Disrespect's Bitter Root
Dear Wives,
Have you ever watched any of these historical, epic movies—like Braveheart, The Last Samurai, Gladiator, The Patriot, or even one not so historical like Last Knights—that leave you inspired, in awe, and yearning for something deeper? These movies are saturated with honor. Honor is a God word. It’s WHO He is, which is why tales like these call out to us like they do. We are all hungry for the deep satisfaction of a life filled with honor, a life of reverence and respect, a life lived outside of ourselves.
Yet, a life like this seems almost impossible, seeing we are surrounded by the degrading state of our current “world.” It is saturated with quite the opposite—dishonor, disrespect, and irreverence are everywhere. We have each been intensely contaminated whether we’ve realized it or not, and some have found that this disrespect and dishonor has taken root within their own soul and they have no idea how it got there or how they will ever recover themselves. The big issue is that this evil root of disrespect has crept into the way we treat the things of God and has since been taking ground in our marriages, homes, families, and our children.
Can I be open and honest? Some of you may be like I was, where you haven’t even recognized that you’ve fallen into what feels like a deep hole caused by a root of disrespect. I’m specifically referring to the disrespect towards your spouse, and even more specifically, I’m speaking to wives today. Maybe my very bringing it up is causing you to take a minute to look at your surroundings… your heart’s surroundings, your mind’s setting (mindset), your emotional state…Are you immersed with disrespect and haven’t realized it?
When you first met him, he hung the moon…oh, AND the stars… and everything he said and did was basically perfect… and now…
Did he change?? Is he the one to blame? What happened?
You are not alone. We’ve all been there, whether we want to admit it or not, we have all struggled with disrespecting our husbands. But I don’t think any of us actually “want” to disrespect him. It just seems to pop up out of nowhere. Like I said, we’ve been contaminated by the world’s way of thinking. But we’re not a lost cause. Where we once tried to casually hack away with menial garden tools, we can now bring in the excavator and uproot this deep disrespect once and for all, never allowing it access again. But it will take some drastic heart and mind transformation, some conversion—some major mindset changes—some radical breakthroughs in our thinking......where we don’t even THINK the same anymore.
Do not be shaped by this world; instead be changed within by a new way of thinking (Rom. 12:2, NCV). Don’t live the way this world lives. Let your way of thinking be completely changed (Rom. 12:2, NIRV). And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind… (Rom. 12:2, NKJV)
If the way we treat our husbands is not drastically different than the way wives of this world treat their husbands, then something is very wrong. Our actions, our words, our responses—all rooting from the way we think—need to make a difference in the way worldly, ungodly wives think towards their husbands. They cannot resemble one another in any way. They must be jaw-droppingly different.
This difference can begin by us settling once and for all, within our own heart, the answers to a few doubtful questions—uncertainties about which each of us have surely wondered as we have found ourselves at the bottom of this hole of disrespect.
Sadly, we’ve deliberated back and forth, as if respecting our husbands should even be an option for us… (…let the wife see that she respects her husband. Eph. 5:33)
· Can I respect and honor my husband, even when I feel like he doesn’t deserve it?
· Can I give him respect, even though he gives me none?
· Can I respect him, even when I don’t agree with him, and when I actually think he is just downright wrong?
Finally… the main topic of consideration today…
· Can I respect him when I have been hurt by him?
For me, the Lord had been pointing out the dishonor and disrespect in me, but I had dismissed it. I was making excuses for it and unwilling to look it straight in the eyes for what it truly was. I will say, there have been many seasons where I have held my ground against disrespect; yet later, only found that somewhere along the way, I had fallen back in… buried alive and completely oblivious.
And I say it that way because that’s exactly how it felt for me: I had fallen in and I didn’t know how to get out. This time, it took my husband to shake me (Relax… not literally J) before I fully recognized how far down I had gone.
