As a college student, I have learned some interesting, intricate words, yet I find more and more that I do not know the meanings of simple ones, such as respect. I have been told on multiple occasions to be respectful or to respect my elders, but I never knew what this word meant. So first, I went to Dictionary.com, which states that respect is:
esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person, a personal quality or ability, or something considered as a manifestation of a personal quality or ability; deference to a right, privilege, privileged position, or someone or something considered to have certain rights or privileges; proper acceptance or courtesy- acknowledgement.
This seems like it should be enough for one to get an idea of how to respect someone, but if you are like me, this is not enough to sate you. In my personal life, I want a definition that really shows me how to act as a woman who loves and respects her man, her God, and her parents. A few of the resources I found are listed below:
http://christianwifeuniversity.com/9-ways-to-show-your-husband-respect/
http://peacefulwife.com/101-ways-to-show-respect-to-your-husband/
http://powertochange.com/experience/sex-love/respect/
Reading through these different sites, I was able to gather some different opinions and ideas, while coming to the realization that some of the ways we are meant to respect our husbands are true in respecting God and our parents. The last link, especially, helped me understand. Now, number 7 is probably not a way I can show respect to God and my parents, but numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10 are all applicable to these areas of my life.
For those of you who do not have the desire to check out different sites, I will tell you this: respect is about honesty, love, encouragement and edification, with a decent heap of submission. The road to respect is tough, but we can make it through! Even if we are not perfect in our attempts, God loves us and will not leave us in our struggles.
Here are some verses to meditate on:
1 Peter 3:1-2 ESV “Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respect and pure conduct.”
1 Corinthians 11:3 “But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.”
Ephesians 5:33 “However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”
Proverbs 18:22 “He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.”
1 Corinthians 10:31 NASB “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”
1 Corinthians 6:18-20 “Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”
1 John 4:10 ESV “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
A Life After His Own Heart 