• Intimacy is not working for them.

• Something's gone wrong in their mutual trust, caring, openness, and refusal to have secrets, and unquestioned loyalty to each other.

• Instead of pursuing intimacy they have taken a fall-back position in which each one is striving to maintain power or rights or territory or all of the above.

• Trust is compromised. Trust is what motivates people to follow another person's leadership, whether at work or at home. And trust must be earned.

• Power is the ability to perform a function or to cause an effect. In Webster's New Unabridged Dictionary power is defined as
  "
  1. ) ability to do; capacity to act; capability of performing or producing;
  2. ) a specific ability or faculty;
  3. ) great ability to do, act, or affect strongly; vigor; force; strength;
  4. ) the ability to control others; authority; sway; influence."

It becomes negative when it is taken to mean one person exercising control over another-and at the expense of the other. In his book The Power Delusion, Anthony Campolo, Jr. uses this definition of power. He defines it as "the prerogative to determine what happens and the coercive force to make others yield to your wishes-even against their own will." The last phrase is crucial to Campolo's definition because he believes that the coercive nature of power is what gives expression to its potential for evil. It seems that human beings hunger for power.

According to German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, this hunger is the essence of our humanity, that "the will to power" is the basic human drive. He also claimed that more basic than all other human needs is the craving to control one's own destiny, to be free to realize one's full potential without restraints from anyone. Nietzsche saw this hunger for power as anti-Christian. He understood more clearly than most Christians that there is something about craving power that cannot be reconciled with the Christian lifestyle. He knew that Christ's call to servanthood and humility precludes all power games. In short, to be coercive and Christian at the same time is impossible.

In Campolo's book he attempts to show how a craving for power interferes with love and destroys personal relationships. According to Campolo, when a leader is able to persuade others to do his will without coercion, when he presents himself in such a way that people want to obey him, when they recognize him as a legitimate leader with the right to expect compliance with his wishes, I say that he has authority. This is the good side of power and we cannot conclude that all power is inherently evil, because God has power and God is good. God employs his power to hold back the forces of evil. God's power is shown to us by His love. Power is coercive whereas love is entreating. God saves us by His love. He does not force His way into our lives, nor does He coerce us into submission. Instead, He entreats us with His love. He does not present Himself to us in the awesome splendor of His power, but in weakness on a cross. There He shows us love in the most perfect expression. It is amazing that he uses this illustration to show how we are to submit to one another in the marriage relationship. You couldn't ask for a more beautiful example. Now all we have to do is follow it.

Marriage was designed as a refuge where a man and a woman could meet each other's needs, not as a "battleground" for power struggles.

Before the Fall in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3), the selfish use of power was not an issue in marriage. Adam needed another human being to have an intimate relationship with, one who could meet his physical and emotional needs. God realized this and created Eve. God made the woman to be human like Adam but she was designed in a special way so that they could meet each other's special needs. God wanted this relationship to be a oneness, an intimate closeness that could be fulfilled in no other relationship. This couple had no thought of using this relationship for selfish fulfillment. They focused on what was best for the other and what was best for the relationship. Because of the personal relationship they had with God their greatest devotion was to God. This type of relationship could bring only harmony to their life together as they met each other's needs and shared mutually the care of all of God's creation. It was a perfect relationship in a perfect world. What happened to change this perfection?

We know that it was sin. When Satan tempted Eve and she ate and gave to Adam, they disobeyed God and that is sin. When confronted by God, Adam tried to shift the blame to Eve. A rift occurred in the perfect relationship. Self became more important than the relationship (Genesis 3:12-13). When we began to focus on self then we begin to have what Truman Esau calls "power struggles." Because of sin and it consequences, God saw the need to give marriage a structure so there would be no question as to the hierarchy of the relationship. According to Genesis 3:16 the husband is to rule over the wife. This is God's design.

But the passages in Genesis are not conclusive when we want to look at the complete design. Read Ephesians 5:21-33. Paul describes in detail the oneness that God intended for husbands and wives to achieve in the beautiful relationship of marriage.

The verses in Ephesians indicate that God holds the man responsible for decisions made in the family. This is pointed out clearly in Genesis 3:1-13. When Adam and Eve sinned, Eve succumbed to temptation first. But when God approached them to discuss the matter, He purposely called out to Adam first. It would seem that God was holding Adam responsible for the choices made by his mate, just as the quarterback is responsible for decisions on the football field and the airline captain is responsible for decisions in the cockpit of a plane. No matter what happens or what the end results may be, the "head man" is ultimately responsible for the outcome.

