MORAL TO THE STORY: Who you are as a single girl will be who you are as a married woman. If you are lazy, you will remain lazy. If you are rebellious, you will carry it into marriage. If, at present, you are obedient and cheerful and a servant to others then your marriage will be blessed.
A CAUTION: Beware of spiders, fleas, snakes, bats and mice, in addition to any other small terror that might come your way.
It’s time for a few basic lessons that will help you transition into becoming a wife. You will learn that God expects you to honor and reverence your husband even when he quietly allows you to continue your disobedience. If you do not learn, God can and will come to your husband’s aid if you ignore your husband’s wishes.
In this chapter Patricia tells us how God used Fleas to help her come to understand that quiet disobedience would not be tolerated. Over my lifetime I have observed that God uses all manner of things to get his children to conform to his will. Knowing that God is thus working to mature us is comforting and, at times, scary.
story eight
Spiders
BEFORE PATRICIA’S FLEA story, I want to tell you one of my own insect nightmares. Years ago I got mad at my neighbor for being offensive to her husband. I stewed, fumed, and even fussed about it to some friends. I knew I was acting ugly, but I kept my grudge. One night I grabbed a house coat to put it on and out fell a dangerous spider. I freaked! Spiders are the worst scary thing! For the next week or so I thoroughly shook every piece of clothing I put on. Somehow I knew God was rebuking me for badmouthing my neighbor. Several other times I had a spider jump out of my towel or coat. I lived in tension, nervous for the judgment I knew God was waiting to give me the first time my guard was down. I was right. Early one morning I heard someone beating on my door. I jumped out of bed and grabbed my jeans off the floor. You guessed it. I had one leg all the way in and was hopping around trying to shove the other leg in when out popped the biggest, hairiest, most terrible-looking spider this side of Papua New Guinea. I fell on my rump kicking and screaming and fighting with those jeans. I never did find the spider, but I tell you I shut my mouth about my neighbor and have kept it shut. Furthermore, I gave up jeans. They are too hard to get off.
If you continue in the sin of bitterness or speaking badly of a fellow believer, and you don’t have any fear of God doing weird or scary things to you, then you’d better check your relationship with the eternal God. Chances are you don’t have one…a relationship, that is. He does not let believers continue in sin.
“What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” (Romans 1:1-2).
Here’s something to consider:
Do you believe God leads and guides people before they get saved? Maybe even guides them in who they should marry?
Here is what God did to my friend, Patricia. She should be thankful; her rebuke was not nearly as bad as spiders. So get ready to start scratching. This is Patricia’s flea story.
God Knew Me Before
Jesse started checking me out my first day at work. For some reason he unnerved me. When the people in my department would go on morning break, Jesse would stop by my table to chat. I would jump up and go back to work. I never knew what to say when he was around, so I would flee. I think he is a King…bossy, dominant, forceful, and I don’t know…he just seemed so classy that it scared me.
Young men do well to bear in mind that a girl is who she is when she’s not trying to impress a man. A wise man observed, “Someone who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.”
Everyone in our circle of friends dated. It was expected. It was during the early 1970s and neither of us knew the Lord. People I worked with encouraged me to get my own apartment so I could do my own thing. To my regret, I listened to the troubled people who prodded me. Once alone, I stepped into a new foreign world, a world filled with peers who pulled me far away from those who loved and cared for me. My parents were very upset about my new life. I soon learned why.
One day a girl at work told me, “You have to get with it, you need to get on the birth control pill…everyone is.” She escorted me to Planned Parenthood. Because I didn’t want to risk losing my new friend, I went ahead and accepted the pills. I felt sick, pushed into a life I didn’t want.
During my youth I had disdained my parents’ religion, but now I felt a need to try again. I didn’t want my rebellious friends leading me down paths I didn’t even like. I wanted to think for myself. One Sunday I went back to church but left in the middle of the service; I knew I was being rude, but it seemed so dead.
The more I was with my new friends the less I thought about God. One night I went to a party. Jesse was there. I was still nervous around him, but since he was there I was forced to talk to him. Then he asked if he could call me and maybe we could go out sometime. I said; “Sure!” I really didn’t think he would ever call me.
Not long after that Jesse asked me on a date. After just a few dates, somehow I felt that I would be his wife. My relationship with my parents began to improve, so I moved back home. Even so, I would not have admitted to my parents or even to myself that I had been willful and rebellious toward my parents in my recent lifestyle. I still felt they had just not understood me. I had a lot of baggage (self-centered will, that is) in the attic of my life, and it would come back to haunt me, but at that time all I could think of was Jesse.
One evening while having dinner with my family I announced that I might marry Jesse. I didn’t know for sure, but down deep in my heart I felt peace. Jesse made a similar announcement to his family. Neither of us knew about the other’s declaration. A month later, in January, he proposed.
After our engagement, I realized that Jesse was Jewish. Wow! Was I excited! As a young child I had a deep love and respect for the Jewish people. I felt that Jesse was a gift from God. Six months later we married. I thought that such a fairytale romance would surely lead to happily ever after.
