It does not matter how hard you try. You will never be enough to satisfy all of your wife’s desires. And this is okay. Our impotence reminds us of our need for grace.
Photo by Marc-Olivier Jodoin on Unsplash
To be sure, this realization is humiliating to our masculine pride. But it is also freeing.
We love the thought of being able to offer our strength and come through for our wives. It boosts our ego to know we can put a smile on her face.
But then the pressure builds. Once is never enough. We are expected to come through again and again and again.
Soon we feel like we can never measure up. There is always something else she wants. Her nagging gets under our skin and we either give up and check out or blow up at her for never being satisfied.
If she didn’t want so much, then I would be enough, and all would be right in my world.
But this is not how things work.
God has designed the world in such a way that it does not work without him.
We can never completely fulfill our wife’s desires because this is God’s job alone. He limits our capacity so that she will ultimately have to rely on him for the fullness of life.
Certainly, God will use us to meet many of her desires, but not all. It is his job to fully satisfy the deep aches of her soul.
This is not an excuse to be passive or lazy. We are still called to pour out our strength for her daily.
But it does free us of the pressure to perform and remind us of our need for grace.
Just as our wife’s desires are only fully satisfied in God, our ability to rise time and again to offer our strength also depends on God.
We cannot accomplish all that God has for us in our own strength. We need him to work through us.
His grace empowers us to keep showing up and offering all that we are.
Free yourself of the pressure to be enough.
Humble your pride and let God work through you to offer more life and goodness to your wife, and also to others.
