CHAPTER 4

ACCEPTING HIM AS HE IS!

AS HE IS RIGHT NOW!  We want to be accepted don’t we for who we are; with our bad habits,
hang up, our fat, our imperfections, our temperaments, our forgetting to thaw the meat, without
someone being on our case.  That is why we choose our friends sometimes, because with them
we can relax and feel we can be ourselves, and can be accepted and loved by our friend
without criticism.  So it should be in a marriage.  So let us do our part at least, to try to accept
our husbands as they are now.  Remember we talked about I Cor 13 type of love in our last
chapter.  Love overlooks and hardly notices when someone does wrong.  That is what we want
towards them.  Prayer is our best resource for changing our hearts and minds, so that this can
occur in our lives.  Asking God to show us our faults and things above, then seeing them, it is
easy to overlook someone else’s faults or shortcomings or idiosyncrasies, for others have to
over look ours.

(It’s the same with forgiveness).  When we see how much we grieve the Holy Spirit each day
with our actions or words, or have sinned in the past (sometimes big time), and when we ask
God to forgive us of all the offenses and sins that we have committed, it is very easy to forgive
others.  We are all such fallen creatures and need to give each other so much grace.  We are all
trying and doing our best to make it through this life where sin reigns all around us.  And we are
all trying to live a Christian life before the Lord to please Him, because He HAS given us the
power to overcome and become new creatures in Christ Jesus through the shed blood of the
Lamb.  But the rest of the world doesn’t have this to draw upon, and their father is the father of
lies, Satan, under whose dominion they are under.  So we must certainly understand God’s
grace towards and extend this same grace towards others.  Right?  Right.

Well, back to acceptance.  They (our husbands) want to be accepted for who they are even as
we ourselves do.  When we accept him, it shows that we love him in spite of the imperfections.  

Perhaps personal habits annoy you and hard for you to accept.  For examples manners,
appearance, temper, untidy, lack of courtesy and so forth.  Or how he spends his time or
money.  But remember he made it and our trust is ultimately in God.

Perhaps there are duties that you feel he should be performing like working around the house,
mowing the lawns, painting, being with the kids, or not involved enough in their training.

Perhaps there are social skills that irritate you.  For example he brags too much, is the star of
the show when others are around, talks too much and bores people or drives them away.  

Each one of us has our problem areas.  But it is NOT our place to change them.  All the nagging
in the world isn’t going to change them.  All it will do is make them feel unaccepted, crushing
their ego and make him feel like you don’t really love him.  This bring about insecurities and he
feels threatened, so he can become distant, withdrawn, cold or absent from your presence a lot
of the time.  Now a wedge has built up between the two of you.

Continual nagging causes him to clam up or blow up.  He will often deliberately do the exact
opposite of the thing you are nagging about in order to prove that he is the boss.  He thinks of
you as a second mother, who is constantly telling him, “don’t do this Charlie, don’t do that.  Don’
t forget to…, and he certainly can’t feel romantic towards his mother.

Thus resentment builds up and he buries himself in either his work or his hobbies OR another
woman.  We can destroy his love for us, then you wonder why he treats you the way he does.  
He treats you differently than he use to.  

A man wants to think of his wife as very special to him, one he thinks the world of and takes
pride in giving her the world.

Hay, maybe we always burn the toast, or have terrible tempers and get mad quickly, and
annihilate them with our tongues.  Maybe we walk around in rollers or stay in our bathrobes all
day long, or maybe we slurp our soup or forget to start the dishwasher at night so there are no
clean dishes in the morning, maybe when he opens the dresser drawer there are no clean
socks or underwear because we forgot to wash the whites yesterday.  Maybe we don’t listen to
them when they are talking, or perhaps we spend too much money or use too much gas.  
Maybe we talk too much in public and
don’t give them proper attentions.

There are a thousand things that he could fault us for if he wanted to, but we EXCEPT him to
ACCEPT us for who we are (after all we’re the best thing that ever happened to them RIGHT?
ha ha).