If you think for one second that you can enter marriage with your past behavior stuffed out of sight and out of mind in a trunk in your attic, think again! The attitudes you have before marriage will resurface. They will grow and become monsters that tear into your marriage.
If you resisted authority in your youth, once you marry you will feel just as trapped by your husband as you did by your parents. The worst of it is, you’ll blame your pitiful existence on your husband. In your youth you can look forward to getting married and leaving the situation. Now that you are married, to leave the situation is to divorce.
Thankfully, God used fleas to wake me up to honoring and obeying God and my husband.
Fleas To the Rescue
My husband was…how would you put it…he was different. I was horrified to realize he did not agree with me on much of anything. I began to wonder how I could have fallen in love which such a cold-hearted, unromantic man. The man had no feelings!
About seven years into the marriage God reached his loving hand down and found us. We both, Jew and Gentile, husband and wife, came to understand the love of Jesus Christ. But becoming a Christian did not change my zeal for independence. I now wanted God’s way in my life, although I had no clue as to what God wanted from me as a wife. I was to learn.
The years rolled on, and three children later, bitterness and resentment were my daily companions. Under my breath I would murmer things like, “I’ll show you!” or, “I can’t believe I married such an insensitive person.” I would need a lesson from God if my marriage was going to survive and flourish. Even in my rebellion toward my husband, God knew I really wanted to know and honor God and my husband. God sent fleas to the rescue.
One day, as I was helping a friend pack up her home to move, she offered me several of her houseplants. I chose one, a beautiful healthy asparagus fern that hung just above where her cat slept. I excitedly took my prize plant home and hung it in our bedroom.
Several days later my dear husband suggested, “I’m beginning to get itchy. The plant must have fleas. You better get rid of it.”
I gave him a look signifying how stupid he was. “Plants don’t have fleas!” I conveniently forgot his suggestion to throw the plant out. Days passed, and he warned me again, “You need to get rid of that plant, because the fleas are getting worse.”
Has your dad or mom ever given a command you thought was stupid? The same Bible that teaches we are to honor our parents also teaches that a wife is to reverence her husband. “…and the wife see that she reverence her husband” (Ephesians 5:33).
I had no idea God expected me to reverence my husband! He is just a man and is often wrong. Reverence him? But God gently continued to teach me.
By the next day it was clear that my husband was right. The fleas were multiplying so fast that they infested the whole house, including Spike, our long-haired guinea pig. My husband treated Spike with flea shampoo—over-treated, I should say. Poor old Spike looked like a mop gasping for air. I think he went into a mild cardiac arrest. What a mess! Getting rid of the fleas was quite an ordeal. My disobedience caused my husband and family a lot of frustration. The big question is: did I learn anything?
The Case of Fleas the Second Time Around
Remember, the baggage you accumulated as a single woman will come with you when you marry. I still assumed I was smarter and my way was right. God sent Lesson Two.
My husband felt God telling him to get out of debt, so we sold our home and started looking for a rental. I found our first rental. It had everything I wanted in a home. Jesse looked at it and didn’t feel comfortable about renting it. I put my charm to work, convinced him what a great house it was, and voila! He signed on the dotted line.
Several nights after we moved into the house Jesse woke me up and announced, “We have fleas!” I rolled over and thought to myself, “Get a grip. We don’t have fleas!” (Hmm...do you see a pattern here?) Yep! The house was infested. We discovered that the previous occupants were cat lovers. It took months to get rid of the fleas. By then Spike had gone to the happy hunting land, so he was spared my flea lesson.
Evidently I am a slow learner. Maybe from this story you would think I should just start cleaning my house better, but I am and have always been a clean freak. Fleas are for the unfit and unclean, right? For a woman who prides herself on being a wonderful housekeeper, an infestation of fleas is very humbling.
I ask you, do you think God has a sense of humor?
Please, Please No More Fleas…PLEASE
That brings us to Lesson Three. In the back of my mind I began to wonder if the fleas might be God’s way of getting my attention concerning my lack of honor toward my husband. But I reasoned that at this point the flea thing might still, maybe, be a happenstance—just a fluke.
We had friends who put a lovely house on the market, but it was not selling. We decided to exchange fixing the house up for a decrease in the rent and live there until it sold.
During the hot, dry month of August I decided to try growing grass in the dustbowl of a back yard. I asked my husband to help with the work. He agreed after some hesitation, but cautioned, “Don’t you think it’s too hot to plant grass seed?”
I chided him, thinking, “Why does he always drag his feet?” I am sure he read my thoughts, as my face must have reflected my dishonor, but he went along with me…again. We purchased the seed and then went to a local farm to purchase bales of hay. We prepared the ground, planted the seed and spread the hay.
While sitting in church the next day I noticed one of our sons scratching. He leaned over to me and said, “I think fleas are biting me.” If he had said he had leprosy it would not have affected me more than the word fleas.
It was fleas from the hay which my husband had said was a waste of time to spread. Once again my family had to endure the consequences of my stubbornness in not listening to my husband’s gentle caution.
