain privileges of ultimate dominion, which were forfeited because of sin. Also lost was the intimacy of fellowship and communication between mankind and his Creator.
Jesus then gave His life and redeemed mankind from the curse. He also restored free access to the throne of God, providing us with an open channel of communication to receive divine revelation. God is still speaking today, be it through His Word, through a still small voice in prayer, through His prophets, or through His gifts flowing through His prophetic people.
Through Jesus’ redemption from the curse, He has also prepared the way for women to be restored to their place of co-laborship and Body of Christ membership ministry. This in no way negates the principles of divine order in regard to the husband with his wife in the home. Neither, however, does a woman’s heart of submission toward her husband negate the gifts of the Spirit or the specific calling or destiny of God in her life.
I have personally been blessed to serve the Lord in co-laboring with my husband, Tom, in ministry for over 40 years. We function as co-pastors in our church. At the same time, I joyfully receive from my husband’s place of authority as my husband and ministry covering. We have raised three wonderful children, all who love and serve the Lord. We have seven beautiful grandchildren who are all a part of our church. We both travel in ministry, often separately and sometimes together, fulfilling God’s plan for us as a team as well as God’s personal commission individually.
I am so blessed to be married to a man who not only has a divine revelation about women in ministry but who also feels that part of his call as a husband is to make sure I am fulfilling God’s call on my life. He has often spoken to men and encouraged them that their place as leader in the home carries with it a divine responsibility to not only fulfill God’s call personally, but also to provide a place for their wives and children to step into their God-ordained destinies and purposes. He believes that he will stand before God and give an answer as to what he did with my destiny and the destiny of our children. Did he help us or hinder us? He will have to give an account.
Husbands and wives have been made to be a compliment to one another. When God formed Eve from Adam’s side, she was called his “help meet.”
And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him (Genesis 2:18).
The term “help meet,” when translated from the Hebrew word, is defined as one who is a helper, who is an opposite, a counterpart, mate, or one that completes the other. The Hebrew word neged actually comes from a root word which means “to stand boldly out opposite” (Strong’s H5048). In this definition, we can see the beauty of what God had in mind regarding how a husband and wife were created and formed to work together. We are to complete one another. Where one is weak, the other is strong.
The interesting and challenging part comes in the other part of the definition that indicates that we are opposites. The old saying “opposites attract” is true to some degree with every marriage.
Often during courtship, couples marvel at all the areas they have in common and enjoy discovering the ways in which they are alike. But as time goes on, it becomes clearer how different they are. Communication styles, values, interests, approach to child rearing, spiritual gifts, abilities, hobbies, and a general approach to life and love will often be areas where differences will be revealed. While each partner fell in love with the other person’s unique qualities, now tensions begin to build as you spend all your efforts trying to make the other person just like you. But rather than being irritated by differences, you should be celebrating them. Differences shouldn’t be a negative factor in a relationship, but can be the spice that adds a unique flavor to the team God is building.
Some may have heard teachings that Eve was inferior to Adam because of “creative order.” In other words, because Adam was created first, he was superior to Eve, who was created second. However, if this philosophy is ascribed to, then one must also consider the fact that animals and dirt were created before Adam. According to this philosophy of creative order, Adam would then be inferior to animals and dirt!
God made Eve as a help meet. This term is not defined as an assistant or a server, but with the connotation of being an associate or a coworker.
Opposites Attract
When my father-in-law, Dr. Bill Hamon of Christian International Ministries, preaches about husbands and wives working together, he talks about how God loves to take opposites and put them together for His purposes. He says that in every marriage God takes a Clydesdale horse (a huge horse that is slow and steady, yet very strong) and teams it up with a racehorse. He yokes them together and says, “Pull in unity!”
When this happens, the Clydesdale must speed up, and the race horse has to slow down in order to accomplish the goal. And this is the challenge! The Clydesdale doesn’t want to be pushed and will get frustrated with the racehorse, believing that he or she is nothing but impetuous and impulsive, leaping before he or she thinks, always pushing and pressing harder than necessary. The racehorse becomes irritated with the Clydesdale, assuming that he or she is passive, unimaginative, unenthusiastic, without vision, always resisting change or moving forward into new things. But the truth of the matter is that each one has something valuable to contribute to the relationship that is actually vital to accomplishing the goal in the most productive manner.
God delights in joining men and women together who have individualized strengths so that the whole unit of the marriage is enhanced. Ephesians 1:17 speaks of God giving both the spirit of wisdom and revelation. God will generally place one partner in the marriage who is stronger in revelation, vision, prophetic insight, and discernment, while the other partner has a stronger gifting of wisdom, practicality, reason, and prudence. Some- times, because of these two different areas of strength, partners will have contrasting approaches to a situation. This does not always mean that one partner is right and the other wrong, but that God may intend to use the two different perspectives to bring the greatest benefit of resolve.
In the same manner, Scripture tells us that God has seemingly contrasting attributes to His nature and character. He is both a God of goodness and a God of severity. He is a God of judgment and a God of mercy.
Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God (Romans 11:22).
God will often take these aspects of the strengths of His character and nature and place them in individual partners of a marriage to create a balance between them. One partner may approach situations with the aspect of the character of God that may seem more goodness or mercy oriented, while the other partner may deal with matters from more of a righteous judgment and severity approach. One may see things more black and white, while the other may see things more gray. Both are qualities of God’s nature, and when deposited within two people in a marriage, a completed view of a situation may result, balancing judgment and mercy, goodness and severity, revelation and wisdom. Again, the challenge comes when partners feel that their perspective and approach is the only right one, and they cannot value the input or approach of the other.
Heir Together of the Grace of Life
For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear. Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers (1 Peter 3:5-7 NIV).
Scripturally, women are to submit to their husbands and respect them. In like manner, husbands are to love their wives and dwell in knowledge with them. As we work together in agreement and as a team, we will inherit the wonderful, gracious gift of life; in addition, our prayers won’t be hindered. As we seek to understand and value the individual gifts within our mate, our life and love will only be enhanced.
Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and He is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it. …So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself (Ephesians 5:21-25,28).
Some have heard teaching that describes “submission” as an oppressive system geared to keep women “in their place.” This is not God’s concept at all! Husbands are to love and support their wives. They are to love them as Christ loved His Bride, the Church.
In like manner, women are to submit to their own husbands, just as the Bride/Church is to submit to its Head, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is there to protect us, to guide us, and to direct us, just as husbands are to provide the same for their wives.
A prominent Bible commentator, Matthew Henry, has this to say about the husband/wife relationship:
If man is the head, woman is the crown, a crown to her husband, the crown of the visible creation. The woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam, not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.
Scripture does not state, “Wives submit to your husbands only if they are men of God and always do everything right.” Your husband, of course, is not perfect, but if you use his imperfections as an excuse to become stubborn and self-willed, you may find yourself outside of God’s planned provision for your security and destiny.
