How to Encourage Your Husband as a Spiritual Leader

🌺  Written by Brittany Ann

 How to Encourage Your Husband as a Spiritual LeaderIs your husband the spiritual leader of your home? Would you like him to be?

While some women really struggle with submitting to their husbands, others would happily follow their husband’s leadership — if only their husband would lead!

Unfortunately, however, not all men automatically step up to that role on their own.

If you’d like your husband to be more of a spiritual leader in your home, here are six things you can try. 

 

*Note: This article assumes that your husband is, in fact, a Christian. If your husband isn’t a Christian, you may want to check out this article instead: Unequally Yoked Marriage? Here’s What to Do When Your Spouse Isn’t a Believer.

 

*Related: Confused About Marriage Submission in the Bible?  This Will Help!

 

 

1. Identify and Examine Your Expectations for Spiritual Leadership

 

First things first. Before you can encourage your husband to be more of a spiritual leader, you need to decide what “spiritual leader” looks like to you.

In other words: What are you actually wanting or expecting him to DO? 

Do you want him to:

  • Lead your family in daily devotions?
  • Pray out loud before meals?
  • Read Bible stories with the children at bedtime?
  • Join a small group or men’s Bible study group?
  • Share his struggles and spiritual insights with you on a regular basis?
  • Attend church with your family every week?

 

Then, ask yourself: Are your expectations reasonable — taking his personality, strengths, and schedule into account?

 

2. Reconcile Your Views With the Bible’s Views on Spiritual Leadership

 

Okay, now that you know what you expect from your husband in terms of spiritual leadership, have you stopped to consider what the Bible actually requires?

The truth is: nowhere in the Bible are men commanded to lead family devotions or pray with the children at bedtime.

Yes, these are good things — very good things — but they aren’t the Bible’s definition of “spiritual leadership,” and your husband is not necessarily lacking if he doesn’t do them.

 

Let’s look at what the Bible says about husbands and spiritual leadership:

 

“He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect.” — 1 Timothy 3:4

 

Does he teach your children how to behave? Does he guide them with love and care? That’s spiritual leadership. 

 

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.” — Ephesians 5:25-28

 

Does your husband love you and take good care of you? Does he tell you when you’re doing a good job and when you could do better? Does he provide for you and keep you safe? That’s spiritual leadership. 

 

Spiritual leadership isn’t just reading the Bible or doing devotions together as a family. It’s setting a good example of Christian life, and encouraging and leading his family to do the same.

 

*Related: 5 Powerful Prayers Every Wife Should Pray Over Her Husband

 

3. Recognize His Current Efforts as a Spiritual Leader

 

Okay, so since spiritual leadership encompasses SO much more than just reading the Bible or praying, chances are your husband is already taking steps to lead your family — you just may not have recognized or fully appreciated them.

 

**Related: How to Celebrate National Husband Appreciation Day

 

Personally, once I began to understand spiritual leadership in the sense of “modeling what good Christian living looks like and trying to encourage the rest of the family to live that way too” instead of JUST doing family devotions or praying together, it completely opened up my eyes to all the many, many, many ways my own husband leads our family — ways I was completely oblivious too until I intentionally went looking for them!

 

For example, does your husband: 

  • Model unconditional love and forgiveness
  • Go out of his way to love and serve others
  • Take your family outdoors to enjoy God’s creation
  • Cultivate intentional friendships with others
  • Weigh options and make smart decisions for your family
  • Encourage you to grow in faith
  • Seek to grow in faith himself

 

Sure, I may be the one who reads more Christian books in our family, but my husband is the one who has taught me so much about God’s love for me… about tenacity, contentedness, bravery and faith… about giving and helping and what it means to be a true friend… He encourages me when I’m right and challenges me when I’m wrong.

He may not sit down with me and lead me through the Bible, but he absolutely leads me to the Lord.

 

How does your husband seek to grow in faith (even if it’s quietly on his own) and encourage your family to do the same? If so, he’s probably more of a spiritual leader than you realize.

 

4. Share Your Hopes With Your Husband!

 

Okay, all that aside… if you have acknowledged your husband’s current leadership and you’d still like more, that’s totally fine. But in order to get it — you have to tell him what you want!

