Are you a Jezebel?

Life is moving at a crazy pace right now. We are in full throttle of church planting, raising four precious babes and trying to manage the chaos! Two weekends ago Michael and I were able to getaway for a night at our churches marriage conference. It was such a blessed time for the both of us. It is so fun to "let your hair down" and enjoy reflecting on the good times and hard times to let God use those circumstances to grow you in your marriage. I helped out our good friend on Saturday do a "speaker/listener" demonstration who was teaching one of the breakouts on communication and I was blown away by the little tid-bits I learned. God must have been laughing at me because he revealed some interesting ways I sin during conflict with my loving spouse. I thought I knew how to effectively communicate with Michael in a conflict and for the most part I did, but it is funny how the little things can get you! One of the ways I get caught up is that Michael is forever telling me that I am not listening when in a fight, and of course I always rebuttal, but I learned that when someone else is speaking and you are only thinking of ways to negate EVERYTHING they are saying, then guess what? You aren't listening! Hello! It wasn't any major epiphanies, just practical stuff like that but it provoked some great conversations between us.


I am also convicted about the influence we have over our husbands. Do we daily use that influence to bring honor to them and glory to our Savior? In reading this past week in 1 Kings 21:5-25 I learned about a woman named Jezebel who was married to a powerful king, Ahab. Instead of being a helper or completer to King Ahab she was an ultimate manipulator. In fact she was so good at "fixing or meddling" in her husbands affairs that she had an innocent man killed. When times got tough she whipped out the pants and put them on instead of challenging her husband to lean on God. 1 Kings 21:25 says, "There was never a man like Ahab, who sold himself to do evil in the eyes of the LORD, urged on by Jezebel his wife." Wow if that is not convicting women, I don't know what is. How am I a completer to my spouse? Am I daily bathing in God's word and not just reading it but memorizing it and applying it to my life? Let me leave you today with this thought from Gods word, found in 1 Peter 3:1-4 "In the same way, wives, be subject to your own husbands. Then, even if some are disobedient to the word, they will be won over without a word by the way you live, when they see your pure and reverent conduct. Let your beauty not just be external – the braiding of hair and wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes – but the inner person of the heart, the lasting beauty of a gentle and tranquil spirit, which is precious in God’s sight. "