Sleeping Husbands

A few weeks ago, my family and I took a road trip to the beach. Every other year, we rent a large house with extended family on the beach. Road trips with my husband (something that used to be full of tension and arguing) have become something I look forward to now. We have it down to a science, and we genuinely enjoy each other’s company.

What a road trip looks like in our family, I imagine, is how it looks for most. My husband is the primary driver, being that he is the man and likes to remain in control. I am the co-pilot. What is my job as the co-pilot? To submit. I know, cringe, right? This generation of females has been taught to throw their guard up at this word because of the abuse that is associated with it. But let’s look a little closer at the word. Submission: sub (under) the mission. I am seated at his side, supporting his mission to drive us where we need to go. I manage the kids in the back, pass out snacks or a binky, and anticipate any stops we may need to make. I also help my husband with his driving by handing him a snack he may want from the back row or searching the nearest gas station when he deems that necessary. He trusts me to find the best place to stop. I trust him to get us there safely. This two-way exchange of trust and reliance has allowed us to make many successful road trips.

Now, we’re going to take that image of a family road trip and turn it into a metaphor. Instead of the highway to the shore, we’re on a narrow road to heaven. Instead of a rental house, we are promised a house already paid for, and there is room for anyone who wants to come. But, unfortunately, in this metaphor, my road trip looks different. In this metaphorical road trip, I am the driver and my husband is in the passenger seat, asleep. I’m left to manage the kids, pass snacks back to them, keep an eye on the road, look for a place to stop when we need it, and I’m doing it without the friendly banter and company of my partner. It is not going great. As I realize there are many reading this who can relate to this road trip, I also realize there are various ways this could look. Your husband may be the driver, and that is a beautiful thing. Or, maybe your husband refuses to even get in the car because he doesn’t believe there is a house to be driving to. Let's take a look at these types of road trips and how we can best carry on our journey to heaven.

If your husband is the one driving:

Praise be to God! Your role is set. You are to support him in his mission to get you all to heaven. Much of that still falls in line with what will be mentioned later (pray, love, teach). Just like the passenger trusts the driver to know where to go, you follow your husband's spiritual direction. Likewise, you have a voice in where the family goes and a mutually trusting husband would hear you out. The metaphorical connections could go on for days. Point being, the same two-way exchange of trust and reliance will make the trip smooth.

Now, let's address the obvious flaw in this metaphor: no one can be forced into heaven. If our metaphorical road trip ends at heaven’s gates with our husbands still asleep, scripture tells us they will likely be turned away. If that’s not concerning enough, what about our children? We know all too well that if they are granted a long enough life, at some point, they will leave our car and start driving their own. But will they take the same road? Or will they opt for the highway?

If your husband is the sleeper:

Are you familiar with this statistic?

If a child becomes a Christian, there is a 3.5% chance the rest of the household will as do the same.

If the mother is the first to convert, there is a 17% chance that the family will follow Christianity.

If a father converts to Christianity, there is a 93% chance everyone in the household will do the same.

As a mother with a sleeping husband, this statistic alarmed me the first time I saw it. Now, I want to mention, as a small point of comfort, I have not been able to pinpoint a credible source for this study. We can tell ourselves these numbers were made up to bring men back to God, or we can look at what scripture tells us:

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Ephesians 6:4

These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down, and when you get up. Deuteronomy 6:6-7

When we look at Jesus’s disciples, what do we see? Men. He who defended women, broke bread with women, traveled with women, clearly had no qualms against women- chose men to carry on his teachings. Regardless of the validity of this study, men were and are meant to be the spiritual leaders of our future generations.

As for women?

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” Genesis 2:18

So what happened??

We know the devil seeks to divide and destroy that which is good. A holy family working in sync for God is going to be high on his list of targets. He targets women by belittling motherhood in our society while glorifying power, control, and career. Submit to a man? No thanks! Women suddenly start fighting for the wheel. Meanwhile men are either being emasculated in the media (or lumped in with those who have abused their dominance) to the point where they willingly give the steering wheel over and go to sleep.

If we think of our well-run road trip, everything works better when we each stick to our roles. We women have our role to play, and it has always been to help man. Man has a mission, and our job in that is to be underneath that mission, get “sub” the mission in submission.

But how do we do that in a society with so many men asleep? There are three fundamental things that women in history have shown us to do: Pray, love, and teach.

Pray

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,” Hebrews 12:1

You may not know this, but in that cloud of witnesses sits a woman named Monica. Since she is among the saints in heaven, we refer to her as St. Monica. Anyone relating to the struggles of a husband asleep can take comfort in knowing St. Monica has run your race. Or, to keep to our metaphor, she was in the driver's seat too.

Monica was given in marriage to a man named Patricius, who was not a believer and known to have a violent temper. The two lived with Patricius’s mother, who was also not a believer. Monica turned to prayer and her prayers were answered. Sadly, Patricius died when their eldest of three children was seventeen, but both he and his mother had converted to Christianity shortly before his death. Now, her oldest followed the same path you and I fear as well. He became a lost soul, living a life of sin. Monica prayed. She prayed and fasted for her son and was once again answered. She was able to witness her son’s baptism before her death on August 27th, 387. Her son went on to become a priest, and wrote some profound writings you may have heard of today. His name was Augustine. We know him as St. Augustine.