Paul speaks of the wife's submission (Ephesians 5:22), and there is need for submission.

But submission of what? To whom? Under what circumstances?

It is significant that Paul introduced his comments on marriage by urging his readers to, "Submit to one another out of reverence to Christ." While the statement in verse 21 involved submission in all human relationships, surely it has application in the marriage relationship. Everything that follows is based on the premise that love for Christ would inspire husband and wife to selfless devotion to each other. Each is to submit to the other and yield his or her will to the interests of the other. Paul emphasizes mutual submission again in Philippians 2:1-4. The fact that Paul was not writing specifically about marriage serves only to underline the significance of these verses to marriage partners. If such attitudes and behavior are to characterize Christian relationships in general, how much more should they characterize marriage - potentially the most unified relationship of all?

"Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord"(Ephesians 5:22)--not "instead of 'to the Lord'." Submission does not mean surrendering your integrity, giving up your faith and violating what you believe to be true. Giving yourself to another is not the same as obliterating yourself and it is not subservience. Neither is it being mild and compliant on the surface while unobtrusively pulling strings to get your own way. Being helplessly dependent is not being properly submissive either.

So what does submission mean? According to Esau, "It means being open to the other mate's point of view as well as a willingness to offer your opinion for consideration. It means sensitivity to your partner's needs and a determination to meet them in healthy, constructive ways that will enhance, rather than violate, the sense of relationship between you. You also need to consider the other's interests as equal in value and importance to your own, but not denying your own."

Submission means trusting your mate's goodwill and ability to work through problems as you offer your own efforts to the problem-solving process. Also you must be willing to be open enough to say what you need and then trust your spouse to be concerned about those needs.

Above all, submission means being true to your own responsibility to the Lord, not abandoning your personality and convictions out of fear of conflict or disapproval. When you entrust yourself and your relationship to the Lord, maintaining your integrity and personhood, you are freed to truly give of the wealth that is you to your mate. (Excerpts from Making Marriage Work, Chapter 8, by Truman Esau).

One commentator made a very appropriate statement:

"To the wife it should be said that the form your submission takes will vary according to the quality of your husband's leadership. If the husband is a godly man who has a biblical vision for the family and leads out in the things of the Spirit, a godly wife will rejoice in this leadership and support him in it. You will be no more squelched by this leadership than the disciples were squelched by the leadership of Jesus."

Did you catch the first sentence and the emphasis upon the quality of the husband's leadership? It all goes back to trust. Trust is what motivates people to follow our leadership, whether at work or home. And, gentlemen, trust must be earned.

The mature man who practices biblical headship in the marriage relationship can be recognized by three characteristics:

• He loves his wife sacrificially. It is easy to measure physical size. Measuring sacrificial love is something else. We can measure the sacrificial love of Christ by looking to the cross. That has been the ultimate measurement of sacrifice for two thousand years. Can you as a husband top that? Wives seem to know intuitively that there is a correlation between service and sacrifice. It usually comes from little things that are performed with the right attitude. That is a lot easier than dying on a cross.

• He loves his wife with understanding. In 1 Peter 3:7, (NASB) Peter writes, "You husbands likewise, live with your wives in an understanding way . . ." Peter knew that a woman who felt understood would have little difficulty in following the leadership of a husband who treated her in an understanding way.

• He loves his wife with verbal praise. The rest of verse 7 in 1Peter 3 says, "…grant her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered." The word translated "honor" carries with it the idea of value. A loving, caring, Christ-like husband leads his wife in such a way that she will know how valuable she is to him. An action of praise and praising her to others is not the same as verbally praising her just so that she alone hears it. When was the last time you verbally expressed how much you appreciate her? You may not remember when, but I bet she does.

  Hundreds of years ago, Martin Luther said, "Let the wife make the husband glad to come home, and let him make her sorry to see him leave." That leaves no room for a power struggle and people who live like that certainly don't play power games.

"In the final analysis, when you abandon personal responsibility in favor of complying unthinkingly with another's wishes, you ignore the fact that each of us will some day give an account to God (Romans 14:13). A wife will not be able to say to the Lord, 'He made me do it'; she will not be able to blame anyone else for her choices. She will have to stand before God and admit they were "my own choices." (Truman Esau. Making Marriage Work. p. 118)