Let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband (Eph. 5:33).

The Apostle Paul’s description of the biblical role of a wife in marriage culminates in a single word: respect. That’s a word that seems to make half of humanity applaud, while the other half cringes.

The cringe factor only increases when we realize that the apostle uses the same word to describe the reverential awe that all Christians should have toward our Lord. No human and certainly no husband would seem to deserve that kind of regard. 

The impossible requirement imbedded in the word respect actually signals its purpose. A wife’s respect cannot be rooted in her husband’s deserving, but in God’s purposes. We revere a divine design.

A wife’s obligations of attitude and action have to come from her respect for God’s purposes more than her husband’s perfections. A husband will never deserve the reverential regard that he needs to fulfill God’s calling on his life. It is only granted by a gracious wife.

As the spiritual head of the home, the husband will stand before God and give account for his family’s spiritual nurture. The wife who reveres that calling will support her husband with the respect that helps him to honor God for the whole family’s sake.

Prayer:
Lord, help me to honor my spouse more for divine purposes than for human perfections. Your perfect love did not await my deserving. Nurture such grace in my family, as I love and honor an imperfect person for Christ’s sake.