Your husband is not a mind-reader, and it’s not fair to expect him to be. Instead, you need to tell him what you’d like politely, specifically and in a positive matter, while being open to the fact that he may say no.

 

In other words, do NOT say:

  • I wish you were more of a spiritual leader in our family.
  • Why don’t you ever step up?
  • So-and-so’s family does this… why don’t we?

 

Instead say: 

  • I would love it if our family could [do this particular thing]… What would you think about it?
  • Would you be interested in / willing to…?
  • I’m not sure what the best decision is in this situation… What do you think?

 

If he says no — that’s okay. He’s a grown-up and he’s allowed to do what he wants. If you’re trying to force your husband to lead you your way — that’s not leadership at all. That’s you telling him what to do, as though he were a child. Don’t do that.

But maybe he’d be happy to step into more of a leadership role — he just doesn’t know that you want him to or what you want him to do!

You never know unless you ask.

 

5. Identify and Remove Obstacles to Spiritual Leadership

 

If your husband does say no (or if he says yes, but doesn’t follow through), see if you can identify any obstacles that may be standing in the way.

For example:

  • He’s too tired after work
  • The kids are too loud / won’t sit still
  • He doesn’t have enough time
  • He doesn’t know how
  • He isn’t comfortable with that particular task

 

Once you know what the obstacle is, you can look for ways to solve it. For example, by:

  • Helping him brainstorm a quicker or easier alternative
  • Suggesting a different time of day when you’re less rushed
  • Teaching the kids how to behave so your time together is more pleasant
  • Having the house clean and dinner ready so it’s not so chaotic in the evenings
  • Finding the right materials and having them on hand.

 

Furthermore, sometimes we – as Christian wives – can be an incredible obstacle to our husband’s spiritual leadership. 

This happens when we refuse to follow his direction, undermine his authority, nag him to change, or insist on doing things our own way.

After all — how difficult must it be for our husbands to lead when we refuse to follow or when we constantly criticize their leadership? (Whether we mean to or not) And the tricky part is — we often do so without even realizing it.

If you suspect this *may* be an issue in your marriage (and even if you don’t), it’s definitely worth it to check in with your husband to see if there are any things you’ve been doing – even with the best of intentions – that are coming across as disrespectful to him or undermining his leadership for your family.

I know I’ve been guilty of this on more than one occasion! (Okay, lots of occasions…)

 

6. Acknowledge and Encourage His Leadership Often

 

Even if your conversation with your husband goes incredibly well, chances are that leadership is still a position that he will have to grow into over a period of time. There will be a learning curve as he learns to step up and develops the confidence to do so, while you learn to step down and develop the trust to do so. 

During this time, while the “rules” of your relationship are changing, you both may feel a little insecure, uneasy or unsettled. Hopefully you both want to do the right thing for your family, but you’re likely still figuring out what that is and where the boundary lines are.

You’ll both mess up plenty of times along the way — you’ll learn some things by trial and error — and that’s okay too.  Neither one of you will get it right the first time, and honestly, it’s okay if it gets a little worse before it gets better. You’ll get there.

 

In the meantime, look for as MANY chances as you can find to verbally acknowledge and appreciate all the things he is doing.

Tell him how much you enjoy the new things he is trying, and do your best not to correct him when things go wrong. Tell him you’re proud of him, and share how excited you are for the new dynamic. Find things to praise him for and look for situations where you can step down and defer to his leadership.

(Not in a patronizing way, of course, but in an encouraging, supportive way.)

And you’ll both be better off for it.

 

 

Is your husband the spiritual leader in your family? How does he lead your family? What do you do to encourage him as a leader?

 

Brittany Ann Equipping Godly Women

About the author

Brittany Ann is an ECPA bestselling author of “Fall in Love with God’s Word” and “Follow God’s Will” and the founder of EquippingGodlyWomen.com, a popular Christian-living website dedicated to helping busy Christian moms find practical ways to go "all in" in faith and family. Her work has been featured on CBN, The Christian Post, Crosswalk, and more.

