Thursday, September 15, 2011
Download MP3 (right click to save)
Most of us urban or suburban type husbands don't go out with a bow and arrow to bring in our family's dinner. That was in the good old days where Dad went hunting for dinner. Instead, we go to a shop, or an office, or some such place and we get a paycheck. Then we turn it over to the grocery store.
But the principle is still the same: man is the provider, especially for his wife. Now, I know there's a lot of women working today, and that's changed some. But most men still pride themselves in being able to meet their wife's needs, and that's why it's so tough for them when they're out of work. See, above all else, a man wants to be known as a good provider. Somehow we always seem to fall short, but that's okay if we keep providing the most important provision for our wife's needs.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "What Your Wife Can't Get Enough Of."
Our word for today from the Word of God is found in Genesis 25. We're reading about the life of Isaac. Now, Isaac is married to a wonderful woman named Rebecca, and he has been promised that he and his children will be the beginning of a whole new nation. His father, Abraham, you may remember fathered a young man named Ishmael before him that really was a result of a relationship that was rushed, because they couldn't wait for God to send Isaac.
Well, right now, Ishmael has 12 sons; Isaac still has no children. And he and Rebecca are getting old. So we find what his response as a husband is. "Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife because she was barren. The Lord answered his prayer and his wife Rebecca became pregnant. The babies jostled each other within her, and she said, 'Why is this happening to me?' So she went to inquire of the Lord."
Now the specific situation here is that Rebecca is unable to conceive a child. But let's look beyond the specifics of physical barrenness here, though God has miraculously answered that kind of prayer on the couple's behalf. But let's look at it this way. There is something in the life of Isaac's wife that he, as her husband, is powerless to change. Do you have something like that in the life of your wife—something you're powerless to change? Maybe she's got emotional needs that are just too complex for you to understand, let alone meet them. Hurts that deep inside her that you can't seem to heal, fears that you can't seem to quell in her, weaknesses that you can't change in her, answers that you just can't seem to have for her.
See, there's something you can do that could meet her deepest need. It's what Isaac did. It says, "Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife." You know what a beautiful picture that is. The Godly man will often be found praying to the Lord on behalf of his wife. The kind of prayer that God can do the most with is the kind Isaac prayed. It's a desperate prayer; it's an admission of our own inability. There's a lot of God in that prayer, and a little of you. Pray with your wife often, and the result will be your prayer will be answered. Theirs was. They had two babies instead of one. And, as a result of him praying for her, she herself went on to inquire of the Lord, and she was a praying wife.
We can be delivered from that macho frustration that says, "I've got to meet all my wife's needs" and then run from the ones that we can't meet. Together, often, go to your knees and seek your Father for the things that you need. If you're a husband, let your wife live in the secure knowledge that you speak her name often in the Throne Room of Almighty God. She's hungry for your prayer on her behalf, and she can't get enough of it.