The story of Ruth The Christian Wife Adorned for Gods Glory Ruth looked at the fat letter in her hand. "From Grandmother! Now maybe I will find some answers to the questions that have been on my mind since our wedding day. Well . . . maybe not ever since our wedding day. On our wedding day, I wasn't thinking about anything but how happy Mark and I were going to be. I guess the questions really came up since then." As Ruth eagerly opened the letter, her eyes became dreamy as she thought of the happiness she and Mark were experiencing. "As I expressed to Grandmother, my desire is that our happiness would please God so that He can bless us. Mark and I both want our lives to be useful in God's kingdom and lived for His glory." "If you fill your place, Ruth, and do your part, you can be assured of personal happiness and God's blessing on your life," Grandmother had said. Then Grandmother promised Ruth that she would write and share God's plan for the wife's place and part in marriage. Now here was Grandmother' s answer. Ruth skimmed over Grandmother' s loving greeting, and then she settled comfortably on the porch glider, and began to read. When God created man, man was His highest creation, and He had a special plan and purpose for him to fill. When He was finished, He said it was not good for man to be alone. He would make him a helper- someone to bear and mother his children, someone to share his joys and sorrows, to extend to him comfort and encouragement. Man needed someone to make a home for him, prepare his meals, and care for his clothing. He needed someone who would give him sympathy and encouragement and loving understanding in all things (even in his mistakes), someone to be a spiritual mate, to help him to be strong and faithful in the things of the Lord. Ruth, it is God's plan that you should be all of this to your husband. It is your first responsibility and privilege to be a loving, helpful, and submissive wife to Mark. To him first, you owe a love above all other loves on this earth, second only to the love you have for God. Nourish and cherish this precious relationship. Cultivate and preserve it at all costs as a priceless jewel. If you truly love your husband, you will put his comfort, wishes, and spiritual and physical welfare above all else. You will seek to know his needs and will put forth every reasonable effort to do them. Only if he should ask something of you that would violate the Scriptures, do you have the right before the Lord to take God's way instead of your husband's. The Lord says frequently that the wife should obey her husband. "Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands. . . . Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord" (1 Peter 3:1, 6). "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 2:4, 5). This is what I am doing in telling you these things. "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But . . . suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence" (1 Timothy 2:11,12). "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord" (Colossians 3:18). "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing" (Ephesians 5:22-24). First Corinthians 11 also teaches that man is the head of the woman. The Christian woman wears the veiling over her uncut hair as a sign that she accepts the headship of man and lives in submission to him. Ruth, God made the woman for the man not man for the woman. God did not create woman to live for herself. The purpose God had for creating her was to live for the man, to willingly and lovingly contribute all her energies to make his life happy, useful, and fulfilling. The woman who is not willing to live a selfless life for her husband should never marry. The Book of Proverbs shows us that wives can be helpful or harmful. Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands." To build a home, the wife must work with and for her husband. If she disagrees with her husband and does not work with him but takes her own way, she is plucking her home down with her own hands. `Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, than an house full of sacrifices with strife." Ruth, with all your energies, seek peace in your home by being quiet and submissive. Always maintain respect for your husband, even if you disagree with his decisions. Never discuss at great length what you think is a better course to take, thus bringing discord and strife into your home. "The contentions of a wife are a continual dropping," which enshroud a home and the heart of a husband with weariness, and tempt him to bitterness. "Only by pride cometh contention." "A prudent wife is from the LORD.""A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband: but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones." Whatever issues may come up - it really makes little difference what they might be. The important thing is that you always remain a faithful, loving Christian wife, whatever your husband may say or do. Happy indeed is the man who has a loving, obedient, and unselfish wife. Pity the man who must live with a woman who is selfish, shifts blame, criticizes, points out his mistakes frequently and magnifies them, and insists on her own way rather than finding contentment in doing things his way. In observing homes and husband-wife relationships, here are the most common faults of wives I have observed. 1. She is not submissive to her husband. "Submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord." 2. She talks too much. "Study to be quiet." 3. She is dissatisfied with her circumstances. "Be content with such things as ye have." 4. She is given to self-pity. "Let each esteem other better than themselves." 5. She is impatient. "In her tongue is the law of kindness." "With longsuffering, forbearing one another in love." 6. She is selfish with time, things, and schedules, and is impatient and upset with interruptions. "In honour preferring one another." "Tenderhearted, forgiving one another." 7. She is given to sulking or exploding if things do not suit her. "The fruit of the Spirit is . . . peace, longsuffering, gentleness, . . . meekness." 8. She is quick to justify herself and blame her husband. "Seeketh not her own." 9. She is not a good housekeeper. Her house is untidy, cluttered, and not clean. "She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness." "Keepers at home." "The younger women marry, . . . guide the house." 10. She is not given to hospitality. For no reason other than selfishness and pride, she resists having guests and/or preparing meals for strangers. "Given to hospitality. " Does this seem like a long, impossible list, Ruth? No, it is not. It is simply an application for Christian wives of the principles God has given for all the redeemed and transformed children of God-each in his place, living an unselfish, godly life for His glory. Ruth, my heart is heavy when I realize how many wives use their influence to tear down the convictions of their husbands. It hurts me to think of the many who rebel against their husbands' wishes and the standards they desire to uphold in their homes and see lived out in the lives of their families. How different this world would be if every wife who professes to be a child of God would earnestly seek the commendation of the virtuous woman in Proverbs: "The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her." Oh, that the longing, goal, and honest effort of every Christian wife would be that her husband could have confidence in her in everything: to do the right thing at the right time, to say the right always, to be completely happy with him and with all he wants her to do and to be, to teach and train the children right, to face cheerfully and bravely any major emergency, to be always waiting for him when he comes home from a hard or discouraging day of work and to meet him cheerfully with words of sympathy and encouragement. Every honest Christian wife knows her areas of weakness and failure. May she cultivate, by God's enablement, the grace of humility and be quick to apologize and acknowledge her failures. May she freely go the second mile and take blame for difficulties that arise in her relationship with her husband. May I plead with you, Ruth, to always face your life honestly as a wife (and perhaps some day as a mother) in the light of the Scriptures. When you realize that you have failed, seek the Lord's help, freely make your failure right, with the Lord and with your husband. Be hard on yourself. Do not hide behind any excuses. Confess all, and determine to humbly and carefully be the wife and mother the Scriptures teach you should be, by the grace and help of the Lord. May God grant you wisdom and grace so that your home may be a place of peace and contentment, where God's blessing abides-a home that is a rich blessing to the church that you are a part of. Happy indeed is the husband and how blessed indeed is the home where the wife is adorned with and for God's glory. This is my prayer for you. With her head bowed, and with tears in her eyes, Ruth prayed, "Dear Lord, I commit myself to being, with Your enabling grace, a wife for Your glory."