Spiritual Criticism

I believe that many, many, many, many, MANY women struggle with judging their husbands spiritual actions or lack thereof. I know I have and still do at times. I think we have to realize that while we may hold certain standards or personal preferences about things (choice of how to spend one's leisure time, how to deal with sticky situations, what movies to show the children, if any, etc) that these are personal and should not be considered "convictions" to be placed on your husband. He has his own relationship with the Lord and we don't need to be "helping" God by show our husband his errors and encouraging him to adopt our "holier" ways. I think it gets messy when a wife has certain preferences that suddenly become her "convictions" because they are more "spiritual". (We should go to the Bible study instead of stay at home and watch a movie.) Then, the husband appears to be the less spiritual one because he would like to spend some fun time with his wife rather than go to a Bible study. (Just FYI, this is a theoretical example and does not reflect my relationship with Seth. :) The woman feels like he isn't being a spiritual leader and the man feels like his spiritual leadership is being challenged.

So, lets evaluate our differences with our husbands to determine if they are truly convictions or rather preferences. Obviously preferences, even if they appear more spiritual, are not things to hold on to in the face of our husband's leadership and authority. Cheerful submission is the calling for us women faced with a situation like this.

Let me give you a quite laughable scenario....

There are those who believe the woman should still be veiled. (This is not the laughable part, I personally respect this conviction very deeply.:) However, the whole point of being veiled is to show a woman's submission to her husband as her head and leader. (1Cor 11, I think.) However, there were some situations where the woman believed in the veiling and the husband didn't want her to. Oh, what to do, what to do? This to me is the comical part. The veiling is to signify the submission, so if a woman veiled against her husband's wishes she was actually not in submission and therefore in complete opposition to the heart of the scriptural command. But you see how she felt is was a conviction or at least the right thing to do, but her husband did not feel compelled? It certainly appears more spiritual to be covered or veiled, wouldn't you think? Yes, but truly an unveiled woman pleasing her husband is more right in the eyes of God than the veiled woman who is dishonoring her husband by her lack of obedience.

This certainly can be a sticky topic and I only mean to challenge us wives to make sure we are not lording our spirituality over our husbands and making him adhere to our standards if they are personal preferences and not truly convictions placed by the Holy Spirit in our hearts.