The Bible says that those who have fallen need to recover themselves. I had to recover myself. So, what did we do? Matt and I started out by taking some time away from each other to spend with the Lord, which there is Biblical precedence for:
Do not deprive each other [of marital rights], except perhaps by mutual consent for a time, so that you may devote yourselves [unhindered] to prayer [and fasting] … (1 Cor. 7:5, AMP)
Our mutual decision to fast and spend time with the Lord, apart, was just a few days, and no, it wasn’t a result of some huge issue between us. It was simply at the direction of the Lord, which we were both in agreement on. It was time to get with the Lord and away from each other. Giving ourselves some space allowed us to get clear and hear from the Lord.
And it was in this time when I was able to really come to my senses on my, then current, state of mind:
…in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will. (2 Tim. 2:25-26, NKJV)
(Did Matt have to come to his senses on some things? In the same scripture that tells wives to respect her husband, does it tell husbands to love their wives? Yes, it’s not one-sided. However, I’m only writing to you about my part as a wife.)
While with the Lord, I had to do some “repenting.” Yes, the “R” word that so many Christians have discounted, and have actually come to despise, because they have not truly experienced the power in it. Repentance is a precious gift and when someone truly repents, they will experience a power (grace, ability, strength) to overcome an area where they were previously powerless. This is because repentance requires full humility and complete abandonment to a Higher Power, where the “repenter” recognizes they cannot do it without Him.
But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes. And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will. (2 Tim. 2:23-26, KJV)
In my few days apart with the Lord, I came to understand some things about dishonor. Not only was the Lord able to open my eyes about myself, but also to how dishonor begins across the board in many marriages (I had to get the “plank out of my own eye” so I could see clearly to help someone else):
Whether we have realized it or not, each of the doubtful questions we found ourselves asking (at the bottom of the hole of disrespect), yes each of them, originate from a root of hurt—where, at some point, we allowed ourselves to be hurt by our husbands, OR by others before them. And to use a Bible term for “hurt”—we can say we got “offended.”
Hurt that goes undealt-with will eventually spring up a bitter root of offense. This undealt-with hurt is a snare of the devil, spoken of in the previous verse. And maybe they are just small offensive actions, or little misdemeanors that have added up over time. Or maybe just some minor personality differences that have rubbed against each other over time, causing callouses.
...looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled… (Heb. 12:15, NKJV)
These “offenses,” or deeply taken hurt, is, what Jesus said, one of the tell-tale signs that indicate we are in the last days:
And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. (Matt. 24:10, KJV)
This is a progression. Offense leads to betrayal, which is simply a breach of trust, which leads to hate. If I am offended, if I am deeply hurt, I will betray my relationship with my husband by drawing back FROM him in distrust and disrespect him, and then eventually, if not dealt with, it leads to hatred.
Some Bible translations of this verse call offense a “trap.” And I believe we can all admit that this “offense,” even seen in Christian marriages, has indeed been a trap/snare of the enemy and caused many to “betray one another” and “hate one another,” resulting in divorced marriages, one after another. And to think, it all started with one little (or big) offense that was allowed to go unchecked.
Quick side note: Just because something has come against you doesn’t mean you have to “get offended.” Some have been too easily offended and as a result they are always on the defense. If you are always on the defense, then you are always guarding yourself. Because you are guarded, you become very defensive, calloused, and numb, and you are always on the lookout, expecting to be hurt because you’ve been “hurt” so much. That isn’t the right solution. Being filled with honor and love will keep you from being hurt.
Where some were deeply hurt/offended, others were completely unaffected. So, it is the individual person who determines the way they handle potentially hurtful situations.
Love is not easily offended… (I Cor. 13:5)
He that is slow to wrath [slow to being offended] is of great understanding: but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly. (Prov.14:29, KJV)
So…maybe we were hurt by unmet expectations; maybe we were hurt by feeling like we were disrespected and dishonored; maybe we were hurt by the fact that they didn’t listen to our ideas or agree with what we wanted; maybe we were hurt by thoughtless words and actions, and maybe we were hurt by something truly offensive. No matter the degree of the irritation, all unresolved hurt turns into offense which causes a root of bitterness. (And I will interject here that in a lot of cases, I feel many husbands are bearing the burden of their wife’s past taken offenses in which they (the husband) had nothing to do with (e.g., an old boyfriend, a lame boss, or a dishonorable father.)