So let’s begin to see clearly.  No body is perfect!  We married these men and we had a choice
in doing so.  THEN was the time to decide whether we thought we could live with them the rest
of our lives or not.  Could we really take his personality, habits, character?  All of these things
should have been weighted before we said “yes” I will marry you.  But we have said “yes” and
now we must be willing to accept our husbands.  To be joined as one with this man just the way
he is.  He does the asking (after he has hopefully weighted whether or not he thinks he could
live with your shortcoming and faults, and has now come to the conclusion that he could) so he
proposed.  He accepted you for who you are.  Now you had the choice.  So now you have come
to the altar and said “I DO”.  Do what?  Accept you exactly the way you are, as my mate for life,
as my other half, as my lord and head of our family, I accept you the way you are for better or for
worse.

Hopefully the man you married is your best friend or can become your best friend.  A best friend
listens to you without criticism, without rejection, accepts you on your good days and accepts
you on your bad days.  You can be yourself.  Can you do less for your husband?  Can you
accept him as you would a good friend?  The barriers will melt and go away and there won’t be
enough time to be together, once you have accepted him, there is no longer any need to nag
and he will enjoy being around you.  His faults won’t bother you if you accept him and not be
always trying to change him.  Then you can be free to concentrate on his good points, and
believe me, he has them.  We all have our good points too.  You will find that your love for this
man begins to grow again, and even to a new dimension.  You’ll appreciate him for who he is
and begin to admire him.  

God accepts us for who we are, faults and all.  Even though we don’t deserve His love and
acceptance, He still loves us.  He has no angles, His love is unconditional.  Through His power
we can love and accept others too.

You choose!  The Bible says, Wives Love your husbands.  If you’ve lost that love as God to
restore it in your heart.  If you want your marriage to succeed, you must choose to accept him.  
Either to accept him or live in resentment.  If you choose to accept him, how do you start?  

1st make up you mind to accept him just the way he is.  By an act of your will, determine that
you won’t try to change him, NO MATTER WHAT.  That is the Holy Spirit’s job, as we pray for
changes to occur in them.  Some women don’t nag verbally but looks, sighs, body language,
tolerating them like martyrs for the sake of the kids, nursing her woes.  

Tolerance is NOT enough.  He feels incomplete, unworthy, and can’t love you fully.  When he
fails and we all do, that is when he especially needs your acceptance.  He’s already at a low
point and he needs you to build him back up again and encourage him to restore his
confidence.  So bite your tongue when you start to criticize or nag.

Realize his home is his castle.  He should feel free to do what he wants.  Drape his clothes all
over, draw pictures on the walls, eat pizza 47 times straight.  Nagging will only drive him up the
wall and out the door.  Cater to his quirks and make his home a haven where he can run to,
where he can feel he can be king.  Where he can feel he can relax and be himself.  Do what he
want and still be loved.  Look at his good side and all his qualities that you married him for.  
Think of all the friend’s husbands your so glad that your NOT married to.  Tell him of his good
qualities and his faults soon cease to annoy you.

NEVER compare him with other men!  This is a great blow to his ego, even as we don’t like to
be compared to good looking women or movie stars that they think are gorgeous.   Let him know
you love him just the way he is.  

Let him be free to be the man he is, to do what he wants to do, it is the only way we can grow
and be happily married wives.

You are the One.  In God’s eyes you are ONE FLESH.  You are destroying your own self when
you do not accept part of yourself (him).  God put two imperfect vessels, being, together to
balance out each other and to make one good whole.  What he lacks you have and what you
lack he has.  So let us set our minds to love and accept our dear husbands and to be well
pleasing in the sight of the Lord.

You might even write out a list of his good qualities and rad it often, especially when you get
mad.  Thank God for each of these aspects.  Pray for God’s richest blessings on them and their
lives.  Pray for them when your doing things for them throughout the day.  And finally develop
your devotional life.  For when we are in the Word and in Prayer, all “the things of earth grow
strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace!”
I want to thank our dear
son, John Kehrli, for
building me this beautiful
website.  I am so proud of
it and hope that you too
will enjoy the things he
has put on this site to
make it meaningful to you.
 
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