One day I was standing in the kitchen, having a fight with my husband. I thought about his worthlessness and the worthless deeds that he had done. I nitpicked every area where he was lacking in some tiny detail. Suddenly I looked at him and I was like, “Oh, my word.  What God thinks about me, He thinks about you. I am looking at what you are not, but God is looking at what you are. He wants me to do the same.”

Wives, take a look at this verse: “It is not good for a man to be alone. So He gave him a helper.” There was no more suitable helper than a wife. It wasn’t an animal. It was someone God had to create out of man. And yet, how many times every day do you try to run the family? You try to run the show. You try to run your spouse. You try to run your boyfriend. You try to tell him, “Well, this is what we are supposed to do. I am more spiritual than you, so God spoke to me. He is not talking to you.” That is a lie. God goes through man to get to woman. If you noticed, when Eve was in the garden and Satan was tempting her, she received what God said from her husband. She didn’t get them directly from God. She got them from her husband.

Women, it’s time to stand down. It’s time to lay low and stop telling your husband that you know best and that he is not a spiritual leader who is good enough to lead you. Enough of this attitude! It’s time to hang it up and lower yourself down beneath your husband. He cannot be the spiritual leader that you want him to be as long as you are telling him what he is not. It’s time to speak to him and tell him who he is, how God sees him. His identity is rooted in how God made him and sees him. It is not based on his labels, his failures, his screw-ups, his forgetfulness, his lack of pursuit of you. It is based on what God said and only on what God said.

It is time for you to humble yourself and agree with God about who your husband is. Get beneath him. Take instructions from your husband. Learn to listen to him, respect him, and value him. Don’t shut him down the moment he opens up his mouth. Let him speak. Our powerful, forceful boldness makes our men be passive like Adam, which leads our family in the wrong direction. It can lead us straight into sin and death every time.

We are created because man wasn’t intended to be alone. Yet how many times do we sulk and throw a fit, leaving them alone so they can learn their lesson? We have our bags of tricks ready to show like, “Hey, you know what, you would be way worse without me.” Honestly, he would probably be better off without you. The Bible says it’s better to live on a roof than listen to a nagging wife.

It’s time to shut your face. Quit your nagging. Stop it. Get beneath your husband. Stop thinking that you are above him. Doing so is not godly character.  You say you are a Christian, but you don’t have any godly character when in your own home

How do I know these things? I’m talking to myself. I’ve lived it. I’ve walked through it. Trust me, that old, grouchy, naggy girl wants to come up and represent herself a lot. She wants to have a strong footing. She wants to be the leader. In fact, she wants to let everyone know that she knows best, that she knows God. She knows. She’s got it going on. You think,  “You know what, honey, you probably didn’t hear from God because we are not in unity right now. I don’t really agree with you.”

My husband and I have grown in tremendous unity. We have complete unity, but it’s not because I put my foot down or he puts his foot down. It’s because we are praying. We look at each other and we’re like, “You are a masterpiece and I’m a masterpiece.” We can’t get over how beautiful we are through the eyes of God.

In Psalm 45:10 the psalmist tells us, “Forget your father’s house. The king is enthralled with your beauty.” God is enthralled by my beauty. He is enthralled by my husband’s beauty. Even when our behavior is not beautiful, God doesn’t see it because sin was erased out of His eyes. He sees perfection. Perfect. He sees a child who has been reborn—who isn’t attached to those old, carnal ways. Yet we continue to judge and base our value of others on their behavior. How dare we? How dare we continue to do that?

It’s time to stop. You are more than that. You are more than what people say. You are more than your failures. You are more than what happened to you. You are more than your struggles. You are more than your circumstances. You are more than your finances. You are more than how you view yourself. You are more than that inner voice who criticizes every single detail about your body. You are more than that. It’s time to shut your mouth and open your ears and listen to God so He can download who you really are. So that when you look in the mirror, you see what He sees. So you hear it so much that when you open your mouth, you accidentally say it. But instead, your mind is so consumed with all the negative thoughts that you have about yourself that when you look at your husband, all you can do is criticize him.

The world is critical. We are all going to hear criticisms from every angle, from everyone outside of our home. Our home should never ever be a place where our family doesn’t feel the unconditional love, encouragement, forgiveness, and beauty of God. Even when we screw up, we need to reiterate that our identity is not what we have done. It is who God says we are.

It’s time to rise up, take your rightful place, and listen to your husband. Lower yourself down beneath him. Get under his feet. Get under his umbrella of protection. God does talk to your husband. I don’t care what you think or not. You need to shut your mouth long enough to listen.

I’m preaching to the choir here. We all do it. Jezebel did it. Read about her in the Bible. She killed all of God’s prophets. She had them murdered. She wanted it her way.

If your husband feels called to do something and you say, “I don’t think you are called to do that,” you are basically telling him, “You can’t be hearing from God because I don’t agree with you.” Instead, shut your mouth and pray about it. Ask God, “Would you give me confirmation? Would you help me support my husband? I know You made me to help him.  If this is what You have called him to do, would You give me confirmation so I could encourage him in that? If that is not what You have called him to do, could You just tell him that? I will try not to be his Holy Spirit.” Could you do that? God is faithful. You have not because you ask not. It’s time to ask.

It’s time to shut our mouth and take our position as the helper of our husband. Not the leader, not the herder, not the prodder, not the nagger of our husband. The helper. How are you helping your husband? How have you laid down your desires so you can help him pursue his? When you begin to do that, God will make your desires one because you are one flesh. He will unify you more than you have been unified before. My husband and I walk in that kind of unity today, but we did not start here. If we can make it, you can make it. It is possible. But you have to start. Go to your prayer closet and ask God for the ability to shut your mouth and get under his leadership.