Gen 2:15 – And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

God commanded man to eat of all but one tree, yet the tree remained in the garden. Man had a choice to either obey God and conform to God’s idea of Good and Evil, or partake of the tree himself and develop his own idea of good and evil. Proverbs 3:5-6 instructs us to “Trust in the Lord, rather than lean on our own understanding” This is often not easy to do, when God has endowed us with wisdom, and the capacity to reason things out all by ourselves. The natural tendency is usually to figure things out by ourselves, and only consult God when we’re stuck. The writer of Proverbs further admonishes us in Proverbs 3:7 ” Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil”

While insisting on our right to a personal opinion of Good and Evil may strain our relationship with God, marriages are not spared from this same dilemma. The idea of right and wrong in marriage becomes difficult to harmonise. This is because of the distinct differences between a man and a woman in their physiological and psychological make-up – let alone temparamental differences! We’d like to always be on the “same page” and sing to the “same tune”; but most married couples can attest to more often than not, differing in opinion and probably disagreeing on most issues.

The Bible advises married couples to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ – Eph 5:21. Further to this, Eph 5:33 spells out the exact approach – “However, each one of you (husbands) also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband” Successful marriages are curved out of an attitude of sacrificing the right to being right (and the spouse wrong); and instead extending abundant grace. A husband may often find himself having to say sorry to his wife, when deep in his heart he knows it was his wife on the wrong – That is exactly what Christ did when he paid the penalty for our sin.

A wife may on the other hand have to ‘restrain her tongue’ in the light of her husband’s erroneous (even foolish) investment decision; and choose to politely tag along despite her better judgement, and the temptation to issue harsh criticism… That is submission.