Lisa Barry: As someone who at age 14 thought that real life was exactly like the soap operas I was watching at the time, I had a rude awakening ahead of me. But even those of us who grew up with a realistic view of what marriage is all about, we still have to come to grips with giving up our own way for someone else's. Few of us really anticipated how difficult that would be. Today Elisabeth Elliot and Donna Otto talk more about mentoring and what topics need to be discussed between women of God. Find out more as we begin this Tuesday edition of Gateway To Joy.

Elisabeth Elliot: "You are loved with an everlasting love." That's what the Bible says. "And underneath are the everlasting arms." This is your friend Elisabeth Elliot, talking again today with my friend, Donna Otto. I want to read to you, to begin with, a passage from Peter's first letter.

It says in the second chapter, verse 20, "If you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving an example that you should follow in His steps. Wives, in the same way, be submissive to your husbands, so that if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives when they see the purity and reverence of your lives."

Donna, you and I have both been questioned many, many times by women telling us about husbands who are anything but Christlike. They would like us to give them a simple, easy answer to how they can possibly obey what Peter says in chapter 3: "Wives, in the same way, be submissive to your husbands." The same way that Christ was submissive to those who actually crucified Him.

Donna Otto: You're right. We've been asked that question many times. I sometimes think that the submission is so simple. It's such a simple concept.

Elisabeth Elliot: But not easy.

Donna Otto: But not easy. Not easy. I remember driving with my husband in the car. I can assure you that David and I will have a disagreement, and it could blow into a full argument of large, gargantuan proportions, if I am driving the car and he is a passenger. It has been that way since we've known one another. As we mellow out, it has lessened. But he still raises his eyebrows, and depending upon how cranky he is, he can put his hand even on the dashboard, as if I were Parnelli Jones. So I've learned to sort of stay away from that scenario, but at the same time I think David is just like I am. When do I feel more in control? When I'm in the driver's seat, not when I'm in the passenger's seat.

In many ways, it is simple-the concept-because what God has done in the Scripture in directing women, is first He said to women, "You are going to have this unnatural desire over your husband." That is not for intimacy. That is for to be in charge. You are going to want to be in charge. In Genesis, He talks about this desire over our husbands. Then He creates within us the need for security. We need to feel secure. Then He provides a husband.

When you look at those together and then you come to the other side of it and say, "Then He says, 'Now submit,'" it's God's way. It is absolutely the perfect picture of how much He loves me--that what He wants from me is to declare my dependency every day on Him. There is no way for this woman, who desires-we talked yesterday about my argumentative nature. I'll speak for myself, although I know you have said it about yourself. I don't find you argumentative. Maybe you're not argumentative with me. But, well, no, I think sometimes we have even had those exchanges.

But I am argumentative. I do want to be in charge. There's no doubt about it. My spiritual gifts are gifts that are leadership gifts. I like to drive the car, instead of being in the passenger seat. God already explained all that. He put the security need inside of me. Then He says, "Submit to your husband." The only way I can do that is if I declare my dependency on God.

So each day, I get up and I say, "All right, Lord. I submit all of these things to you, because I cannot do this." I cannot do this. So I declare my dependency. I fall down. I pick myself up and I fall down.

I believe it's simple enough to say, "I don't want David to be in charge. I want to be in charge myself." I'm more secure when I'm driving the car. But I'm not as obedient. Obedience is the goal.

Elisabeth Elliot: Have you ever had a man ask you what submission means?

Donna Otto: Yes.

Elisabeth Elliot: Oh, have you? I never have. Not once has a man ever asked me that, because men generally know of submission to the captain in the armies, submission to the civil authorities, submission to the policeman who pulls you over. They know what submission is. But you've had men actually ask you that?

Donna Otto: I've had two men ask me that. The first man asked me-he was really being sarcastic. He wanted me to tell him. But the second man was very earnest in it. He was earnest because I believe he did understand it. He loved his wife so much and saw her lack of submission that he was really earnestly desiring to make certain that his understanding of submission was correct, because he loved his wife and didn't see it. But he also wanted to be certain that he was accurate in his perception.

Certainly I've had young husbands say, "Well, this does mean that I can push her around and tell her what to do." My husband teaches a class of young married adults. We've been with them for six years. We've watched young couples, who were very newly married, to a couple of years of marriage, to being married six or eight years now. These young women have walked through the early understanding of what it really means to give up your will.