  1. I learned early in my marriage that when I stopped focusing on the things I wanted my husband to be doing and instead praised him for the leadership he was providing that there was more peace in the home. This is why I love your advice on openly communicating and expressing expectations. So much understanding and love can be expressed when couples take time to do these two things.

  2. My husband is a wonderful leader, father and husband. I wish I could find a way to get us all involved in daily devotions but I’m struggling to find how to accomplish this. I’ve offered to read them all myself outloud but he doesnt want to do that. Any advice?

    1. Honestly, you can’t force him to do something he doesn’t want to do. If daily family devotions aren’t his thing — why not do something else you’ll both enjoy? (We don’t do daily family devotions here)

    2. See if you can come to a compromise. Let him know it would mean a lot to you, encourage you, if you did it once a week, or month. Whatever he may be willing to do. And encourage him when he does do it. And making sure there is no criticism/complaining, as this will not encourage him to want to do it again.
      Even praising him in front of kids, Isn't this great that Daddy is teaching us about God word! So they see the good in it.
      You may also want to talk about what's holding him back from doing? Does he think it's important? Why or why not?
      My husband doesn't like to because we had a big argument about the "right" way to do it. Difference in opinion, what I expected vs what happened. That did not set us up well. Know I'm trying to heal those wounds, allow him to lead me.

  3. This was extremely helpful. I am currently engaged to a wonderful man, but I’ve learned that he grew up in a family that didn’t share much about their faith, so he doesn’t really have a guide to know how to be a spiritual leader.
    I’ve definitely been guilty of forcing it in the past, and unfortunately, I had a tendency to criticize him which I think eventually pushed him away. He reads the Bible on his own time and I do as well, but I still felt like it was missing from our relationship because we never shared it together. He doesn’t feel comfortable talking about God in the open, and I began to worry if that’s a deal-breaker for me.
    I tried to open the discussion and be mindful and intentional about being more encouraging. He thanked me for bringing it to his attention and said he would be willing to study the Bible together, but he admitted that it pushed him away last time when I became critical of him. I’m glad that he’s willing to try again, but my only concern is that he is doing it FOR me, and that’s not what I want either. I just knew that this would become a bigger issue once we are married and I would like to start growing together before then.
    However, I’m not sure if he’s in a good place to be a spiritual leader. He still has some struggles and doubts when it comes to faith. I’ve encouraged him to know that we all struggle with doubts and that it isn’t crazy or bad, but that he can grow past them if he continues seeking the truth. We have been reading the Bible together, but I’m trying to learn to not be pushy but instead to just pray to God to work in him and to be a loving and supportive fiance.
    Sometimes, I worry if these are all signs that the relationship is not right or that God doesn’t want it. I’ve asked him in prayer to reveal it to me and take it away if it isn’t His will. It’s hard to trust in Him, but I know that I would choose Jesus, no matter how hard it was. But I do believe He put this man in my life for a reason, and I would love to encourage him to grow in his faith. You made a great point about leadership being beyond devotions and prayer; he definitely leads me by loving me and correcting me and serving God through his actions.
    Do you have any advice for me?

  4. So much if this is really good and makes sense, but I have to say, don’t we all need to be reading our bibles together at least a little?? It is God’s word that teaches us how to live as a family. In my opinion there needs to be some kind of study of His word as a family. This article seems to dismiss that idea all together, by saying the Bible doesn’t say to lead family devotions. While that may be true, it does tell us to teach Gods laws and commands to our children and grandchildren.

    1. I definitely wouldn’t argue that reading the Bible is a fantastic and very helpful idea! But Biblically mandated? No. It’s not “required” in the sense that, if you have a husband who isn’t interested for whatever reason, he isn’t going against Scripture.

      1. In context Proverbs 4:20-22 is just the father telling his son to pay attention to the wisdom he is passing down. This isn’t “specifically” a veiled attempt at God telling husbands to read Scripture out loud to their family. Just as Proverbs 31 is a mother to her son, these are wisdom, not commands.

  5. This is super helpful. Very wise and insightful. So thankful for this. Referring to Myers Briggs, this is especially great for all the Ns married to Ss lol!

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