Here's a really good and important question that comes into us today from an anonymous

husband.

Dear Pastor John, I've been following your podcast religiously for the past six months

as a backsliding believer, it has played a significant role in bringing me back to God

into serving Him, albeit in much weakness and stumbling, I'm ever thankful.

My marriage has suffered much due to my neglect of my wife in many ways over the past

22 years of marriage currently, it is teetering on the brink of collapse, and it has reached

the point where it is completely a God's mercy, and it is proving to be the biggest struggle

in my rink kindled, newfound faith in relationship with God.

I wake up many mornings despairing that my marriage is beyond repair, and I struggle to

rejoice in the new mercies that the new morning is bringing to me.

My wife has given up on me and I cannot blame her.

My question is this, how is marriage like mine, which is so hard to pull off, a model

of Christ's covenant love for his church?

Can a hard marriage model Christ or only an easier one?

Well first, welcome back, welcome home to Jesus, and I have prayed that even though it

feels hopeless, it won't be hopeless, that's my prayer.

Let me read the text that he's assuming, namely Ephesians 5, 22 following about marriage

as the picture or the model of Christ and the church that he's concerned about.

Wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife,

even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its savior.

Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives submit and everything to their husbands.

...