I tell them, "It isn't just enough." You know, the old story of the young boy who has been told to sit down. He says-

Elisabeth Elliot: By way of punishment, the mother has told him, "You're going to sit on that chair." So after a while, she hears him muttering-he's just a little boy, but she overhears him say, "I'm sitting down on the outside, but I'm standing up on the inside."

Donna Otto: That's exactly right.

Elisabeth Elliot: That's exactly the way we females are sometimes when we have to submit to our husbands. The husband that you just described, who really honestly wanted an answer to his question and loved his wife, now he is the model husband. That same passage in Ephesians 5 says that husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the Church. You and I have a snap of a job, a very easy job by comparison. We women think it's terrible to have to submit to a fallible man. He makes mistakes. He's likely to be wrong. He may make a decision that's just going to ruin our family. That's the point at which we have to trust God. But all we have to do is submit. The husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the Church. That has got to be, by far, the most difficult assignment.

Donna Otto: I agree. And then our assignment to be his helpmate is to help him do that. And what do we do? We just make it more difficult than what is, as you say, a far more difficult assignment. One of the things that helped me-I make it sound as if I've accomplished this-but one of the things that is helping me understand submission to my husband is that I need to not only do his will-I need to not only do his will, but I have to be able to do it in such a way that I believe his will is my will. That is the picture to me. Not that I am just standing up or sitting down on the inside, but because I am so certain that God said to David to protect and provide for me-because I'm so certain that this plan is God's perfect plan, because I'm so certain that if I am obedient to it, that I will honor God, which is the goal of my life, then to be able to say, "I'm not going to just do David's will."

Elisabeth Elliot: With clenched teeth.

Donna Otto: Exactly. Now I want to be careful to say that I really believe what a wise, old woman told me years ago. Emotion always follows discipline. I believe that to say I have to feel like obeying, I have to feel like being submissive to David before I do it, is hogwash. I have to obey it. The emotion of it will follow. I don't say how long it will follow. But I do believe the emotion comes to my heart when I say, "This is David's will." I not only want to do David's will, I want David's will to be my will.

Elisabeth Elliot: You're speaking of a positive emotion, a good one. You may have very angry feelings before you do bring yourself to submission. That's emotion. But when you want to do God's will or you want to do your husband's will because it's God's will, you still have to make up your mind ahead of time. You have to will to do what God told you to do. That's a daily discipline for all of us, isn't it, in one way or another. Not necessarily to our husband, but in every area where my will cuts across God's will. Somebody has to die.

Donna Otto: Exactly. In the class, the "Mentors for Mothers" class, I have this generation of mentors, which are older women. Some of them are 70, 80. Some of them are 55 or 60. They were married at a time when, while maybe the women's hearts weren't submissive, the act of being submissive in life was pretty much common.

Then we have these young mothers, who have been married in the '80s and '90s, who have been told by their culture that's the last thing they should do. I find it very intriguing to watch these two come together. I don't believe either one are right. I think the methods that they've adopted have both had error in them. But to see them come to the understanding that it is God's will that they want, that this is very difficult, that this is ongoing, but that in honoring David, I honor God. David is God's provision to me.

When David makes a mistake, which he does, I am protected. I am protected. That is my greatest sadness for young women who refuse to be submissive. They are unprotected. They are out there, flailing alone, and out of the shelter and protection of the Lord and the provider, the husband. I guess for me, the message of submission is one that I want to encourage for that beautiful place of protection.

Our daughter, when she was a little girl, used to say, "Now Mom, I'm going to find a man and get married." "Yes. Why do you want to get married? What kind of a man are you going to find?" "I'm going to find a godly man who will protect and provide. Yeah, Mom, I know. Is it okay if he's cute?"

Elisabeth Elliot: Bless her heart. Well, we're going to have to talk some more about this tomorrow. Our time is up for today. I know one of the questions that people are going to ask is, "Does that mean that I can't ever make any of the decisions?" Well, Donna? We're going to hear from you tomorrow on that one.

Lisa Barry: And that serves as a reminder that as we endeavor to improve our marriages, this issue of obedience to our husbands will always be coming up. Wouldn't it be nice if there were an older friend who would remind us of the importance of submitting, rather than someone saying, "Oh, dump him. This is the nineties!"?

Donna has written a number of books, and there's one just right for you. Give us a call for more information. 1-800-759-4JOY. That's 1-800-759-4569. Or you can write to us at Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. Our Internet ministry address is gatewaytojoy.org. Gateway To Joy has been a production of Back to the Bible.

Tomorrow Elisabeth and Donna talk about loving our husbands, so join us then for another Gateway To Joy.