A word about the wife serving the husband; one thing that is disturbing is that the failure here is enormous, because the elder sisters have failed to teach the younger sisters how to love and serve their husbands. How can they teach that which they are not doing? Let me give you three tips.
First tip – Make sure that you are physically appealing. It is the folly of women, this thing of dressing well when you are going out but when you are at home you have oil drops on your clothes here and there to offend the eyes of the man, whereas home is where he should be pleased. The other day, I was teaching the University students who will get married someday. I told them, if your husband sees your dirty pants or your dirty breast-wear, you have become distasteful and sexually offensive. He will enjoy you as his sister. The men will want to agree with me. A woman who is not spotlessly clean in the inside, in the underwear, should make sure that the man never sees them even from afar. It is distasteful. If you do not know that cleanliness and loving go hand in hand, you are a fool. You have lost the man. You have not served him. That is true, Brethren. You know it. You know it is true. Many Brothers don’t have the courage to say it. Let me say it for all men.
Second tip in service: Availability. For a busy man, when he comes home, all the attention should be given to him a hundred percent. Failure there is criminal. He may come home for 30 minutes in a day. And then, all the attention should be given him when he is awake, because when he is sleeping you are not serving him. I am thinking about service to some who work at the level where some of the senior leaders and I operate. For the short time that he is at home, if you decide to do your A, B, C, D, X, Y, Z, you have failed and failed very badly. You are not available. And an indispensable element in being a servant is to be available. If you allow someone to be looking for you, you are not a servant. So from the time he gets there and you receive him at the door until you see him off, there is total committal of your everything. When he is bathing, if there is room in the bathroom, you sit there so that you can converse. Many do not know the pressure under which some people are living. If you do not buy the time, you won’t have it. When he is dressing, you are there. When he is eating, you are there.
Listen, if you want to succeed, obey what I am saying. If you want to fail, go on the way you want.
A servant who is not available has failed. A servant who is not available is no servant. A servant who is looked for is no servant.
A servant who contacts you by telephone is, first of all, your boss. I had to obtain permission from my boss to contact him by telephone. I didn’t just say we are both full Professors. He is my boss. I obtained permission from him to call him by ‘phone. It is ill-bred children who just pick a telephone and call anybody. If it were possible, they would take it and call the Head of State. They are just badly brought up. They just don’t know what life is about. Such must fail a thousand and one times.
So the wife stays there. She does not eat at the same time, unless the man asks her to, because she cannot be serving while eating. If you are not available, you are not a servant. If the person you are serving is there for 15 minutes, it is the devotion of those 15 minutes to him that allows for heart union. For a busy man who is there so rarely, that time can be given to him without jeopardizing one’s whole life, without jeopardizing one’s call or one’s service. And then those are moments when words come to you. It is then that you receive what you may never have received. It is five minutes of intimacy here, three minutes of intimacy there, seven minutes of intimacy there that cause hearts to melt, to intertwine, to blend and to fuse.
The last tip is this – A servant carries the one that he serves perpetually in prayer. He prays for him unceasingly. Each time he comes to his memory, and he comes often, a prayer is lifted to God on his behalf. There may be long periods of praying for him, but throughout the day prayer is raised for him – ten seconds, five seconds, three seconds, two seconds; and in that constant lifting the servant opens himself up to the great blessings of God, because God blesses those who lift others to the throne. As you lift up a pastor, you enter into a pastor’s blessings. As you lift up a prophet unceasingly, you enter into a prophet’s blessings. And so on and so forth. And with this constant lifting, it is not possible to have a wrong heart’s attitude towards him. It is not possible to see faults, to find faults, to hold back, to plan evil. And what he enters into, you also enter. As God lifts him up, God lifts you up. As God blesses him, God also blesses you. As God gives him revelation, you also receive revelation, so that, by indirect promotion, indirect blessings and indirect favours, you attain to the heights of God and to the glory of God.