[from the archives]
“The Lord has a plan for you to cooperate with Him in bringing His ways of love into your family, but you can’t hear Him or even begin to cooperate with Him as long as you are a slave to your own addiction to what you are trying to get from them. He wants to set you free from your slavery and set you at liberty to love from a pure heart. You must stop doing what you do and stop thinking the way you think in response to another’s controlling behaviors.”
I said this in my last blog post, and this is exactly the path on which the Lord continued to lead me. He was making me into the kind of person who was free to love and actually begin to meet my husband’s needs.
A few days later (from my last blog post’s events) we decided to go on an outing spontaneously, because the evening weather was so beautiful. Tim and the boys went to pack the van with the kayak and camping chairs while the girls and I headed to the kitchen to see what we could come up with for a picnic. Tim was always angry when it was time to pack. We all had developed a habit of bracing ourselves against his harsh words, grabbing, jerking, and many accusative indications that we were all stupid and useless for the packing process.
I set the girls to various activities like cutting up apples, and collecting up utensils while Rachel and I put our thoughts toward some sort of main item. As we had just come to a conclusion, Tim came up into the kitchen and built upon his packing anger with irritation that we were not yet finished preparing the picnic. After demanding to know what we were going to bring, he began to fuss around the kitchen slamming cupboards and the refrigerator door and roughly grabbing children and myself to move us out of his way without expressing what he was trying to do.
My habitual response would have been to attempt to speed up the process, trying to explain in defense what we had been thinking and doing, and begin heaping thoughts of failure upon myself for not being faster and more prepared for this spontaneous event. I would have tried to figure out what he was trying to do and take it over while I showed due shame for not having already done it, and silently agreed with his accusation that I had been doing nothing but wasting time. A bit later on I would have apologized for being so slow at preparing the picnic in an attempt to win back his favor toward me.
But this time, I immediately recognized what I would have done, and I obeyed my conscience and previous instruction from the Lord, which I wrote about in my previous blog posts. I knew that I was not to THINK about how to fix this situation, and I was not to DO anything to fix it. So I just stood there in the kitchen doing nothing. My thoughts turned toward the Lord, and I began to ask Him, “What shall I do? I know what I’m not supposed to do, but I don’t know what to do instead.” He showered me with assurance that I was obeying Him as I stood there and did NOTHING. The Lord and I were communicating, and my habitual self-seeking way of relating and responding—my flesh—was out of the picture. I was becoming dead to it.
“In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master….” Rom 6:11-14
Tim’s flurry of rough angry outburst soon left the kitchen as he thought of something else he wanted to have done before we left. I calmly resumed preparing the picnic with none of the thought processes of old. I didn’t need to apologize, and I didn’t need to behave as though I agreed with his accusations. I was free to relate with the kids and with Tim on our outing by enjoying their presence and making memories instead of spending the outing trying to appear to be sorrowful by being silent and hoping that his favor toward me would return.
I was becoming free of my flesh and becoming available to offer every part of me to the Lord to become an instrument of righteousness. As I began to relate rightly I moved toward being above reproach so that I could be useful for the Lord’s work in my husband’s life.
If you have been allowing your children to control you, God wants to set you free from your own self-seeking motivations, so that you can relate with Him and cooperate with His work in your children’s lives. You can stop seeking their approval and being dutiful toward their immature behaviors for your own sake and become available to the leading of the Holy Spirit.
Because I was now connecting with the Lord about my husband’s relational ways, I became burdened with intense desire to see him be set free from his anger. I began to pray for him in earnest which is something I had never done before. I woke up frequently in the night and went into the living room to pace the floor and cry out to the Lord to set my husband free, and the Lord began to fill me with understanding of what my husband needed…..
Tim and I gave our testimonies at a conference in 2010. The audio recording of our testimony can be found here.
[originally posted November 2010]
Your posts about your husband have touched me because I can relate. I’m not so sure my husband would release me to share about him so freely as you have shared about yours. It is a point of discussion for us, though, our outbursts and controlling ways. I feel greatly for my husband to be free as well (and I’m not without sin in this area). I do best when I’m most merciful at all times. There is so much pressure on them. Mine has few resources of encouragement. He deals with the onslaught of the world every day. I see in those situations that me being perfect wouldn’t help anyway nor does he really expect perfection. When we do discuss these things, we thrive on each other’s mercy. I want to love better in every situation and not be caught off guard in temptation to let my flesh rule.
Dear Joni,
My husband allows me to share freely because he is no longer that person. He shares these testimonies himself freely and publicly at many meetings and in Marilyn Howshall’s soon coming book Empowering the Transfer of Moral Values and Faith. He is no longer controlling or angry in any way. He is not working hard to try not to be these things, rather he is free from them entirely. Controlling angry thoughts no longer occur to him and they are not part of his relational habits. This allows him to talk about all his past sinful ways as freely and openly as I am talking about mine in my blog. Outloud confession of our sinful attitudes, intentions and motivations disassociates us from our flesh and breaks its hold on us. After we are disassociated from it, it is no longer “hard” to talk about it openly and honestly. ~ Barbie
Thank you for your response to me. The Lord Jesus bless you.
