The Karate Kid is Dominated
by a Pint-Sized Wife
Ted and his wife both came for ministry about their arguing. We had prayed to forgive his parents for their frequent verbal bouts, and Ted felt more peace, but suddenly the fighting erupted again.
When I encouraged Ted to share about the recent explosion he used words he had not used before. He said "she is vicious with her words and her fists, and she never pulls her punches at all." One evening when he was leaving the house to go work out at the karate studio, she had gotten in his face, pushed him the chest repeatedly and called him a coward.
She was furious because Ted comes home late from work almost every night, even though she knows he is a male nurse in an ER, who simply can't leave if they are working on a patient.
At home he's accused by his wife for not standing up to her supervisor or the other nurses who show up late to work and presume on his time. At work his peers accuse him of being dominated by his wife, and tell him he needs to stand up to her.
Ted's mom never called her husband a coward. His sister never called him a coward. But, at the 3rd grade bus stop a bully got tired of humiliating Ted all by himself, so he enlisted one of the littlest girls in the neighborhood to help by; spitting, hitting, kicking, and throwing dirt at Ted. The bully held Ted's neck while she did it and threatene to kill him if he did anything to her ever.
Ted cried in front of all his peers in hopes of being shown pity, but there was none. The little girl liked the attention she got for abusing him so she attacked even more viciously.
From that point on, Ted tried to arrive at the bus stop late but only got humiliated more for trying to avoid them. He felt despair as the end of the school day meant more abuse at the bus stop that would cause him to be late getting home many days.
He didn't tell his parents because he believed the bully would retaliate, and besides, Dad was a big man who would just tell him to punch the bully out.
In 4th grade Ted took up karate with a vengeance so that he would never be bullied again by a boy or set up for humiliation for a girl. He grew in skill and confidence and feared no man.
But now 20 years later he found that his karate was no help for him against his wife's abuse. In fact she seemed to use it to shame him even more.
A scripture says "Some trust in horses and some in chariots," but we will "not be delivered by the strength of horses."
For 20 years Karate had been the idol that gave Ted confidence among men even when he didn't talk about it. But it could not help him with his wife. In fact this idol had been rooted in his fearful response to the very same kind of treatment in 3rd grade.
And, karate was rooted in the exact opposite of the mind that Christ says we are to have as men willing to turn the other cheek, suffer persecution and lay down our lives for our wives.
How did Jesus' crucifixion conquer this?
Jesus betrayal, arrest, and torture by Roman soldiers, with no advocate and no mercy was suffered so anyone like Ted could share in Christ's sufferings, be conformed to his death, and be raised in new life.
The Father req'd him to suffer being spurned and beaten even to death by the Daughter of Zion. Rome was the bully and the Pharisees were the little sister or vice versa. As a boy it is unlikely that there's much that Ted could have figured out to do differently in those circumstances unless his parents were very in tune, willing to intervene, and/or willing to guide Ted through a truly Christian response.
The point is that Ted has shared in Christ's sufferings but didn't know it, and it's so he will know the power of the spirit to sanctify his wife and free her from her willingness to abuse verbally and to shame him as a coward.
Jesus Resurrection avails him of what? Power to face his wife's accusations without despair or anger, faith to see her transformed into a help-mate (like Saul of Tarsus), and probably a breakthrough at work so that he is not repeatedly made out to be a coward by his wife or by his peers.