By Deacon Dustin Nickerson

In the six years I’ve been married and the ten years I’ve known my wife, more than anything, what I’ve learned is that true partnership with my wife begins with service to her. A lot of that learning has come through trial and error, but God is good, and he’s used my failures and shortcoming to teach me and bring the two of us closer and closer to him and to each other.

“For the Christian husband, service means dying to petty desires. … Practically it means putting down the video game controller.”

I’ll tell you what this all means to a Christian husband: It means dying to petty desires. It means that I have to die to my trivial wants and deceived ideas of what things I’m entitled to.

Practically, it means putting down the video game controller, turning off ESPN, and doing the dishes. It means getting up early enough to handle responsibilities. It means closing the mesmerizing YouTube clips, cleaning up some messes, and changing some diapers. It means that some nights together, you do more than default to sitting and watching movies (hint: most ladies don’t like doing that as much as you and your college friends did).

Video games, sports, and YouTube are not sins. Your wife changing the diapers and doing the dishes while you relax after a hard day is not sin. Not in it of itself. However, if these things take away from your obedience to the call to serve your wife, they’re sinful for you in that situation. Ask yourself, “if I was my wife, what would I want from my husband right now?” That’s a good start to figuring out what partnership, and more importantly, leadership is all about. Will your stop acting like a child and give up something you want because you love your wife?

Jesus gave me a good gift in my wife, Melissa. Beautiful, lovely, intelligent, diligent – and in more ways than just those four, the complete opposite of me. In God’s perfect plan, those differences help us to serve him more effectively together than we would have ever been able to individually. We’re different, but we just complement each other beautifully.

“True partnership with my wife begins with service to her. … It’s how Jesus leads us.”

Melissa, frustrated about a situation, recently said to me, “I’d hate to be married to someone like me.” I replied, “I wouldn’t mind being married to someone like me, but I’d be jobless and sleeping on a buddy’s couch.” On our own, we would be miserable; together, before Christ, we flourish.

Complementing each other like this certainly makes our lives rich and full. However, the things that help us to balance each other out can be the same things that cause the most conflict.

To avoid damage from this conflict, we need to understand that the key in the partnership of marriage is service. It’s how our bridegroom, Jesus, leads us, and it’s how we men as husbands should lead our wives.

The ultimate act of service for a loved one was certainly Christ on the cross. Christ’s instruction tells us to pick up the cross and follow him daily was not an accident. If we have any gratitude or meaningful faith in light of his sacrifice, we will follow his example and serve each other humbly. If we don’t do this, the indication is simple and clear: we have not begun to take Christ’s death for us to heart.

Dustin Nickerson is a deacon and the director of youth and children’s ministries at the Bellevue campus.

Kristin B. contributed the photo, which, for the record, is not of Dustin and Melissa.