A brother offended is harder to win over than a fortified city, And contentions [separating families] are like the bars of a castle. (Proverbs 18:19, AMP)
Why is an offended person compared to a fortified city or castle bars? Because a hurt, offended person builds walls and strongholds (wrong ways of thinking) around their heart. These walls/strongholds are a result of the offended person trying to “protect” themselves and keep out those who they don’t want “in.” These walls and strongholds construct separation, which hinders closeness, all as a result of unforgiveness towards the original offense.
I like what Proverbs 17:9 says, in a couple translations:
He who covers and forgives an offense seeks love, but he who repeats or harps on a matter separates even close friends. (AMP)
Love prospers when a fault is forgiven, but dwelling on it separates close friends. (NLT)
During this time away, the Lord gave me this phrase:
“Hurt digs the hole for [root of] disrespect to grow.”
Offense (deeply taken hurt) will cause you to lose faith in, lose trust, lose respect for, and lose dishonor—basically, you’re just losing—for those you should be honoring and respecting, trusting and believing in/for because the root of bitterness springs up and produces bitter fruit. And eventually, it will cause you to lose honor for the Lord. It all starts somewhere.
Hurt that is kept “alive” will begin to germinate disrespect, and roots will soon begin to emerge from that hurt—a root of bitterness. Hurt that is undealt-with turns into a root of bitterness and cultivates disrespect; it produces dishonor.
This root of bitterness is in your soul, it’s in your feelings and it affects your emotions and your reasoning. It affects how you see and hear and it affects your senses until all you see is through the eyes of offense, constantly questioning and thinking people are out to get you, so to speak—looking into everything he says to you, wondering if he meant it a certain way or not, is he jabbing you, wondering if there is some hidden motivation, etc.
We’ve all known people like this… but have we seen the beginnings of it within our own selves? A root of bitterness (from hurt and offenses) can’t grow in the ground of a heart of love and forgiveness. It’s important for us to recognize that, sadly, instead of uprooting this root of bitterness once and for all, many times we have covered it with soil and let it grow. And the more we think about the hurt and how we are hurt, and what they did or didn’t do, the more we water it. And that is why for some it feels like they are in a deep hole of disrespect and aren’t sure how to get out.
And now disrespect has become a full-grown tree and has overtaken the once healthy tree of honor. Unless we dig up that root of hurt, all the way to the source, it will continue to grow, branching out in the most troublesome ways.
As we begin, it may feel like we are actually having to dig out the root from miles beneath the surface. Where’s the heavy-duty excavator when we need it?! Well, one’s about to pull up now.
A few years back, the Lord gave me what I call “6 R’s to Victory (or Recovery).” Regarding our topic today, we can call them “6 R’s to Recovering Respect,” or 6 R’s to digging out the disrespect. It was in these few days, when the Lord was ministering to me how I myself would stay victorious over disrespect, that He brought these 6 steps back to my remembrance and I want to share with you what I myself have to do to stay out of disrespect, with no walls of hurt around my heart:
1. Recognize – The first step to recovering yourself, reclaiming your ground, is to recognize/realize the issue. Acknowledge the truth. Be willing to look at the disrespect (in you, not in other people) directly into its eyes and call it what it is. Allow the Lord to reveal every inch of disrespect—thoughts, words, feelings, actions, responses—every inch. This may take some time spent away from everything else and just with Him.
2. Repent – The next step to reclaiming your ground is to respond to the Lord in repentance. Once you see the part of your life that isn’t lining up with God’s Word about you (e.g., Let the wife see that she respects her husband), you repent. Turn away from the disrespect once and for all and commit to honor and respect simply because the Word tells you to and because you love your husband and you LOVE the Word. There will be a power you will get that you did not have before… like I said earlier. But the humble in spirit will retain honor (Prov. 29:23).
3. Renew Your Mind – The next thing you’ll need to do is reinforce within your soul and mind who you truly are in the Lord and allow Him to wash away all the dishonor from your thinking. Who am I in this area according to the Word of God? Let the Word of God wash your mind (Eph. 5:26, James 1:21). Be renewed in the spirit of your mind (Eph. 4:23).
