God’s Design for Leadership

On this episode of Guys Garage, Chris and Shawn discuss biblical leadership in marriage and what it truly means to lead as a husband according to God’s design. Using Ephesians 5:21 as a foundation, they talk about how God is a God of order and how leadership within marriage is meant to reflect Christ through love, humility, and service.

The conversation challenges common misunderstandings about the husband being the “head” of the household. Rather than viewing leadership as control or authority over someone, Chris and Shawn encourage listeners to think of it more like the headwaters of a river, a source of provision, protection, guidance, and direction for the family.

They also emphasize that godly leadership begins with keeping your eyes fixed on Jesus. A husband cannot lead well apart from the Lord, and true strength often includes the humility to admit when help, wisdom, or support is needed. Leadership is not about having all the answers, but about remaining surrendered to God while guiding your family faithfully.

Throughout the episode, Chris and Shawn encourage men to take initiative within their marriages, especially when it comes to communication. Sometimes leadership looks like being willing to start the hard conversation, pursue reconciliation, or create space for honesty and growth.

This episode challenges husbands to approach leadership from a biblical perspective and to lead their marriages with humility, intentionality, and Christlike love.

🔔 Subscribe and turn on notifications to stay connected with future episodes.

📲 Connect with Love for a Lifetime:

Website: www.loveforalifetimetx.org
Instagram: loveforalifetimetx
Facebook: loveforalifetimetx
Pinterest: https://pin.it/1WkYgr7DQ

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Welcome to Buck for a Lifetime's Authentic Marriage Podcast. I'm Chris and he's Sean. And today you just got the two guys. We're going to be talking just the two of us today. So what are we talking about, Sean?

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Well, today we felt led to talk about leadership. And I think it's more of a biblical leadership than a cultural leadership. And it's often very, very misunderstood. There's some parts of the Bible that can be taken out of context that guys will tend to do if they're overly aggressive or controlling. So I think there's two categories that men that aren't getting this right can fall into. And so that's a trap that we kind of have to be careful of. And the first one is control. Men will say, you know, they they've heard in Ephesians 5, uh 25, wives submit yourselves to your own husbands. But they don't talk about what's before that, and they don't really talk about what's after that. It just says, wives submit yourselves to your husband, meaning I want all authority, I want all control, what I say goes. And so there's that type of man, and then there's the passive man who has basically relinquished all of his control to the wife, and she is now bearing the weight of the responsibilities and decisions and things that we as men have been called to biblically. So Ephesians 5.21 says, submit to one another out of reverence to the Lord. So it doesn't just say men or women submit to your wife. It says to submit to one another out of reverence for the Lord. So men, we need to be uh reverent to the Lord. We need to be following the Lord. We need to be submissive to the Lord so that it makes it easier for our wives to submit. And this word submit is kind of seen as a dirty word now, but it's really not a dirty word. And I know that Brooke and Lauren will go into that more in detail when they do a woman's um one of these. Women's view on the woman's view, yes, on submission, because that is an often misunderstood um thing too. But we're gonna stay away from that landmine right now. And uh and it just it does say, wives, submit yourselves to your husbands as you do to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, which he is the savior, which he died for. And so, you know, God is a God of order. Everything that God does has order, the universe has order, or else it would all crash into one another. There's order in nature, there's order in the fractals that you see on you know different components of, you know, you're an engineer, you see some of that. Uh, you see that in trading, you see that all over the place. Um, and it's just God is a God of order, and he says that man is the head. And a lot of times men will take that and say, well, I'm in control, I'm the boss. But I heard somebody once say that don't think of it as a head like a lid or a top like that. Think of it as the head of a river, which means it's the source. And as Christ is our head, well, he's the source of what? All of our joy, all of our love, all of our peace, patience, kindness, right? Those things. So we as men need to be the source of those things that we can bring to our wives of provision, of protection, of love, joy, same things, peace, patience, you know, mercy, all of those things that we are to bring to the table as leaders in our household and to our children.

