The Battle to Walk Together
There is a struggle that Christian women must contend with that men know nothing about. For a women full of life and ideas, it could be one of her greatest struggles; how do we hold back the reigns in our lives? The struggle to stay in unity & partnership with our husbands instead of going our own way.
Although Jesus is not a woman, I believe he showed us the way to live, even in this. Remember how many times he told us, he only did what the Father showed him to do? He only spoke what the Father told him to speak? If something was not in His Father's will he held himself back, even at times in the pain of wishing he could go forward.
We see this in the story of his friend Lazarus being sick (John 11). Jesus heard he was sick and it appears that when he checked in with the Father, His will was that Jesus not go to Lazarus right away but to wait a few days. Even though he was within just a few miles, the Father had a plan in motion that could only be accomplished if Jesus waited. If Jesus stayed tuned into the Father, it says "the Father would be glorified and more would come to believe".
As you read the passage you almost sense pain in the completely human Jesus who loved these close friends & longed to go to them & fix this. He had to fight these strong desires to keep things in the right priority. Listening and obeying the Father thru every circumstance was his first priority. Because of this there were times that he had to hold back in obedience even when it caused himself and others pain. Have you ever thought of Jesus in this type of anguish?
In order to relate to us as human, I wonder if there were times he couldn't see the full picture of what the Father was going to bring to completion? I wonder if sometimes he "wanted" something very intensely & had to battle those desires; to place them under the feet of the Father? If he was fully human did that mean that there were times that he didn't see clearly or times his vision or understanding was clouded and just had to trust and obey?
Women must battle (and possibly men too to be in submission to the Father) in these same ways. Sometimes our desires seem so strong and they look like they would be "God's plan" & yet for God's reasons we are held back. There are times I am filled with ideas that would pull me in a different direction than my husband, be too much for the container of our lives, cause me to sacrifice my first priority to love, & serve my family. It's so hard to lay those those things down and leave them there in obedience when your passions are burning strongly.
Covetousness & lack of self control can manifest themselves in many ways.. some ways that even appear good, seeming like they would progress God's kingdom. My passions are greater than my capacity. I want to take on too much. I want to rush ahead. It feels like a juggling act as a wife to be faithful to my husband & children & be faithful to my gifts and callings; to pull my eyes off of my own desires and towards the callings that fill my husband's soul and which I am called to fulfill with him. I can very easily get completely absorbed in fulfilling the callings of my life and jeopardize what we are called to do together
What a deceitful, sneaky work of the devil! What beauty & evidence of God's miracle working power to observe a family where the wife's life is submitted to God's order of priorities; for her first to "be" God's own, then her husband's prize possession & greatest helper & third adding any other callings; never jeopardizing, obstructing, suffocating or running over her husband. This is a true miracle for the 21st American Christian woman.