How To Honor Your Husband Before You Meet Him
A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life. (Proverbs 31:10-12)
One of my biggest goals in life is to be a godly wife one day. I am so excited to (hopefully) get married so that I can love, honor, and serve my husband well. I want to be the kind of wife who is helpful, who is respectful, who builds him up, and who challenges him and encourages him in his walk with the Lord. Maybe you want the same thing. Maybe you have the desire to be a great wife one day as well. But do you realize that you don’t have to wait to become a wife before you can start honoring your husband?
To be honest, I hadn’t ever thought that was possible until I was a having a conversation with my best friend a few years ago. She was telling me that she had been studying Proverbs 31 and there was a verse in the middle of the chapter that she hadn’t noticed before until recently. The verse read, “She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life” (Proverbs 31:12). Another translation reads, “She honors him all the days of her life.”
Keep in mind that the verse doesn’t say, “She honors him all the days of their marriage” or “She honors him from their first meeting on.” No, it says “She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.” That includes the days she lives before she even meets her husband.
Now, you might be wondering, “Kristen, how am I supposed to honor someone I’ve never even met before?” Well, I’m glad you asked. There are a few different ways you can honor your future marriage and your future husband long before you cross paths with him.
First, you can be diligent in growing in your own relationship with Christ before you get married. It’s a great thing to want to be with a man who will lead you spiritually. In fact, I would encourage you to look for someone like that when considering dating someone. But it’s not your husband’s job to maintain your walk with the Lord. That’s between you and God, and that relationship should be growing and maturing long before you say “I do.” So what are you doing now to grow in your walk with Christ? Are you spending time in the Word every day? Are you prioritizing prayer? Are you part of a Christian community or small group? If not, I would encourage you to pursue those things now in order to prepare yourself to be a godly wife later on.
Second, you can date in a way that honors your future husband. This means having a long-term mindset and thinking about how the decisions you’re making now will affect your relationships down the road. To help you examine your decision making more closely, here are a few questions you can ask yourself:
Am I setting and sticking to healthy physical boundaries while I date right now?
Is talking to/flirting with this guy who isn’t a believer honoring to my future husband?
Would I be hurt if the tables were turned and I found out down the road that my future husband is dating the way I’m dating right now?
These are just a few questions to get you started, but I think answering them is necessary if you want to date in a way that will positively affect your marriage later on.
Finally, you can ask the Lord to help you develop more trust in Him while you’re single. My college pastor once said, “If you can’t trust and submit to a perfect God who will never disappoint you or let you down, then how do you expect to trust and submit to a flawed man who will inevitably disappoint you and let you down?”
That question has always stuck with me. The Lord is perfect and will never lead us astray, and yet for some reason we still question Him, doubt Him, and go against His will all the time. And yet we somehow think submitting to our husbands one day will be the easiest thing ever. Unfortunately, that’s just not the case. That’s why it’s so important right now, while you’re not married, to be diligent about growing in your trust and submission to the Lord. Because as you develop that deeper trust in Him, He will give you the wisdom and the humility to better trust and submit to your husband one day.
So, all of that to say, it’s an amazing goal to want to be a godly wife. But you don’t have to wait to have a ring on your left hand to start working towards that goal. Proverbs 31:12 is a great reminder that you can start right now, wherever you are, to honor the man God has for you with all the days of your life.