Every Great Wife: Convictor and Connector

Jesus describes the Holy Spirit as our “helper” in John 14:16. In this passage, the Greek word translated “helper” is procolasit. It means “called alongside.”

As our helper or companion, the Holy Spirit will walk alongside us as the most faithful friend we could have. And I believe that a great wife will exhibit many of the characteristics of the Holy Spirit in a marriage relationship.

Once of these shared roles is as convictor. In John 16, Jesus says that when the Holy Spirit comes, he will convict the world “of sin and of righteousness and of judgment.”

Convicting is not condemnation. Conviction is kindly telling a person, “Hey, you are wrong.” And let’s face it: women are pretty good at that. You might laugh, but I’m serious. A wife can say things to her husband—necessary things, things that he needs to change—that no one else can say.

They are good at it, and as husbands we need to listen when they convict us about something.

A second role of the Holy Spirit that a wife may also demonstrate is that of connector. He connects people relationally. The Holy Spirit is always connecting us with God. He reminds us of Jesus.

Women are natural connectors because they connect men to their children. This is one of the natural things women do. They remind us to spend more time with the kids, or make sure we know when we’ve hurt our kids’ feelings or when we need to have a talk with one of our children.

Our wives are intuitive about those things, while husbands often are not. We need their input to keep us tuned in.

Women will also connect us to our own feelings. It’s their way of partnering with the Holy Spirit to heal us. They know how messed up a lot of us are emotionally—don’t try to deny it, guys—and God uses them to get inside us and fix us.

Early in our marriage, Karen would always ask me how I felt about certain things. I would always respond the same way. “I do not feel,” I would tell her, “and I don’t want you to talk to me about my feelings.” Talking about feelings made me really nervous.

But she knew. She knew that I’d been hurt about certain things that I wouldn’t talk about. I’d always deny it when she brought it up, but every time the Holy Spirit would eventually confirm it. Karen was right. She was always right, and God used her to heal a lot of the emotional scars I was carrying around—scars that had taken their toll on me and our marriage.

Women have incredible intuition and relational wisdom. Just as I’ve learned to listen to the Holy Spirit’s promptings in my relationship with God, I have learned to listen to Karen’s voice in our marriage.

As convictor and connector, she continues to impact our relationship and make me a better person.

Every great wife can play that role in your marriage, too, if you’ll listen.