Did I better understand submission by that time? You better believe I did. Did the grass grow? Of course not!
Disobedience is often disguised.
You may wonder why it took me so long to submit to my husband. The answer: disobedience is often disguised. I basically didn’t know I was that disobedient. God makes it clear what he thinks of sin. James 2:10 says, “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” Most of us never think we are being disobedient. Our first thought is that we are right in how we think, feel and do, and that the other person is insensitive, dumb and lazy.
I had developed the habit in my youth of doing my own thing. I thought I was smarter, more sensitive and caring, and surely harder-working. Remember the baggage that I thought I had stored in the attic? It was right on my back all the time.
It was easy to dismiss my husband’s wishes without feeling rebellious because he never actually commanded me in anything. He never lorded his authority over me; he suggested. Even though he is a strong leader, he has what some would call “a quiet voice”. He clearly wanted me to honor him, but he wanted me to honor from my heart, not from his demand. I knew, and he knew that I knew, what he wanted me to do. He wanted me to want to obey him.
I had spent years pretending to be the sweet, obedient wife to the point of deceiving even myself, but God knew my heart. He caused me to see my dishonor and disrespect—even contempt—toward my husband. Once I was willing to acknowledge that my attitude was sin against God, my heart changed. When my husband speaks I no longer take what he says as a suggestion, but as a word that God means for me to obey. It seems strange, but I no longer feel irritated or frustrated when things don’t go the way I think is right. I guess I’ve stopped seeing myself as all-wise, all-feeling and caring. I no longer see him as insensitive; he is just different from me. Peace, both in soul and in daily living, flood my life. And I’ve stopped dreading fleas because I know where they come from. Needless to say, they have never returned. Many years have passed since my last flea lesson, and since then my relationship with my man has flourished into a thing of great glory both to God and to us as husband and wife. I just want to end with a praise of thanksgiving, “Thank you, God, for sending fleas, fleas, and more fleas.”
~Patricia
Haven’t I read something about swarms of insects coming upon people who wouldn’t obey the Word of god? It’s best to learn before the tenth visitation.
Statistics
Some fathers lay down the law. Everyone knows that he means to be obeyed “or else.” Other fathers gently entreat their grown daughters to listen and obey, hoping they have her heart to the point that she wants to do what he thinks best. Life is easier for girls raised by dominant, forceful fathers because they are accustomed to obeying. They were never given any other option and grew accustomed to strong authority. In contrast, girls raised by kind, gentle fathers often get bitter toward their husbands if they are demanding. But regardless of our predilection, all of us help meets are responsible for obeying God’s guidelines.
God expects those who know him to follow his directions. God gives clear law that we are to honor our parents, and reverence and obey our husband.
“And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 John 2:3-4).
Obedience can be difficult to ascertain when a husband drops suggestions rather than gives commands. But God commands wives to reverence their husbands, which would entail discerning his will as best you can and then treating it as a command.
If you’re not clear on his true wishes, ask him to clarify.
It took three lessons of fleas for Patricia to finally come to realize that God expects her to honor her husband’s wishes. Just as fathers come in all shapes and styles, so do husbands.
The way you as a single girl respond to your father is the way you will respond to your husband. Sometimes you might obey your dad while silently thinking he is out of touch and off the radar. Watch out—you will transfer this attitude to your husband. Ask God to teach you wisdom. Ask him to show you where you are lacking understanding.
The word reverence means: respect, admiration, worship, awe, esteem, veneration, astonishment, and amazement.
An antonym (opposite) for reverence is contempt, which means: disdain, disrespect, disapproval, scorn and condescension.
The Scripture has a dire warning for a daughter who dishonors her father: “For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death” (Matthew 15:4).
As daunting as that curse of death is, the admonishment for women to reverence their husbands is even greater because God chose marriage between a man and a woman to be a picture of Jesus’ relationship to us, the church. We are to be the bride of Christ. The Scripture calls this a “great mystery” (Ephesians 5:32).
Amazing as it sounds, marriage between a man and a woman is what God chose as the closest example of Christ’s relationship to his bride, the church. Submission, reverence, and honor are virtues God seeks to establish in his Son’s bride.
Are you preparing to be that kind of wife? How?
1. obedience is doing what you know your husband wants you to do.
2. submission is giving your heart over to your husband’s will.
3. reverence is more than just doing what your man expects or demands. It is the attitude that results from truly believing your husband holds a divine position of leadership, and regarding him with a high degree of awe.
Reverence: to revere, to be in awe; fear mingled with respect and esteem.
Obedience, submission, and reverence are all acts of the will and are not based on feelings. Showing deference toward one’s husband is an act of reverence toward the God who placed you in that role.
Deference: deferring to his will, command, or authority.
It is a sobering moment when a woman makes a
commitment to honor, obey and reverence her husband.
Write your commitment here. When you’re married and are having a bad day, come back here and read your commitment to God and to your husband. If you really mean it, then God will begin to work in your heart a change that will lead to beauty, glory and honor.