unknown 3:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:33

I think, I think, you know, looking at uh Ephesians there talks about, also talks about Christ as the head of the church. So I think looking at Jesus and his words, Jesus Christ and what he said is probably a good place for us to start. Um He has a lot to say about leadership, but I think probably some of the most powerful are the ones that people think about is uh it's it's in Matthew 22 or in Mark 10, he says he says the same thing, but I'll read Mark 10, 43 to 45. Uh he's talking to the disciples, and he says, But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave to all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. So that's the message we get very clearly here from Jesus, right? If you want to be first, then you need to be last. You know, even he didn't come to be served, he came to be a servant uh to others. So that's our that's our kind of our ultimate model we're trying to aspire to. Um, you know, we you you talked through some of this earlier, but you know, Jesus came to serve. He also took uh responsibility for his disciples and for leading them and for teaching them, for correcting them at times. Um he was steady, right? He wasn't he wasn't often uh too angry or domineering. There's a few places where he overturns tables and things, but he does that for a purpose. But he's fairly steady in his response, even when the disciples uh are asking questions that may sound silly. You know, sound silly at the times, he didn't get upset or angry. He was very steady and even killed. Uh and and at the same time, he's also speaking the truth in love. So these are some characteristics uh we want to look to uh in leadership, right? How to be a servant, how to be steady, how to speak the truth and love, and how to approach uh difficult topics, all things that we can learn as we read through the gospels.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

Yeah. Well, yeah, there's there's uh four gospels in there about things that Jesus says in in the book of Acts that that take what Jesus said and what he taught. And if he's to be our model as Christian men, then we need to be in the word. We need to understand what he's saying, who he's saying it to, what the context is, all of the things there, I think it's really important. And the more you get close to know Jesus, the more this becomes easier in your life to become a leader in your household, to lead your wife consistently, to lead your children consistently, uh, and to do it in a way that that promotes unity within the family rather than just a controlling, you know, it's not a military where, you know, the general tells everybody and they all go run and scamper and do it. Um, there's gotta be unity. And so we were talking about the passive man earlier. This is a guy who will avoid conflict, um, really just shies away from conflict, um, will not lead in decisions, maybe fearfully, or maybe just being absent. And really, this person has given all of the weight to the spouse, to the wife. And that is not what her role was called to do by God. And so he's literally relinquished that to the wife to take all of the responsibility, which is not fair. Um, you know, and then you get the controlling man who dominates. This person says what I say goes my way or the highway kind of guy. Um, doesn't listen to his wife. And what a big mistake when you don't listen and don't hear. I'll tell you, my wife's pretty um, she can be pretty, I don't know what the word is. She can, she can lead, she can be strong, she's very strong. And I think she and I butted heads in the beginning because we both ultimately wanted control. And it took us really understanding our strengths. She is so detail-oriented and she is so good at seeing this big picture. She's got this good mix of all of these things that if I don't listen to her, then I'm missing something. If I don't listen to the details that she's putting into place, like these wedding venues, her details have made this place spectacular. And if I had just said, no, I'm doing this, this is what the finances say, it wouldn't be near what it is.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

Yeah, and I think that's a really key point there, right? Being a leader doesn't mean you do everything. And it doesn't mean that your wife doesn't have strengths. It means it means you need to figure out what her strengths are. You need to help her lead into those strengths to utilize those strengths. You need to, you need to lean on them and use them. And I think that's probably some good examples that you guys had that you had to learn because because you want you you can be a leader in your house and you can have a wife who's still very strong, very uh intelligent, and and gets things done, right? And it's your job as the husband and the leader to say, okay, wait a minute, how do I empower her? How do I, you know, maybe let her use the things she can do well to benefit, you know, our marriage, the unity of our marriage. But like you said, that kind of takes a little bit of learned behavior. Whether you fall into this trap on the passive side, you you just kind of let her run with it, or you trap fall into the controlling side, well, then you want to fight back against it. And and what we need to do is to figure out how do we leverage her strengths? How do we leverage, how do I leverage Book Brooke's strengths of organization and planning uh so that it can benefit our family.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

