How to Honor Your Husband: Believe the Best

by Marilynn Chadwick

Over the years, I’ve discovered that honoring my husband begins in my mind. What I think about David determines whether my words and actions will honor him. Turns out there’s some research to back up this observation. Author and longtime Gallup poll associate Marcus Buckingham surveyed thousands of married couples to discover the traits at the core of good marriages. He found something intriguing. The common thread running through happy marriages was this: In the most successful marriages, each partner rated the other person higher than that person rated him or herself.

Buckingham’s findings, emerging from volumes of data, got me to thinking. As a wife, it’s important for me to value and respect David, believing in him even more than he believes in himself. I realized in that moment that I can choose how I think about my husband.

Do I respect him? Appreciate him? Focus on his strengths and downplay his weaknesses? Do I take time to reflect on the many ways he sacrifices for our family? Am I there for him to support and strengthen him, especially when he feels weak? Do I believe the best about him? In short, am I thankful for him?

Honor may be best expressed through words and deeds, but it begins in the mind. It greatly matters what we think about our husbands. What I think about David determines whether my words and actions will honor him. What we believe about our husbands can make or break our marriages.

Over the years, I’ve noticed a common theme in the marriages I’ve grown to admire. The spouses seem to be intentional about interpreting each other in a positive light. The wives speak about their husbands with respect. The husbands find ways to honor their wives. It’s clear they treasure and appreciate their partner. In short, they believe the best about each other, and it shows.

God’s word is filled with encouragement to honor our husbands, wives, and even families. Why not begin to explore practical ways to act this out on a daily basis.

This series is adapted from Marilynn Chadwick’s book, Eight Great Ways to Honor Your Husband. To download your free PDF copy of the book, please visit our website by clicking here!

How to Honor Your Husband: Are You an Ezer?

by Marilynn Chadwick

When we understand honor as a biblical concept, it sheds light on our God-given roles as husband and wife. In college, I was a spiritual skeptic with strong feminist leanings. After I became a follower of Christ, God’s Word opened my eyes to his beautiful and somewhat mysterious plan for marriage.

The Bible talks about Eve as Adam’s helper. The word “helper,” or ezer, means “to support.” The word conveys strength and is closely related to the word for rock. I honor David when I’m strong like a rock in my walk with the Lord. As wives, we respond best to our husbands’ spiritual leadership when we trust God and his design for our marriage. I hope you’ll see that being a strong woman of God, while also submitting to your husband’s spiritual leadership, go hand in hand.

Everything God created was good. But he looked at Adam and said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.” Something was missing. So God said: "I will make a helper suitable for him” (Genesis 2:18 NIV). God created woman from the very stuff of man—his same substance: “So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs …Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man” (Genesis 2:20-22).

Marriage was God’s gift to the humans. Eve was Adams’s companion as well as his helper. In Hebrew, ezer is a combination of two roots: "to rescue or save," and "to be strong." Throughout the Old Testament, the word ezer most often refers to God as the helper, usually in times of danger or battle.

When you grasp what it means to be an ezer, you begin to get an image of your role as a rock, not a doormat. Your challenge is to become strong so that you are a source of strength for a husband who will sometimes be weak.

I’ve learned that an important part of showing honor to a strong husband like David is to be his “rock of support” when everything around him feels like it's crashing down. Think about what it means to be strong like a “rock” for our husbands, families, and communities. Lord knows we need more women who are willing to live strong as ezers in this hurting and broken world.

This series is adapted from Marilynn Chadwick’s book, Eight Great Ways to Honor Your Husband. To download your free PDF copy of the book, please visit our website by clicking here!

How to Honor Your Husband: Are We Thirsty for Honor?

by Marilynn Chadwick

The word honor calls to mind virtues like integrity and honesty. To honor someone is to treat them with admiration or respect. Over the next four weeks, David and I will explore honor from a biblical point of view. Plus, we will give practical tips on how you can begin to honor your husband or wife and create a culture of honor in your own home.

Several years ago, David’s beloved college basketball coach, North Carolina’s legendary Dean Smith, passed away. Next to his own father, David says Smith was the most significant man in his life. Even superstar Michael Jordan called Smith his “second father.” Along with great basketball, Coach Smith taught David about honor.

When I first met my basketball player-turned-preacher husband, I was a University of Georgia girl and a die-hard football fan. Basketball, not so much. But I loved David, and I grew to love basketball. After David introduced us for the first time, Coach Smith sent me a handwritten note welcoming me to the “Carolina Family.” He always remembered my alma mater and my college major. He even knew our children by name. Seriously. Who does that?

David had the privilege of delivering the opening invocation in Coach Smith’s public memorial service in the Dean Smith Center popularly known as the Dean Dome. Thousands of fans, students, faculty, and coaching colleagues, along with the roughly 200 former lettermen, gathered to pay their respects.

Public reaction to Dean Smith’s passing seemed to convey a nostalgic yearning for role models, for dads, and for men of honor. I was inspired to write an editorial honoring Coach Smith. I reflected on his impact and encouraged readers to appreciate the good guys in their own lives.

A prominent defense attorney sent me a handwritten note reminiscing about how his dad had been such an honorable man. A former mayor, a federal judge, and a bank president each shared stories of the honorable men who had shaped their lives. Young moms wrote to tell me about their “amazing husbands” and vowed to be more intentional to honor them. Had I touched a nerve?

Maybe it’s because honor is lacking in our homes. Families today are in trouble. Studies show the majority of divorces are now initiated by women. Honor was God’s idea in the first place—especially in marriage. No wonder we’re thirsty for this forgotten virtue. Perhaps it’s time for the church to spark a movement of honor in our homes, our communities, and our world.

This series is adapted from Marilynn Chadwick’s book, Eight Great Ways to Honor Your Husband. To download your free PDF copy of the book, please visit our website by clicking here!