Refresh! Relax! Revive! Part 8 – Finally! 
Hair: in submission
“The aged women… teachers of good things…That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.” Titus 2:3-5
This is my final blog post in the Spiritual Health Spa series, I hope you have enjoyed them. In part 1 we talked about when you go to a health spa they want to make you look fabulous, they want to send you out looking good so they look good. When people ask you where you get your nails, skin care, massage, makeup, or hair done, the spa wants you to “glorify” their name so others will go to them also. Do you see the connection? When we, as ladies, behave in a way that is wise, loving, pure, good, diligent, calm, others will notice, and they will “glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:6), because we are His children and are called by His name.
I chose our hair to correlate to “obedient to their own husbands”. The word “obedient” means subject to, or ranking one self under, or submission, and as a wife, this is probably the hardest, but if we ever truly get it, it is the most rewarding, as is the case in most difficult things. The Bible tells us that a woman’s hair is her glory, and the woman is the glory of man (1 Corinthians 11:7,11, 15). I don’t know about you, but my hair is a cause of constant anguish to me, and I have 3 daughters who seem to feel the same way. I can be dressed nicely, feel good, makeup looking good, but if I think my hair looks bad – frizzy, greasy, grey roots showing, or just doesn’t look ‘right’ – I feel self-conscious and insecure about my appearance. We go to a lot of trouble to make our hair look good, don’t we? Washing, blow-drying, curling, straightening, highlighting, lowlighting, coloring, bleaching, etc., because it is important to us that our hair looks good and so we look and feel good. Likewise, we should go to a lot of trouble to be sure that our relationship to our husbands looks ‘right’.
“Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself;and the wife see that she reverence her husband.” (Ephesians 5:33).
God created us and He knows us, He knows what the wife needs, and He knows what the husband needs. So he tells the husband to LOVE his wife, a woman’s primary need. He then tells the wife to honor, and respect her husband – why?? Because that is a man’s primary need. Husbands have a big job to do – he will be held accountable by the LORD for his family because he IS the head of the household. Many times he will feel inadequate, like he’s not doing a good job (here’s a secret for you: most men are very insecure), and he NEEDS his wife to be behind him, encouraging him, and honoring him. SO, his greatest need is to be respected and honored because of his position, even if he is not doing a good job in your eyes, STILL respect him, serve him, respond to him, because God tells us to. He will rise to your good opinion of him if you keep encouraging him, but if you nag and criticize he will give up and not even try, and you will be the contentious woman that proverbs 21:19 & 27:15 speaks of. So, be his greatest cheerleader, tell him you believe in him, tell him to try again, and that next time he will do better. Here’s a sobering thought: The way you submit to the authority of your husband is the example and standard that will be reflected in your children’s submission to all the authorities they come in contact with in their lives.
WHY???
What does the very end of our passage in Titus 2 say? “…that the word of God be not blasphemed.” Blasphemy is the opposite of glorifying God. This verse is pretty clear that if we do not teach and do these things the Word of God will be blasphemed, and God will not be glorified. Our lives, our testimonies, are advertisements for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Have you heard the comments: “She calls herself a Christian, but have you seen the way she treats her husband /children, or the way she talks/dresses?” Let that not be said of one of us. We live in a fallen world, and it seems to be spiralling downward rapidly (see Romans 1:21-32 for a description of the world today!). In this day there are many people trying to find peace and completeness in so many ways, these people are deceived by Satan and need to see that the answer lies in the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:4). They need to see that Christian marriage WORKS, that they will never be happy being a homosexual, transsexual, bisexual, or whatever else they come up with to try to fill the void. So we have a HUGE responsibility to show them that JESUS IS THE ANSWER, and that even though Christians are still sinful, our marriages reflect Christ and the Church and so glorify God.
Now, one more thing… I would just like to say that the Bible does not tell you to obey if your husband tells you to do something that is a sin against God, because “we ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29), you should still respectfully plead your case, and seek help. Go to a godly woman you trust in your church, or your pastor and seek counsel. If your husband is abusive to you or your children – Get help! You do not have to live in a situation where your life or your children’s lives are in danger. Seek help for yourself and for your husband, if he is being abusive, he needs help too! Whatever you are going through, God knows and God cares, and He is faithful and will “…make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it” (1 Corinthians 10:13). We can trust His promise to work all things together for our good and His glory when we love Him and trust Him and do things His way (Romans 8:28).
I hope that you will see this as a challenge, dear Christian sister, to make your marriage a light in a dark world, and a testimony for the Lord that glorifies His name, as it has challenged me. With His grace and His Holy Spirit’s enablement, it is possible! I hope you feel refreshed, relaxed, and revived!!
~Graced and Grateful Grammy
Our hair may be our glory, but God is glorified by our testimony
Graced and Grateful Grammy 