And I'll tell you, if you're passive, so when Lauren and I met, she was much more in tune with the Lord spiritually, biblically, than I was. And she wanted a leader, and I was willing to do it. I just didn't really know how. So she gave me the room to grow. She gave me wisdom, she didn't nag me, she didn't do any of those things. She just presented things in a way that, hey, you know, let's pray together, or hey, do you want to read the Bible with me? Or hey, you know, these things until I really grasped it and I could pray for her, pray with her boldly, courageously. I couldn't do that in the beginning. Um, so she ultimately led me to be the leader of our household. But then she was willing to also relinquish that leadership and accountability and responsibility to me. And sometimes that's a hard switch for for somebody to make. But she did a really good job at that. And I have become a leader in my household, very much different than than I had been in the past.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

Um, so we don't important things because that is a that's something you had to learn, that's something I had to learn, right? So, you know, you don't have to be there today, and we're hey, we're not perfect at it. It's a learning process that that you can walk with your wife, right? How do I become a leader? How do I, like you say, how do I stick in the word and I read all these stories about leadership and I leave or lead these, read these stories, excuse me, read these stories about being a husband, and how do I start applying them in my life? Right? It's not something you're just gonna naturally do overnight is trying to find that right balance.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Well, so what does leadership look like practically? Right? We've talked about these things and it's like don't be controlling and don't be passive, but what does that what does that mean we're supposed to do? So I think as leaders, we need to be initiators. So we're gonna have to initiate things with our wives that may be uncomfortable or may be things that you're not used to, but conversations. Sometimes men aren't very good conversationalists. They've been told, you know, be quiet or whatever their whole life and and you know, talk is weak or whatever it is that men have gotten.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Our feelings aren't important.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

Feelings aren't important. And so we have to have we have to initiate conversations that actually bring forth our wife's feelings. Sometimes that's an uncomfortable place to be. But the better and the more we do that, the more we know how to lead and how to serve them. Um, another one is we we need to initiate connection. Hold hands, put your arm around her, do things that uh make her feel loved because when she feels loved, she's gonna also feel a great respect for you. And that's the one thing most men seek is respect, right? And it tells in the Bible it says women respect your husbands. We seek that. Um another one is leading in prayer. Um, like I said, I was not good at this, but now we can be in an argument or be in something and we'll just stop and we'll pray. Hey, we need to pray this out because this isn't, and and God softens my heart, her heart, and just really fixes things with prayer for us. Um so we have to be willing to pray for our wives with our wives. So if I pray for Lauren for healing, for um for anxiety, for any of those things that she might be struggling with out loud to God with her, it really does show her a leadership that I care for her, that I'm taking this to God who I am submitted to, to Jesus who I'm submitted to, because I know that's where the solution lies. And so we need to be, we need to initiate those. And we need to initiate dating and pursuit. They loved to be dated and pursuit in the beginning, but when we get married as guys, we're like, all right, we're married, that's the end of that. That should be the beginning of your dating.

SPEAKER_02 12:33

Um a lifetime of dating.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

A lifetime of dating and initiate. Women love that.

