Lindsay Mercado No Comments

I remember when I first got married, I was talking to a girlfriend about the idea of submitting to my husband. To be honest, I’ve always loved this concept. 

Ephesians 5:22-24 says, “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”

If that rubbed you the wrong way, you’re not alone. As I talked to my friend about what this means in a marriage, she just flat-out said, “I don’t think I could ever do that.” She is strong-willed, fun, and independent and likes to do what she wants to do when she wants to do it. Honestly, I am too, but I also love that I am called to submit to my husband. 

Here’s why I think it’s such a gift and a privilege to submit to Raul; I trust him. I trust my husband so much that if we disagree, I can put aside my wants and commit wholeheartedly to his decision. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not the silent, “Yes sir,” wife who doesn’t have any opinions. Quite the opposite, actually. I have a lot of opinions and I share them all with my husband when we are talking through a decision. We disagree, debate, and wrestle with the hard choices we have to make. But, once everything is on the table, we’ve prayed about it, and we’ve talked through the options at length, the final decision is his. 

I trust him because he trusts God and he loves me. I know he has our best interest in mind. My husband is not self-seeking or malicious. He doesn’t make important decisions on a whim without thinking through the outcomes. 

This is a beautiful representation of our relationship with God, too. We talk, wrestle, pray, and work through a decision. We bring up our concerns and fears, our hopes for the outcome, and our frustration at the way things are. Then, in the end, we have to trust Him. He has our very best interest at heart and so even when we don’t agree or understand, our role is to submit. 

I submit to my husband as we both submit to Christ; I fully trust in him as we fully trust in Him.

This is why it is so important to marry a man who loves the Lord and is able to bear the weight of that kind of trust. 

When Raul and I were dating, he started looking into joining the Army. Before this, I didn’t know it was something he wanted to do. When he asked what I thought about it, I actually told him that I didn’t know if I wanted to be an Army wife, so if he was serious about that, we might need to rethink our relationship. I didn’t have any family members in the military and truly just didn’t know anything about what life in the military was really like. 

After that conversation, he let it go for a while, but after a couple of months, he told me that he couldn’t shake it. He felt like joining the Army was something that he needed to do and he would feel like he missed out if he never got to. Part of his reasoning for wanting to join the Army was to be able to provide for me. So we talked more about it. I asked question after question, went to the recruiter’s office with him, and asked more questions. He wanted me to play a part in the decision and understand what the military was really like, not just my imagination of what it was. 

Raul ended up enlisting and he had my full confidence and support, but what that experience taught me was that I could trust him to lead. He wanted my opinion throughout the process. He wanted me to feel comfortable with the outcome. He was looking ahead to the future and the opportunities and life this would help him build. 

Please hear me when I say that dating is strictly meant for evaluation. If you are not married, you are not meant to submit to your boyfriend. 

If Raul had decided to join the Army after our first conversation, he absolutely could’ve made that choice. I would have had to make my own choice from there. We were not married at the time, and I was not under his leadership. His actions did however show me what kind of person he is, how he is thoughtful and considerate, and how much he valued me. So while we had no obligations to each other at the time, the way we worked through that decision was very telling of the kind of person he is. 

Had he gone off and joined the Army the first time we talked about it when I was still unsure about it, I think our relationship would’ve ended right there. But because he showed his love for me throughout that process, he earned my trust. The same way that he led us through that decision is how it is now in our marriage, too. 

Submitting to my husband is a privilege for me because I know he can be trusted to make the hard decisions with our family’s well-being in mind. Friend, it is so important that you choose to build a life with someone who can carry this level of responsibility. You get to choose your husband, so use your season of dating to evaluate and decide if he is someone you can trust.

Here are some questions to consider when choosing the man you will marry and submit to:

Does he submit to God first and foremost? 

Does he value you and consider your well-being in decisions? 

Does he want to know your thoughts and opinions? 

Does he think through outcomes or is he reckless?

Can you trust him, even when you disagree with him?

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