Just think how we take care of our bodies, brothers. When we feel cold, we put on a sweater to warm up. When we get a twinge of hunger we begin looking around for food. Any little discomfort and we are so quick to make an adjustment to accommodate ourselves. The Lord says that we should nourish and cherish our wife the same way that He nourishes and cherishes His Body and the same way we would take care of our own physical body. This implies an aggressive watchfulness. When only a small discomfort arises related to our body, right away we will run to the store or do almost anything to alleviate the need. Then the Lord says, “The same way you take care of your body, the same watchfulness and the same oversight, you watch for your wife in order to cherish and to nourish her.”

This is a profound oversight that a husband has for his wife! If we could learn to have the oversight that Christ desires for our wife and our children, we would grow much in the Lord. There are so many things to consider before the Lord. We might say, “I don't know what to pray for.” Pray for your wife. Pray for your children. “Lord, today is there anything I should do or consider for my wife? Lord, today, is there any positive word I can speak? When she makes dinner what is the best way to encourage her.” We are always seeking the Lord for His leading that what we impart to our wife matches the way we would care for our own body.

Brothers, can we see the tremendous opportunities afforded by the Lord in our daily lives? Unfortunately with most of us we separate our church life from our home life. We've got the church life and meetings we attend on one side, and the rest of our life on the other side. And often the rest of our life is for us to do whatever we desire. We surely have matters backwards. Our church life should be an overflow of our daily life with our spouse and children. How should we know Christ? We should know Christ with our spouse. We should know Christ with our children. This becomes the riches of experiencing all Christ's virtues and this becomes the base of our church life. We are not for religious Christianity in which we go to church on Sunday and do many things in the name of God, but not according to God's economy. God's economy is that He would be manifested in the flesh, He would be manifested in our home, He would be manifested in our job, He would be manifested with our spouse and He would be manifested with our children.

This indicates the depth of communication and coordination we should attain to with our wives. The Lord put husbands and wives together so that we would eventually be one. When we are first married, we are filled with romantic love, but are not very one. The first few years of marriage cause us to see how different we are. Over time, the Lord wants to continually make us one and the responsibility falls on the husband. The Lord desires that there would be such close fellowship and communication that the two minds become one. This takes a lot of time.

We see the differences in every area of how we look at things: raising the kids, our background, our goals, our administration of authority, etc. What will bridge the gap? Communication week by week, month by month, year by year. Communication brings our spouse to the same place we are, in appreciation and in understanding and eventually in operation. We cannot just force our own way, but we must learn to communicate in order to become one.

A crucial area of communication is concerning our children. We need to learn to speak the same thing to the children. We may differ in philosophy, but the children see a united front from their parents. There will surely be a lot of necessary conversations behind closed doors because of our differences. When our wife disagrees and speaks her mind, we need to learn to listen and communicate with her until she sees our point of view (assuming we were right before the Lord because many times we are not). Often husbands feel their supremacy has been challenged when our wife “dares” disagree. No, brothers, we need to seek Christ and learn from Christ to communicate until the oneness is attained.

There is a lot of give and take in marriage. It is usually harder for the husband to take than the wife. She often will just be silent when we rant and rave about getting our way, using our physical advantage and louder voice as weapons. However, this will never produce the true oneness in any matter. On the other hand, we struggle together to communicate with the view that we will become one in Christ. This provides a unit, one unit, for the Lord's use. Communication is exciting because it is so versatile. We just find ways and times to talk; sometimes over dinner, sometimes on a walk, sometimes while doing housework together. We always endeavor to maintain and advance the line of communication between us to produce the genuine harmony in our marriage for Christ's sake.

The issue of such communication is proper coordination. Brothers, according to God's ordination in His creation, a wife desires to serve her husband. This is not a chauvinist claim. A woman wants to follow her husband's lead in Christ, but not necessarily according to the way we are. She is constituted to submit and follow her husband. God made her this way. Similarly, we were all made to serve God according to creation. But we all need a lot of persuading. From the time we received Christ, God wanted us to serve Him with all of our heart. Wow! He surely has a lot of work to persuade us! He needs to demonstrate patience and utilize different environments all for the purpose of gaining our hearts and our lives to serve Him. Little by little we get to know Him more, we coordinate with Him a little bit more, and we have more feeling about what He desires and what He does not desire. We become more useful. God's psychology toward us is the same as the husband's toward his wife. "I need to labor with my wife to develop communication and to develop coordination to the point my wife desires to serve me in my service of the Lord." It is not a pressure to her. It is not overwhelming for her. It is not a demand that she can't fulfill. It's a team. What I have added to what my wife has works together to carry out the responsibility I have as a man and husband before the Lord. This happens based on mutual communication and coordination of my wife and I before the Lord so He can use us as a family.