SPEAKER_02 12:39

Yeah, I think that's uh those are good reminders. I know that's something that uh we've talked about in the past that that I've struggled, Brooke and I have struggled to be good at dating, and but it makes a big difference, right? Like you said, when you're pursuing your wife, when you're planning things to go do with her, uh it sends that signal to her that she's important. And and that's part of that leadership is saying, hey, make sure she knows that she is important to you, right? When I in the past in my my marriage have overprioritized work, that sent a signal to her that work was more important than what she was, and that hurt our marriage for a period. So you've got to send those signals that hey, what is important? I think you also have to set those priorities when you when you look at uh raising children. And I think we're gonna talk more soon in a podcast. It will, I'm not sure it'll come out before this or after this, but when you talk about parenting, that's another important aspect uh of where you're gonna drive some leadership uh in your marriage, how you're parenting and approaching that from uh from a biblical way and as a leader.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Yeah, and as a unified front with your with your spouse who respects your leadership role there, right? That's a big deal. Yeah, I I um I know that consistency in leadership is really important. Um if you can be consistent in the way you operate and the consistent in the way you love and lead, your wife will always know who is coming home that night. She doesn't have to walk on eggshells, oh gosh, is he struggling at work? Oh gosh, is he fearful? Oh gosh. She knows that you are really leading in a way that's so submitted to the Lord that you trust in the Lord in all things. And you can bring that home, and you can bring that sense of security home to your family and your kids. So I think really leadership is also about being very consistent in what you do. Uh it's easier to follow a consistent leader rather than somebody who's just grabbing over here, grabbing over there, doing this, doing that. Nobody knows what the heck you're doing. You know, so you can be very communicative about that. And and guys, communicate with your wives about why you're making decisions, why you think this is the right way to go, and be willing to listen to anything that she has to say.

SPEAKER_02 14:52

I think I think it's a really interesting point because I think if you'd ask Brooke, you know, in in the history of our marriage, there was probably times when she was wondering who's which Chris is gonna come home tonight. You know, is it is it pressured, aggravated Chris, or is it happy Chris? Because I was letting the circumstances of of my work dictate my emotions and how I would walk through the door, and that made it really difficult for her. And she's she's told me that at times that it made it very difficult because she didn't know when I came through the door whether I was gonna be a high or a low.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

Yeah, that's hard. That's hard for them to adjust to, right? Every every time. And I don't know. I you know, leadership is something that it's a it's a it's a really tricky kind of thing to master, right? We we don't master it. We look in the Bible at different leaders. I know you've done some research on some people.

SPEAKER_02 15:41

Yeah, I was I was gonna it's funny you say that because I was talking to Brooke about this earlier, a little bit what we're gonna talk about. And I said you look in the Bible and you look at leaders. One of the first people that jumps out at you is David, right? Great military leader, leader with God, he prayed to God, he praised God, uh, and he led the country, unified the country of Israel. But the reality is in his marriage, David fell down quite hard to temptations, right, with uh with the wife of Uriah. Um, so there's like, well, there's some good things we can learn from David, but there's also some things we have to learn. Oh, we need to avoid that.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Right.

SPEAKER_02 16:17

Um, you know, we've talked about Jesus. Jesus is a great model to learn about leadership, but um, you know, you and I were not Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Well, well, like you said, like you said, we you and I were talking earlier, but you were like, Paul, Paul talks the most about marriage, but yet he wasn't ever married. Yeah, so he had some theory or you know, theology on marriage. You know, maybe God granted that to him, but really no experience except for maybe what he saw around him.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

Yeah, so he he he had he had perfect theology on what we should do as husbands, but maybe not any practical experience. So the one Brooke and I came back to, we talked a little bit about was Peter. Uh Peter. So a good place to start with was he was a disciple. He followed Jesus. Um, in fact, Jesus calls him a rock. So that sounds good. But the other thing we know about Peter is that he's human and he falls down, right? Um two examples are one when they're on the they're they're on the boat and Jesus comes out to them walking on water. Uh and Peter gets out of the boat. And at first Peter's walking on water to the Lord, but then he takes his eyes away, he takes his eyes off Jesus and begins to think and he panics. And he says, Lord and save me, help me. The other place is is um uh when Jesus is arrested and Peter denies Jesus three times. So he falls down, but we also get to see in the book of John how later Jesus forgives him three times. Um and and the thing that Brooke really liked in thinking about Peter was this idea, especially from the boat, was that when Peter kept his eyes on Jesus, um then he could walk on water. And and that it was really interesting talking to Brooke. She that resonated with her, and it was like her sending a message to me. What I need from you as a leader is for me to keep my eyes on Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

And for me to see you keeping your eyes on Jesus, which gives me so much confidence in your leadership because I know you're getting leadership from the ultimate leader.

