~Appreciate Your Spouse~Buoyancy in Marriage~Consult Your Partner~
~Dream Together Part One ~Dream Together Part Two~Empower Your Spouse~
~Have Fun With Your Spouse~Give to One Another~Honor Each Other~
~Be Intentional~Jubilee~Kingdom Focused~Listen~~Mentor Relationships~Nourish~Own It~
~Pray With Each Other~Quick to Listen~Read Together~Selfless~Teamwork~
~Uplift~Vulnerable~Worship~X in a Healthy Marriage~

Yielding Yields Much – Matt’s Thoughts

Too many times yellow traffic lights and yield signs end up being counterproductive. I have nothing against the signs. It’s the way people often react to them. When the light turns yellow, the driver is to take caution and extra care as they travel through the intersection or stop before the intersection. Instead, the driver puts their foot down and ends up being less careful and less precautionary. A yield sign is supposed to help traffic merge safely or make an intersection safer by clearly indicating to one party that they are to give the right of way to the other party. Quite often though, I see one or more cars punch it so they won’t have to yield.

Does that sound like you in your marriage? A situation arises where you need to take extra care and/or give up your (right of) way so that the two of you can merge and end up in the “same lane,” but you put the pedal to the metal in order to get your way.

I grew up hearing some phrases in jest from Christian teenage buddies like “those women need to submit…and be in the kitchen making my dinner…barefoot…taking care of the kids…cleaning my house…washing my clothes…” (I think the list got longer everytime it was stated and we didn’t say this when any female was around, except that once when Pete said it in a funny voice, but the girls didn’t laugh and none of us guys dared laugh either. Just so ya know, my conviction is that joking like this inappropriate and I apologize to all women for immaturity in my teen years.)

Although we teenage boys were in fact quoting from Ephesians 5:22, we had missed the verse prior that sets the tone for the section about various relationships – husbands/wives, children/parents and slaves/masters – “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Eph. 5:21). I’m hearing the apostle Paul say here that in healthy marriages both husbands and wives have yield signs. Defer your desires keeping the interests of your spouse above yours. What’s great is when both spouses are thinking of each other. Merging your wants with your spouse’s aspirations can often be seamless.

It has been my experience that yielding my will in order to merge with Laura has yielded great returns in our relationship.

Submit is Not a Four Letter Word – Laura’s Thoughts

It appears to be a sore topic. All my life I can remember hearing women of all ages talking about how they hate the word “submit”. This was often said either with a bitter chuckle, or sometimes with a roll of the eyes and a “men are dumb” attitude and tone of voice. This always confused me, and now that I have been married for 17 years, I find that talk like this is very discouraging.

What’s wrong with submission? What part of yielding my will to my husband is really so terrible? That is, unless I think this marriage thing is all about me and my happiness.

Submission does not mean that I have to give up everything I want or need. It means I need to think before I speak. It means that out of love and care, I need to put my husband’s needs before my own. Mutual submission, as mentioned in Eph. 5:21, means that my husband does the same for me.

Yield. Take caution and extra care as you make decisions with your spouse. You’re likely to find that submission makes you quite happy after all.

Ladies, we know you’re reading here more often than the guys. ;)  We’d love husbands to read this article as well. If you feel so inclined please send the link to your husbands, or if it’s easier, we’ve created a downloadable article for you to quickly print off and share. A to Z – Yield