When Sarah faced ‘husband’ problems, she didn’t get on Facebook to say: “Having another BAD day!” She didn’t call her mother and unload all her emotions about it. She didn’t walk out the door calling him names. She didn’t go to lunch with her best friend and complain about the idiot she has for a husband. She didn’t entertain the conversation the devil secretly wanted to have with her – about him. She didn’t fear what ‘could’ happen to her (and the kids) given what her husband had done, or didn’t do, and not even in knowing her husband well enough – what he ‘would’ do in a moment of threat, discouragement or loss. What was her hope? Sarah believed God, remaining faithful to Abraham, trusting the Lord while Abraham put her in threatening situations more than once. Once, we he lied to a king about who she was, Sarah found herself in another man’s house on the verge of becoming another one of his wives. I don’t know about you, but if my husband did that to me, pimped me out to a man he was afraid of, I just might leave my husband – to say the ‘least’ that I might do.
I have always referred to Sarah for my own encouragement, not that I have a husband that has done the things Abraham did to Sarah, but what man is perfect? What husband won’t do something dumb that he will regret later? What wife either? I have always used Sarah’s testimony (and my own testimony) to encourage and pray with other wives, especially my own daughters when they came to me; for what man, even if that man is a godly man, won’t make mistakes that could put their wife and children in a threatening situation? Personally, I have seen God painfully discipline my husband without it hurting me and the children, so that the children and myself could come together in love and truth – praying for him. Otherwise, God just might let it hurt me and the children. Think about that!
1 Peter 3:4-7 (I like the King James version) “But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands: Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord (my valued husband): whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.
“Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.”