Regardless of what you believe on intercessory prayer, the saints lived real lives and have incredible stories. Monica’s story is the one I hold close to my heart. Whenever I am experiencing a hardship as the sole driver, I look up to St. Monica in the clouds and know she’s been where I am. I ask her to pray for me and for my husband and my sons.

It is not our job to convert our husbands. That is the job of the Holy Spirit. Imagine if you tried to shake your husband awake. It would likely make him even more resistant and possibly resentful. We have to surrender them and pray. Praying for our husbands is not “all we can do,” it is the very thing we need to do. Pray for their conversion and pray for the wisdom to know when to speak and when to be silent. Hold firm to your faith and, beyond that, be a joyful witness.

Love

What does it look like to be a joyful witness? Well, one thing is for sure: if you’re full of resentment or buckled down on waking your husband up, you are probably not looking too joyful at the moment. One reason your husband doesn’t want to take over or possibly won't even get into the car is that it looks like a lot of miserable work. The narrow path doesn’t look like a great journey. He’d rather take the highway or go back to sleep instead. Being a joyful witness is an essential part we can play in their conversions, and it starts with surrender. Once you’ve let go of who you want them to be you can focus on who they are.

But this is an easy trap to fall into. Once, not too long ago, I was in deep prayer while Jesus was trying to get me to surrender this all over to him in a spiritual tug-of-war. My eyes kept wandering over to an adorable couple sitting near me. They were praying together. She was kneeling with her head bowed, and now and then, he would lean over and kiss the top of her head. It was beautiful, but it was tearing my heart to pieces. It took full surrender to realize I was breaking the 10th commandment.

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” Exodus 20:17

I didn’t want that woman’s husband but I wanted her marriage. I’m exposing this deeply personal sin because I am confident I did not fall into this trap alone. Be careful not to look at the cars around you. You are going to see husbands driving and wish that it could be your car. You’ve committed yourself to the man next to you before God, and God sees you. He will not abandon you on this journey. Keep your eyes on the road and love.

My husband is a good man- not a perfect one. As fathers go, God gave me a great one for my children. Trust God can make good of imperfect fathers.

What if, instead of trying to shake your husband awake, you lovingly took care of him? You pray for him, sure. You hold firm to your faith and speak when God calls you to speak. Beyond that, you just love him. Imagine the breath of relief that gives both of you. Imagine his eyes peaking open for a moment, and he sees you, not white-knuckling the steering wheel and shooting him side-eye. But instead, you’re relaxed, you’re singing along to your music, and when you see him looking at you, you smile lovingly at him. Wouldn’t that be a sight to wake up to? You are not responsible for his soul. He will have his own journey. You are responsible for loving him, and in doing so, you will be the perfect joyful witness.

Teach

Train up a child in the way he should go,

And when he is old he will not depart from it.

Proverbs 22:6

But what about the children? I brought up some alarming statistics earlier, paired with scripture that would imply our children’s faith is all in the hands of our sleeping husbands. I admit, sometimes I still have to fight my all-or-nothing thinking that tells me my children are doomed to become delinquents without their father guiding them to Jesus.

Have you heard the quote, “faith is caught, not taught”? While I think there is some truth here, the more accurate way to say this might be, “faith is caught more than taught.” Though example is by far the best way to raise a child in the faith, it is important not to undermine the importance of teaching the faith to our children. That is where mothers come in. We are the first teachers of our children. We sing them songs, read them stories, and can turn anything, from an argument to a scraped knee, into a valuable life lesson. Use all of this as an opportunity to teach the faith to your children. We can sing psalms to them or worship music. We can read bible stories or tell stories of the saints gone before us. We can use conflict as an opportunity to teach how Jesus calls us to live. If, we do this, Proverbs tells us they will remember it when they're grown. They might choose not to live by these teachings but they know them. And through their own walk in life, the Holy Spirit will continuously pull them back in the direction of those values.

How can I be so sure? Well, I can't aside from my own testimony. My father started as the driver but for reasons that remain a mystery, he handed the wheel to my mother, and fell into a spiritual sleep. Without his example, I may not have lived my teens and young adult years the way God calls us to live but I always knew God was there. I knew where to find Him. Church still felt like home to me. Then, when the road got a little bumpy and I recognized I was lost, I knew how to find my way back. This is all because of what my mother taught me. My dad is still an incredible father- not perfect. God can make good of imperfect fathers.

I will teach these young minds all I have to offer and trust God. They are in His hands now and forever wherever the world takes them. Just like we surrender our husbands we have to surrender our children too. (That is admittedly not easy to do.)

The man might be the leader of the family, but let’s not forget how God chose to introduce Jesus into the world in the first place. He did it through a woman. We can be that woman in our little families. We are the ones to introduce them to Jesus and raise them know Him. So that even if they choose the highway on their road trips, they'll know the exist signs to look for to take them back home.