8 Great Ways to Honor Your Husband: Are You an Ezer?

by Marilynn Chadwick It’s important to understand honor as a biblical concept, shedding light on our God-given roles as husband and wife. In college, I was an atheist with strong feminist leanings. After I became a follower of Christ, it was God’s Word which opened my eyes to His beautiful and somewhat mysterious plan for marriage. 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). God created woman from man - from 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 2:20-24). Marriage was God’s gift to humanity. Eve was Adam’s companion, but the Bible also calls her his helper. In Hebrew, “helper,” or ezer, means “to support.” It’s a combination of two roots: "to rescue, to save," and "to be strong." The word ezer in the Bible most often refers to God as the helper, usually in times of danger or battle. Are you an ezer to your husband? The word ezer is also closely related to the word for rock. I honor David when I’m strong like a rock in my walk with the Lord. Strengthen your heart with the Word of God, prayer, spiritual disciplines, and biblical community. In the process, 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. As wives, we respond best to our husbands’ spiritual leadership when we trust God and His design for our marriage. 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.