Joni
ps. I liked Marilyn’s verse on Facebook this morning, I’ll put it, here:
Rom 6:22 “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.”
Barbie,
Wow, are you secretly in my head? Recently, a friend through my work was lamenting on a difficult season she was having. I knew she was b/c as her massage therapist, I could see the writing on her body, and the stored yuk in it. It was pressed upon me from my conscience to share some possible helps and concerns I had after her massage. The wording was of the Lord, and I do not feel I sinned against her, but shared His directives. I did share my concerns, in love, and she went away, schocked I believe. Afterwards, I berated myself for being too forward and thought I should apologize, or at least apologize for how I said my concerns not what they were. The Lord didn’t release that to me, my old thinking did. He said “wait”.
Its been 4 weeks, we haven’t talked. I pray for her season of heaviness to lift. I will wait on the Lord who renews strength, and mounts his wings like eagles. Another story is like yours, but the Lord is good, and redemption is sweet. If you know the song writer who wrote “Be Still” can you let me know? Thank you for your openness, and letting others in on the Lords work!
“What shall I do? I know what I’m not supposed to do, but I don’t know what to do instead.” I’m so glad you wrote this. I feel that way so often. But, I am getting more comfortable with it. Amazingly, when I quit filling it up with things I think I SHOULD do, and just listen, God is actually answering me with a little thing here and a little thing there. Never a whole entire plan, never what would make me feel comfortable – to have it spelled out; just enough to know I am hearing His voice and He is involved. But, it is nice to know I’m not the only one who has thought this. 🙂
I am learning a lot from your blog. My husband is the exact opposite of yours, but yet is controlling none-the-less. He controls by NOT doing things, and I get so frustrated I feel I must handle everything and end up resenting him greatly. I now realize the best action is to do nothing at all and to pray for him. Oh, my, this will be hard! I look forward to future posts.
Dear Kathleen,
In my process, the Lord was leading me to do nothing that was motivated by my own self-centered habits of relating. This was not where the Lord left me however. It was not long before He showed me many things to do and say which led to my husband’s repentance and freedom from His sin. It is error and unloving to think that wives are only supposed to pray for their husbands while they do nothing to help them turn from their sin. God has a plan for us to cooperate with Him in meeting the true needs of our family, including the need for husbands to be confronted about their sin. Rather, it sounds like you have a great deal of repenting to do if you regularly get frustrated and resent your husband. As long as you walk in sin toward him in this way, you cannot be used by the Lord in his life. You need to be motivated by the Holy Spirit instead of being motivated by your own fleshly ways. You need to do nothing motivated by self-seeking so that you can be available to do and say everything the Lord shows you for the benefit of your husband according to His plan. ~ Barbie
Yes, you have that right, I have a great deal of repenting to do and a great deal to learn about how to be the kind of wife my husband needs so he can grow in the Lord. I always feel like I need to jump in and take care of things without waiting and listening to the Lord. That’s what I need to learn how to do. I will keep reading your blog and praying and waiting.
Thank you so much for these blogs. It is so helpful to hear your thought processes through this. Thank you again
Hi Barbie 🙂
What was your husbands motivation to control? I am trying to understand because I relate to both you and your husband particularly with the packing for the picnic. I have been guilty of moving people, slamming doors, speaking angrily, and treating my family like they are stupid. It usually occurred when someone was coming over, like my mom. The fear you talked about when your husband pulled into the driveway is exactly how I would feel when my mom would come home as a child or even now when she pulls up to our house because we rent from her. We are in the process of building our credit so we can buy and get out of this situation. I guess I am controlling with my family because of fear of my mom. I would disarm that by not needing her approval, right? I feel so much anxiety over all of this and I feel terrible that I have sacrificed my husband and kids to get my moms approval. I am working on listening to my conscience more and have seen encouraging break through with my kids. I notice though that if I don’t set time aside to spend with The Lord I am much more fleshly that day. The fact that I am understanding all of this is a miracle!! God is so faithful! I felt hopeless when I started writing this and I’m encouraged even without a reply! Lol Thank you so much for this blog!! I definitely need to look more into being my husbands helper. It would be so nice to know how to help him relate better to our boys. At this point I am not above reproach and usually talk to him in anger when I see him be harsh with our kids. I don’t know what todo about that.
:-/
Dear Erica,
I’m glad you got some understanding just by processing in writing.
My husband was motivated by his own opinion of himself and the way he thought things ought to be. For instance, he felt deep inside, at a nearly subconscious level, that if the house was not to the level of orderliness he had in mind, that he looked bad and stupid, even though there was no one watching and on one expected to come. It was his own self-imposed standard of himself looking good that he was placing over me.
It really had it’s roots in how he treated other people. He regularly thought other people looked bad and stupid, and he would tear them down in his mind. So, he believed others were thinking the same of him, even when there was no one there to see. Imaginary people were looking on thinking he was bad and stupid when things didn’t go as he liked. It was his own view of himself that he was afraid of disappointing.
It was self-serving in every way.
~ Barbie