When you are listening to the advice from your leaders at work, there is something important to remember.
Don’t take marriage advice from someone whose marriage doesn’t look like one that you would want.
Throughout the course of my military career, I (Rob) saw quite a few angry leaders who had gone through multiple divorces or were in the midst of going through a divorce going around handing out marriage advice like it was candy, and many soldiers eating it up simply because it came from someone in a position of authority. But I’m here to tell you, while you must obey your leaders at work, it does not mean you should model your personal life after theirs.
If you have someone like this in your circle, please don’t take their advice, unless they are humble and admit that they were part of the problem too.
Folks who disrespect their spouse, talk badly about them, and call them inappropriate names are not the people you should be listening to and learning about marriage from. If your leader calls his wife a bad name and says that it’s her job alone to take care of the house and kids – do not listen to him. If your leader isn’t speaking with love and respect about his or her spouse, then there probably isn’t a strong relationship between them, so don’t look at those leaders as role models for your marriage and the way you treat your spouse.
Instead, look to how Jesus (through Paul) taught us to treat each other in Ephesians 5:22-33.
Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.
In this text, Jesus is telling us as husbands to love our wives and care for them even to the point of our own death. And He is telling wives to respect their husbands.
It may not always be easy, but it is always worth it to place your spouse before yourself and show him or her the love and respect Jesus is commanding.
