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ORIGINAL: northstar

I'm not saying that you do this but it might be food for thought.

There is a situation in my close family where the husband says he is a christian, but is kind of the same as your husband...goes to church, but is not passionate, not zealous, doesn't want to discuss things etc etc. The wife on the other hand, is as keen as anything, always wants to discuss stuff, apply it to their lives etc.

In their case there is a reason things are this way. The wife criticizes the husband for not reading the Bible enough, for being keener on sports than the Bible, for not being the spiritual leader...he is well aware that she thinks he's a failure as a man of God and as a husband. She may not say that in so many words, but that is the message that comes across in the way that she speaks to him. She wants to discuss sermons, but imo it's to try and force him to be more spiritual...she won't sit with him in the evenings and just relax, or watch a DVD with him, and just be a couple, because doing so is not *spiritual*, and she's a spiritual woman don't you know...she's not into the stuff her husband is into, because it's not spiritual enough for her...again, makes the husband feel useless. So why, with pressure like that, would he ever want to be spiritual and study his Bible? My dh says if I spoke to him the same way, and acted the same way around him, like I was spiritual and he was not, it'd drive him to never pick up his Bible again!

I read an article the other day on this subject, and just to quote a part of it, 'how can a husband soar before Almighty God when he can't even please his wife?'

I'm not saying that you do all this...but please, if there's anything that gives you food for thought, consider it seriously. A man's power and enthusiasm for something can be robbed by a wife who pressures him, or tries to make him talk about things, especially if the end result of doing so makes him feel like a failure.

Men often need encouragement - not nagging them to be more spiritual, but truly being appreciated for the things that they do get right, and do for us out of their love for us. And the rest will follow. If the God that we profess to believe in, and the Christianity we claim to follow, makes us a nicer, more caring, more loving person, shown in our actions (and not just words) towards our husbands, then we are believable as a spiritual person, but if our Christianity just leads us to look down on our husbands for not being spiritual enough, and to be critical of everything they do, then what we do and what we say are two different things, and that is hypocritical and will put anyone off. True spirituality begins in our home relationships, not in our words, or in how well we can discuss God with someone else.

Again, I'm not judging, I do not know your entire situation, but what you said kind of hits close to home because it's my parents I'm talking about, and I hate to see my dad so powerless to be a man of God, because of the way my mum has been towards him over the years, all in the name of 'Christianity'. He used to be keen but the keenness has been sucked out of him over the years and it pains me to see it.

Anyway, like I said, if it doesn't apply to you, don't take it to heart. But if it does, please think about it and make a concerted effort to appreciate your man, and you never know how things will change.

God bless...