Living with our wife can feel impossible at times. She knows how to push our buttons and we’re often the target of her disappointment and anger. And it’s tempting to take this personally and to see it as just part of her disrespect toward us. While certainly she has her part to play, remembering the reality of spiritual warfare helps us to continue fighting for her and not against her.
Of course, our wife is responsible for the choices she makes and how she behaves toward us. And love does not require us to ignore her sins. In fact, part of our job is to help each other see our blind spots and correct our shortcomings. At the same time, such correction must be grounded in love. And this is not the case when we’re simply attacking her in reaction to our own hurt feelings.
To be sure, we live in a world at war and our marriage is not spared from being in the crosshairs of evil. There’s likely even a special hatred toward our union because of what marriage represents in the spiritual realms. As such, we must be careful not to misinterpret the discord and flashes of hatred that find their way into our marriage. This is often the work of evil. And from the very beginning, his schemes often make Eve a primary target.
The animosity and contempt our wife directs toward us might be more accurately understood as a result of the spiritual attacks directed toward her. And we find ourselves participating with evil whenever we add to this attack.
The better approach is providing spiritual covering for her – using our spiritual authority on her behalf to resist evil and bring her back to the presence and direction of God’s Spirit. In short, we fight and advocate for her in the spiritual realms as we would do in the physical.
In the end, marriage comes with many challenging days. But don’t lose sight of the larger story and the battle we face. Fight for your wife, not against her.
