In his book "How to be a Great Wife, even though you Homeschool", he tells this great story about a dog sled to illustrate the relationship of a Christian husband and wife.
So a dog sled is a bunch of dogs (with a lead dog - he's important!) all tethered together with a Master calling the shots and telling the team where to go.
The lead dog is no "better" than any of the other dogs, he just has a specific job. He is supposed to listen to the Master and follow his instructions. All the other dogs are supposed to follow the lead dog. When the Master says "turn right", the lead dog is supposed to turn right and the other dogs are to follow and thus the whole sled goes where the Master wanted it to go.
As far as I am concerned - awesome analogy of a Christian family. The Master is of course God and the dad is the Lead Dog and the rest of the dogs are the wife and kids. The dad is supposed to listen and follow instructions from God and the wife and kids are to follow.
But - suppose the Master calls out "turn right" and the lead dog turns left - the rest of the team follows and they are now going in the wrong direction. The Master stops the sled and walks to the lead dog and smacks him on the head. Bad dog, pay attention!
Ok, now, same scenario, but this time when the Master says to turn right and the lead dog turns left, the first dog of the rest of the pack (the wife of course), knows they are supposed to go right and so pulls against the lead dog to try to get the pack to go the "right way". Now, the whole team is not only going the wrong direction, but it is all tangled up and who is the Master going to smack now?
BOTH of them. Seems unfair, right? the other dog was listening to the Master and knew where they were supposed to be going and was trying to follow the Master... right???
God gave us specific roles. If he had wanted that second dog to be the one to lead, he would have put it in that position. But he clearly has put the husband as the HOH - with all the responsibilities and burdens that come with that. And he has tasked the wife with the job of FOLLOWING the husband.
I need this lesson in front of me EVERY DAY. It goes along with "love your neighbor"... the second biggest commandment - it doesn’t matter how you interpret (twist) scripture, if what you are doing goes against that commandment, you are doing wrong.
And I have been given the ultimate commandment as a wife - Follow your husband, respect him, reverence him, obey him... doesn’t matter whatever else I think the family should be doing to follow a Christian walk.... if I am going against the first thing, I am doing wrong.
Lord help me to keep that focus!
6 comments:
Oh my goodness, that is a perfect analogy! That's exactly how it works. I love it!
That is a hard one. When my HOH gets off track, I whisper in his ear, even when I want to scream. He calls me his Jimminy Cricket and tells me that he never regrets following my advice.
I ummm - have a tendency not to whisper but to sigh a lot - dramatically and roll my eyes and preach and (I wish that were enough ands) and then just do it "the right way"
WORKING on this!!
Hmm, good analogy, BUT...IMO, God gave us wives minds and voices to use them...respectfully of course" "Honey...did you see that fork in the road we just zipped past...um, I think I saw a sign that said..."Danger, Turn here!". :) Welcome to blogland! Sara
Great analogy..
I like to think that God placed my hubby over me, and he holds my hubby's hand who holds and leads mine.
Sara- ha ha..yes. I have such an issue with that one part in Surrendered Wife where you don't tell him it's time to turn. I'm like, turn freaking right HERE already! Lol. I'd never just let him go miles out of the way while sitting daintily filing my nails. Yeesh.
thanks Ladies... after all these years, I'm still trying to balance that line between well-timed warnings and nagging...
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