Meditate on God’s Word in this area and allow what He says about honor, love, and a Godly wife to take root instead of the bitterness and disrespect. Continue reaffirming (watering and fertilizing) your good roots by meditating on God’s Word. Honor forgives. Honor humbles herself. Honor loves and protects unity and closeness, etc. Allow God’s Word to penetrate the walls of hurt constructed around you that have brought separation (these walls that have become a deep hole).
.…love covers all offenses. (Proverbs 10:12, ESV)
With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace…. Neither give place to the devil… Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. (Eph. 4:2-3, 27, 31-32)
And it is his honor and glory to overlook a transgression or an offense [without seeking revenge and harboring resentment]. (Proverbs 19:11, AMP)
The honor of God in you will overlook a shortcoming or annoyance in your spouse and release it before it ever has time to offend you in your soul—before it ever has time to take root—considering that even you have offended with your own shortcomings.
4. Resist/Reject - Resist the enemy and every feeling of doubt and unbelief that comes against you in the area you are overcoming. Reject every thought that is against God’s Word for you. This takes effort and consistency!
Our weapons that we fight with aren’t human, but instead they are powered by God for the destruction of fortresses (strongholds in our thinking). They destroy arguments and every defense that is raised up to oppose the knowledge of God. They capture every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Cor. 10:4-5, CEB)
Continual dwelling on how we have been hurt, or still are hurt, is giving more fertilization to those dishonorable roots we have been feeding. Repeating it over and over again in our minds is a form of harping on the matter and is the culprit for the separation in your relationship. Rehearsing it time and again will only bring more and more division and disconnect.
He who covers and forgives an offense seeks love, but he who repeats or harps on a matter separates even close friends. (Prov. 17:9 AMP)
5. Replace - Replace the negative, bad, and unbelieving thoughts (the evil root of hurt) with Words straight from the Bible. Put that in your mind. See yourself as honorable, as humble, as respectful, etc. Put His Words in your mouth by calling yourself honorable and respectful and then you will see your actions and words towards your spouse change, too. This is a continuation of reestablishing your good roots.
DON’T TRY TO CHANGE YOUR ACTIONS FIRST. CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK TO ALIGN WITH THE WORD, AND YOU’LL SEE YOUR ACTIONS SOON CHANGE.
6. And finally, Remember and Retrain - Don’t forget what God has done for you and retain what He has helped you to recover. Retrain yourself as you stay out of disrespect by continuing to follow the previous 5 steps.
And to bring it full circle, we answer our question once and for all:
Can we respect our husbands even when we’ve been hurt by them? YES. Why yes, we can. Because of the power of love in the God-kind of honor, honor which overlooks an offense, honor which is not moved into offense, honor which keeps the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace and love, we can overcome any kind of hurt.
Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another. (Rom. 12:10, NKJV)
It did take a few days set aside, but God was able to renew the spirit of honor on the inside of me. He brought honor back into my wife-ness.
Strength and honor are her clothing… (Prov. 31:25)
I started asking myself, “What would honor do? What would honor say? What would honor think? How would honor respond?” And I found myself answering, “Honor wouldn’t do that, wouldn’t say that, wouldn’t think that, wouldn’t respond like that.” Honor wouldn’t even allow itself to feel like that.
So, if hurt digs the hole for dishonor to grow, what keeps the hole of hurt from ever being dug??
HONOR. The spirit of honor. And the ground of a heart of love will ensure honor and respect can keep growing.
HONOR IS WHAT WILL KEEP YOU FROM BEING HURT.
A man’s pride and sense of self-importance will bring him down, But he who has a humble spirit will obtain honor. (Prov. 29, 23, NKJV)
Honor upholds you. Like a code of honor, no matter what is done to you, you can, yes, CAN, remain unmoved, unoffended.
Honor LIFTS us up to a higher level in our thinking and in our relationships. The way of honor is a higher way.
In this day and age, the value of honor has been lost. Wives (and husbands alike) haven’t known what it means to uphold the honorable, to be honorable, to do what is honorable, to live a life of honor. It’s a beautiful thing that comes straight from the heart of God—it is pure love. And it is more than can be described in one word, in one letter; there is a “spirit” of honor that we must “catch.” And it just may be a topic we’ll continue for a bit.
Love you guys much,
Jess