Admin
|
Quiet Storm (Why do I have such a hard time dealing with a man?)
Posted : 10 Jul, 2008 09:46 AM
Quiet Storm
Read 1 Peter 3:1-6
I would never say a man totally understands a woman. The very mystery of a woman's complexity is part of her irresistible attraction, in fact, I doubt if men will ever fully understand women. Nevertheless, God requires that men be understanding toward women. As a man, if we fail to show understanding and give esteem and dignity of the highest degree to women as equal partners in the Kingdom inheritance, then our prayers will continue to be hindered; which literally means: �to cut down, cut off, or cut out.� With that in mind, I have learned to appreciate the wisdom of every wise woman in the kingdom of God. This post is for every woman who ever asked �Why do I have trouble dealing with men and the word Submission?�
One of the greatest gifts God gives to us, is the ability to discover who we truly are. In God's Kingdom, men and women are equal in essence and value but they do not have the same functions in the kingdom. It takes the gifts of both a man and a woman working together to properly bring forth kingdom order. God never intended for a woman to function as a man or a man to function as a woman . Both genders were created to function and prosper in the places unique to their own calling. It has nothing to do with innate worth or ability. It has everything to do with order and personal responsibility to submit to authority and kingdom order. If we don't understand ourselves in Christ, we will continue to parade through life thinking and pretending that we are walking in the Spirit, when we are actually walking in the flesh. Sadly, many of us haven't spent enough time with God to know who we are or for what cause God brought us here. Are you one of the many who don't even know who you are or why you are here? Whether you are single or married, a man or a woman, today marks another date with destiny for your life. Today is your opportunity to make a kingdom choice; �Will you live for Jesus Christ, or will you live for yourself this day?� For every separation from God's original purpose, it weakens our links to our true identities as the sons and daughters of God. Now, If you catch this truth, your life will be changed. �Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.� John 18:37
The word of God says: �Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.� Eph 5:21 Somehow through the years we've allowed the word submission to become a nasty word. Submission is not synonymous with blind obedience! Nevertheless, many frequently define submission as slavery, meekness, or total passivity. Contrary to uninformed understanding, submission has nothing to do with narrow concepts of subservience. If anything it implies the opposite. Submission does not imply that women are airheads, intellectual lightweights, or inferior to men. In other words, God never said women were created to be "barefoot and pregnant." In order to understand what is submission, we need to discover the biblical definition of the word. The Greek word used in the Bible is "Hupotasso". Technically, submission means to bear up, under, or be placed in an orderly position under, that is to support. This word is used by the writers of Scripture to refer to the positions and attitudes of subjects under the authority of their government (I Peter 2:13-15), to believers under the teaching authority of their pastors (Hebrews 13:17), and of wives under the leadership of their husbands (Ephesians 5:22). The definition of submission includes the willing and positive response of a subordinate to his rightful authority. The submissive subject consciously and freely yields his or her own will to the will of the authority. Submission does not occur when you agree; it occurs when everything in you may disagree, yet you yield to God's authority. To simplify defining submission it is: �to voluntarily place oneself under the Lordship of Jesus Christ so that He may live out His life in and through us, using our endowed gifts and talents to be a blessing to others, and thus establishing His Kingdom, His will and purposes on earth.�
How do we be submissive to one another? First, God has a prescribed order and orderliness in everything. We see that order, for example in the God-established sanctuary known as the Christian home. There is a prescribed order, a hierarchy, and prescribed roles to be fulfilled if the home and marriage are to function on the level of God's best. That order is: Christ-Man-Woman-Child. Anything that's set up outside of God's order can produce only chaos and �every evil fruit.� One of the challenges of Life is, God can't move when WE are out of order. Let me explain. We are told in scripture that the husband is to be the "head" of the wife (Eph. 5:23), and that she is to be in submission to her husband in everything (Eph. 5:24). Now, it is the wife's role to �support� the man in the home, to be a �suitable or comparable helper." As a child of God herself, the wife is fully equal to the man, yet her God given role in relation to her husband is one of �support.� Such a role requires a yielding of her own will to his. Now, for those who are having a hard time with the word �support�, look at it in this way: �Ezekiel is referred to as a wheel in the middle of a wheel.� If you understand wheel, it's basically the �Axle/Hub:� (the supporting part of everything) When that's off, then everything else is off. Hence, the word �support�. It takes greatness to submit to authority when you know you are as capable as the one wielding the authority. Besides, we cannot break God's laws, they break us.
