I agree here...
And I'll go you one further, believers have every right to hold the Lord Jesus Christ accountable as well. I have on a few occasions, and He honors it and honors my faith. Why? Because He's not a Dictator, and wants to know how I truly feel about things. I'm not talking about getting anything I want AT ALL. That's a different matter. But I am talking about a believer having RIGHTS in a relationship, and holding Him to the expectation of treating me decently and with Love. Someone asked recently, "Would you change your faith?" I would change it in a heartbeat if I found either in scripture or by experience that my God was cruel. But I don't find that. He can be hard on me sometimes, but He ever only does so for my good. So we work it out.
And that's REALLY what it comes down to.
But the same goes for a wife, and the same goes for a believer, and if anyone messes with me in a way that shows way too little respect they will get my business end, and I don't care how much it hurts them or humiliates them.
I think that wives, ALSO want respect. And while the passage says, that wives are to "respect" their husbands, and husbands are to "love" their wives, I don't think that love and respect are somehow as far apart, as we would want them to be. Is respect, not part of love, and love not part of respect?
That in fact is exactly what I am striving for and I will not stop until the point has been communicated, and with the utmost clarity. We are not doormats, and should never treat one another as such, and that goes for husbands and wives, laymen and pastors, believers and believers. The good thing with the Lord is you never have to go that far, whereas with believers and marital partners you sometimes do. I've absolutely lost my cool with the Lord a few times, but I won't get demeaning with Him. But I will get demanding with Him when I feel I am being mistreated. I'm not afraid to in the least, and neither should a wife be. The trick is getting to the place where one isn't offended with things, but so long as one is, my take is that they have every right and even a necessity to let the other person know about it or they are not being honest in the relationship.
Absolutely. More on this later. Right now, I'm working on a new thread.
Yes, Mink is going to post a new thread! Oh, the horror...the horror...