HEART-TRUST

In honor of my Hannah & our Jesus…
Ephesians 5:21-33 (the Message text at the end)

Lord,
The girl You gave me
Is a trust!

She
Belongs first…to You…
Next to me…so
It is to You that I will answer
For the hurts
I deal her…and
the ones I allow
to reach
her heart.

Her heart is a trust…
A holy trust
You have given to me…

Good old C.S. Lewis was right
When he said that
You “imposed headship”
Onto the husband…for
In marriage, headship is
a burden…
a precious one, yes…
but
a burden still…a
burden in which we men
stand
responsible to You
for the hearts…
the health…
of the brides
You…
have given to us.

What is headship? First…it must be
under You, Lord.

All we have is Your example…and
Paul’s words.

You showed us how to do this…
By laying down
Your life
in our place…
By protecting the disciples
in the Garden-betrayal…
By taking all of
YaHWeH’s wrath
for us…
By not forsaking us
when you could have.
Easily.

You NEVER imposed
Your will on us…
instead
like a kind shepherd…You
called to us…
walking each step
ahead of us…first…

You tested out the path
so we could follow
in the safety…of
Your love…of
Your kind intention.

You wondered at
our lack of faith…
but
You never wavered in
Your love for us…or
Your choosing of us…
even
the betrayer was
loved…by You…

We never understood
why…
back then…but
we had a lot of
trouble
understanding You
at all.

You always seemed to be working on us…
on our hearts…
so hard…as if
nothing was too small
for You to notice…
to care about…

John was right
when he said,
“He loved His Own…
to the end.”

In all the years
since…
our estimation
of Your love for us
has only grown…

You NEVER put Yourself
ahead
of us…even
though You were LORD
over all the other Lords!!

So meek…simple…straight up…
You were…that
we mistook You
for a wise man…
nothing more…
until near the end…
when
the word “Emmanuel”
began
to make sense
to us
as we thought of You!

Lord,
Maybe that is why
Being “head” of a wife
Is such
a scary thing for
us guys…since
it seems that
You
want us to do things…
like You did…to
speak and do…
ONLY
what YaHWeH
wants…
no less…no more.

That, Lord,
Is a BIG deal…
too hard to do
without
all of Your Holy Spirit
filling us up.
Completely.

Thank you, Lord,
For the beauty and danger
Of this heart-trust…we are
NOT worthy of it now…but
maybe that is why You
gave it to us
in the first place.

Ephesians 5:21-33 (the Message)
21 Out of respect for Christ, be courteously reverent to one another.
22-24Wives, understand and support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ. The husband provides leadership to his wife the way Christ does to his church, not by domineering but by cherishing. So just as the church submits to Christ as he exercises such leadership, wives should likewise submit to their husbands.
25-28Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church—a love marked by giving, not getting. Christ's love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her, dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness. And that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They're really doing themselves a favor—since they're already "one" in marriage.
29-33No one abuses his own body, does he? No, he feeds and pampers it. That's how Christ treats us, the church, since we are part of his body. And this is why a man leaves father and mother and cherishes his wife. No longer two, they become "one flesh." This is a huge mystery, and I don't pretend to understand it all. What is clearest to me is the way Christ treats the church. And this provides a good picture of how each husband is to treat his wife, loving himself in loving her, and how each wife is to honor her husband.