Fellow Dad,
Simple health means to distill and define action we can take today that could potentially last beyond today. In order for something new to last beyond today, that action must be small, it must make both a short-term & long-term impact, and it has got to fit within our daily rhythms.
Example: Simple health would not be all of a sudden cranking out 2 hours of reading each day. Simple health would be to read something constructive (bible, career or personal development) for 10 minutes of your lunch break at work today. This wouldn’t force you to find any more time in the day, something I certainly don’t have and don’t believe a lot of dads out there have. We need things to do within our current rhythms.
A big part of being a dad who strives to simplify our health is plugging our journey to live a healthier life into serving and loving our families. Surely I’m not the only one out here trying to be a great dad and husband on top of creating sustainably healthy habits. As simple health dads, we love our children and our wife, and we want to be healthy in order to serve them better.
Well, dads, here’s the thing: the most important thing we will ever do to love our children well is to love and to be in unity with our wife.
Whether you like your job or not, whether you are a consistent disciplinarian, whether or not you spend 5 minutes a day (or 2 hours) with each child, research has shown that maintaining a strong and unified relationship with your partner is the greatest way to have a positive impact on your children.
Couldn’t be more difficult in execution, though.
Marriage isn’t all that difficult in my opinion. It’s life that makes it extremely challenging (and sometimes impossible). It’s life that causes her to want to take control and make it seem like she won’t let you lead the family, because she wants to make all the decisions, and yet… you know that it will all come back to you (and on you) if you let her run away with it.
You can do everything you can to please her and give her the world, anything she wants, and yet… doing so won’t make her respect you the way you want her to (or think she should). She will simply feel as though you allow her to walk all over you and no woman truly wants to be able to walk all over her man.
I’ve been manipulated into buying a car we shouldn’t have and moving into a place we shouldn’t have lived in. I have trid time and time again to ask her what it is she wants in order to be happy with me, happy with life, satisfied with where our family is at or is going. She’ll say one thing one month and another thing the next month.
The point I’m trying to make is that I’ve been there. I am right there with you on your struggle to figure out a way to satisfy your wife. I’m right in the thick of marriage, a few years in, and if there’s anything I’ve learned well (although I wish I acted like it; part of why I’ll be writing these to you!), it’s this:
You cannot change your wife.
That’s a good thing, trust me. You don’t want her to turn into a puppet, that’s definitely not why you married her (or at least I hope not). But the implications are various. It means we can’t just criticize her until she does what we want, because we won’t be happy with that (I struggle with this immensely). It means we can’t continue to manipulate her into behaving or acting the way we want her to. It won’t last. In a culture riddled with divorce and indoctrinated with failed marriages being ‘normal,’ we cannot afford to be naive: she will leave you if you screw this up for long enough.
So here’s what we ought to do: we ought to change ourselves. Seems like a novel idea, right?
We can’t change them (it’s just impossible, we all know that), so we must learn how to change ourselves and work on ourselves. I’m a staunch advocate against simply trying harder or changing behavior for the sake of behavior.
Why, you ask? Because that kind of change won’t last. You can’t treat the symptoms and forget about the underlying causes and disease that created the behaviors in the first place. I’m all about finding sustainable practices, remember?
This is where prayer comes in.
Lord, change me.
We start with humility, because God will not hear a proud heart’s cry. Understand that you need something outside of yourself to change the things that will make an impact on your relationship with your wife.
So, in closing (our prayer for today is below in italics) I wanted to encourage you all (as well as keep myself accountable) by sharing with you a section and chapter from The Power of the Praying Husband by Stormie Omartian each week for the next 21 weeks.
The posts will interrupt any series we might currently be on and you can expect to see this post on the same day of the week every week. We will cover topics such as Her Emotions, Her Spirit, Her Sexuality, and more.
I’d like to provide a short encouraging thought as a part of each section, but for the most part I’ll include the prayer from the book regarding each section, and you can simply pray through the words over you and your wife.
This first one is about you: we are praying for her husband today.
I pray that today He chisels one more piece away from your rough exterior, that you might become more of the Man and husband you were called to be.
Her Husband
Lord, create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me (Psalm 51:10). Show me where my attitude and thoughts are not what You would have them to be, especially toward my wife. Convict me when I am being unforgiving. Help me to let go of any anger, so that confusion will not have a place in my mind. If there is behavior in me that needs to change, enable me to make changes that last. Whatever You reveal to me, I will confess to You as sin. Make me a man after Your own heart. Enable me to be the head of my home and family that You created me to be.
Lord, show me how to really cover (wife’s name) in prayer. Enable me to dwell with her with understanding and give honor to her so that my prayers will not be hindered (1 Peter 3:7). Renew our love for one another. Heal any wounds that have caused a rift between us. Give me patience, understanding, and compassion. Help me to be loving, tenderhearted, and courteous to her just as You ask me in You Word( 1Peter 3:8). Enable me to love her the way that You do.
Lord, I pray that You would bring (wife’s name) and me to a new place of unity with one another. Make us be of the same mind. Show me what I need to do in order to make that come about. Give me words that heal, not wound. Fill my heart with your love so that what overflows through my speech will be words that build up, not tear down. Convict my heart when I don’t live Your way. Help me to be the man and husband that You want me to be.
In Jesus’ name I pray.