An Example Of Honoring Your Spouse

photo by C.P. Storm

Her husband is respected at the city gate, where he takes his seat among the elders of the land. Proverbs 31:23

Do your children see you honoring your spouse? Sometimes we look at marriage and parenting as two different areas of focus, but the two are tightly intertwined. How we interact as husband and wife will determine the strength of the footing our children have as adults. Assuring they see spouse-honoring behavior will help establish a godly model for their own relationships.

It will also make reaching your children with the gospel that much easier. How?

• You’re teaching them to honor their mother and father. If they see you honoring your spouse, the expectation of respect and deference is created. From there it’s up to you to both defend to and encourage your children to carry through with the same.
• They see your good deeds and give glory to God. This was a point of teaching from Jesus (Matthew 5:16). We’re to live in such a way that our actions support our faith and our faith supports our actions. Who wouldn’t want to emulate a real Christian walk that truly exemplifies the quality of Christ if it means the kind of love and honor they see between their parents?
• A parent who walks the talk has a more solid platform for teaching the truths of God to his or her children. While no one will ever live a perfectly virtuous life, a parent who honors his or her spouse as the rule will have credibility, strength of conviction and godly authority to support his teaching.

I have a chance here to honor my husband. As some of you know my husband is a truck driver. It was a profession he chose out of a young man’s desire to see the country and be captain of his own ship. It’s not been without its trials. You try raising a family of six in God’s Word while driving down the highway 700 miles away on three hours sleep. Nonetheless, my husband has done that.

A book called The Ridiculous Race has just come out. It’s the story about two young men, Steve Hely and Vali Chandrasekaran, who decide to reprise a sort of modern day version of Jules Verne’s Around The World In 80 Days and race each other around the globe. They both head in opposite directions, but the catch is they’re not allowed to use airplanes. The prize for the winner is a bottle of the best Scotch they can find in Los Angeles.

The book is very humorous, albeit from a decidedly worldly position. The writing is punctuated here and there with some coarse language, bawdy commentary and a fair amount of early morning drinking. But the predicaments they get into, the things they learn and the people they meet makes for an interesting read.

Steve Hely initially headed west, which eventually brought him to New York, which eventually brought him to Chicago looking to hop a ride on a tractor-trailer to get him the last leg to L.A. Guess whose rig he ended up on?

An excerpt:
"Bill was a born-again Christian, and up in the mountains we got to talking
about religion. This “talking” was mostly me making rewarmed smarta** college
kid arguments, and Bill responding in a thoughtful and considered tone that
showed he knew more than me about both science and religion. To prove a point
that the Bible doesn’t actually contradict the big bang theory, he put on his CD
of the Book of Genesis. The mighty language of God forming the earth, heard as
you pass through canyons and rivers, doesn’t prove anything. It did, however,
shut me up.

"I’ve told this story - about riding in a truck as Bill put on his Bible
CD and warned, “I’m going to pause this frequently”- at meetings and parties in
Hollywood. I always get the same knowing “Aren’t the country rubes ridiculous?”
eye roll.

"But I rode next to Bill for three days. I slept in the bunk above him
in the back of the cab for two nights, once in Aurora, Nebraska, and once by the
banks of the Colorado River. You learn a lot about a guy doing that. Bill drives
a truck and lives in Indiana, but he was wiser, healthier, and - this is the
most important - happier than anybody I ever met in Manhattan or Hollywood.
He slept easy. "

My husband has received numerous awards and commendations in his lifetime. He’s been appointed to elite teams, won prestigious prizes and been recognized in both newspaper and magazine. That he was able to demonstrate the depth of his faith and a genuine walk resulting in blessing is the greatest testimony he’s ever received. He glorified God to a Hollywood writer in an impressionable way.

I’m very proud of my husband and I wanted to boast of him to the people “sitting at the city gate”. If you want to read the rest of Bill’s passage in the book The Ridiculous Race (pages 301-307, to be exact) it’s available at all major bookstores.

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