SPEAKER_02 18:22

Yeah, so I can fall down, I can make mistakes, I can get back up and try again. But if I keep my eyes to the source, do I keep my eyes to Jesus and the Lord, then she's going to trust in my leadership.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

So we had a couple of things written here on what happens when a man leads well. What happens to your marriage? So one of the big things is that a wife feels safe and trust really, really grows in that marriage. And when you have trust in that marriage, um the conversations become easier because you know it's not somebody looking out for their own agendas, their own things, right? You know that there's that this leader, this man, is for our marriage. He's gonna do and make decisions that he believes and and even feels empowered by God that these are the best things for our marriage, for our family, for our kids before anything else. And so then respect grows naturally. And and then a man can feel the ability to be vulnerable in situations, which also women love when we're vulnerable, and we're not taught to do that, but that's part of leadership too. Part of leadership to say, I'm struggling with this, help me. Yeah, let them know when you need help because that's what they want to do. They were built for that, and they have so much wisdom, grace, love to give. And if we don't show that we need it, they may not give it.

SPEAKER_02 19:52

So we certainly need it, and we certainly hate it. We certainly do. We certainly want it as well. So it also, I think, with all that goes, like you said, that idea of trust also comes this place of safety, right? This place of safety for the for your wives. They can trust in you, they can rely on you, you can be steady, uh, they feel safe. And that that helps them to then uh grow more in their gifts and their abilities and how they can serve. So there's probably a lot more we could say.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

There is, but we're running out of time.

SPEAKER_02 20:24

We're running out of time. Um, I think uh I don't know if you had a challenge you wanted to send out to the to the guys uh watching the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

Yeah, I would say that guys initiate one hard conversation. So if something in your marriage, you generally know there's something that's there that is hard, whatever it is. It could be a child, it could be uh finances, it could be one of those things. So I think to take ownership and lead into a conversation of how can we work together to provide a solution to this? Well, let's pray about it, let's talk about it, let's be a unified front and confront this thing. And I think that if you can take that one thing, let's just have one hard conversation and let's just put it on the table and let's be honest about it. And let's build trust on this thing and let's build a foundation of I want to lead you well.

SPEAKER_02 21:24

I think that's a I think that's a good one, good challenge that can uh listeners can take and say, how can I lead just into one, like you said, just lead into one topic and build that unity?

SPEAKER_00 21:32

Yeah, make sure that there's prayer involved in that. Make sure that you're praying together and separately if you need to about that. But make sure prayer is involved in these tough decisions that you're gonna make.

unknown 21:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

Why don't you go ahead as you close this out? Why don't you pray for us and pray for the listeners as well?

SPEAKER_00 21:48

Yeah. Lord, thank you so much for the opportunity to speak from the wisdom that you've given us. Lord, I pray that your wisdom would be granted to anybody listening to this who needs it. James says that. You have not because you ask not. And that if we ask for wisdom, it will be given to us abundantly. And so, Lord, let anybody who hears this and needs wisdom ask. You don't want to withhold that. You love us so much, you want to give us wisdom. You want our marriages to reflect your glory, reflect your love for your church. You want our marriages to be so powerful and so strong that people say, I want that. How do you have that? Lord, would you bless everybody here with the ability to lead, every man listening to this, with the ability to lead in love, in strength, in character, and grace the way that you led when you came. And Lord, we thank you for just all the opportunities that we have to share your love and to work on our own marriages in this. Lord, we're not perfect at these, and you know that, but you have given us the strength and the ability to be intentional and to focus on it. So thank you, Lord. We we really do appreciate that. And I'd say, uh, Lord, we just love you and help us to love our wives better in Jesus' name. Amen.

SPEAKER_02 23:07

Amen. Well, thanks for listening. We'd love to hear from you. Go ahead, send us comments or questions. Uh I'm Chris, and this is Sean with me today on Love for a Lifetime's Authentic Marriage Podcast. Uh, we look forward to hearing from you and seeing you next time. Bye.