Often, many women and men will ask if there is some sort of "special strength" that God gives us to enable such submission. If they are honest, they will admit that this is an issue with which they have struggled with their entire Christian life. If trying and trying in one's own willpower doesn't work, what does? Is there a "special strength" or power of enablement from God? Yes, there is indeed a "special strength" that the Lord gives to enable us to be submissive to one another. But it is not something magical that God "zaps" us with upon request. It is a gift that He gives to all of His children. It is the same gift that He gives to a woman to be submissive to their own husband and it is the same gift He gives to a man so that he can truly fulfill the awesome command to love his wife "as Christ loved the church." A command which no husband can ever fulfill in his own power alone, just as no woman can truly and consistently submit to a man in her own power. Now, the key is this: in order to access this gift of Godly strength we must �Submit ourselves first to God� and be "walking in" and "filled with" (controlled by) the Holy Spirit which lives within us (Gal 5:16,26; Eph. 5:18-21). Which brings me to the question driving this post: So, what happens when a woman who is to be submitted finds herself with a man who does not know God or does not understand the Kingdom and its covenants? Should she leave? Should she demand that he get saved? Should she fast and pray in her locked bedroom until he repents? Maybe she should refuse to serve him until he agrees to go to church or nag him until he turns from his wicked ways. This, I will say, "NO", all of these things have been tried and they all have FAILED. God has a better idea, he spoke through Peter to give women a prophetic tip and a great deal of hope. The Apostle Peter provided the answer and revealed an amazing gift God gave to women. "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." 1 Peter 3:1-2 (NIV)
If you will receive it, he was saying: "Listen daughter, you don't have to beat the man with your Bible. You don't have to yell at him, fuss at him, beg him, or deprive him of your Love either. Use the weapons I gave you at your new birth, Show him your inner power and an inner beauty. If you are willing to tap into who you really are in Me, if you will dare to tap into your divine femininity, you can save your husband's soul with out so much as quoting a Scripture. I have given you the power .� Wow! Who would ever believe someone could save a man without even quoting a Scripture? It is time for us to believe God's Word. He said they may be won "without a word." Believe His promise. If a woman does what it takes to walk in her true calling, she will become a walking epistle. Listen to what God is saying: "Spend time finding out who you are." Make God your first focus, your first love in life. Find your fulfillment in Him, not in other people, in activities, or in things. In other words: �Get into the Word� if you want to meet a �real man� and encounter the man the woman at the well had at the well.� Too many women and men enter a relationship (marriage) hoping to be happy and trying to be fulfilled in the flesh when God never intended for marriage to function that way. God is saying: �I am the only one who can make you happy, I am the only one who can fulfill you.� Why? God expects each and every one of us to come home every day and linger in His presence.
Can I be real with you? If your "inside woman" is messed up or missing in action, then that outside wrapper won't attract much worth keeping. Your pretty wrapper might attract a shopper or a random sampler or two for a while, but sooner or later it will be discovered that there isn't anything in the box! There is nothing finer than a woman who knows who she is. There are too many women who don't know who or how to define who they are other than by how they dress. Their identities are locked into their outward appearances. This is why we are admonished in 1 Peter 3:3 �Do not let your adornment be merely outward, arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel;� What did Peter mean when he said adornment? Is it taboo for women to wear make-up (etc) No! Peter used the Greek word, �kosmeo�, which means: to put in proper order, to decorate, to garnish, or trim. In other words, he was saying: �Listen, baby, don't put all of your focus on your make-up or the way you arrange your �stuff� and place things on your body.� Why did I bring this up? God gave Eve and every woman after her such power and beauty in their natural state that when they get with men, things just start to happen.........If you could ask Adam, he would say: �Now Eve hadn't been to the hair shop, and she hadn't even had her nails done, she hadn't had a pedicure since creation, she hadn't been to the local YMCA, and to come to think of it, she hadn't made a single trip to the Mall. She didn't need a wardrobe because Eve was just �FINE� in her �Eveness�.
What do we see in Eve that is missing from many women today? Is God telling us that women and many men are spending more time pampering, prancing, and masquerading to fix the �outside wrapper� when the real worth and value is on the inside. 1 Pet 3:4 tells us: �Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight.� Peter said the secret to a woman's power is a gentle and quiet spirit. It is the tool God gave to women to help them build up the men in his kingdom. God wants women who understands quietness because a smart woman without wisdom doesn't understand or care that she possesses so much artillery in her spirit. The power of a woman is not in her volume, knowledge, outward appearance, or power of argumentation. A woman possesses the power to bring godly conviction to a man without saying anything. Her power is in the preciousness of God; she has a quiet beauty; She can house the Holy Spirit like nobody else that can calm the wildest beast in a man, and when she walks into people's lives clothed in a submissive spirit before God, people will just have to respect her. All she has to be is the woman God called her to be.
Many women are studying to be smart, not wise. I'm not saying women should bypass an education or work only inside the home. I'm stating what the Bible says: �Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.� Proverbs 4:7 Knowledge is good until it comes into conflict with godly wisdom. Most women become unwise when they acquire knowledge for the sole purpose of competing with men. Many women are encouraged by the world to argue, nag, and battle against men for supremacy in every area in life. Yet, we wonder why men are turned off or driven away by women without wisdom. Too many women are fighting a flesh war, when God is telling them not to do that.
We read in Genesis 2:20-22 �.......But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.� NIV Notice, now, God took from Adam's side, not from his head; for a woman to be over a man, he did not take from his feet; for a woman to be beneath a man. And lastly, I see no mention of God creating an competer, aggressor or adversary for Adam; because there already was a garden snake fitting that description. What does all this mean? A woman doesn't have to raise her voice to make her point, nor need to manipulate, nag, threaten, or beg. A wise woman will say there's a way to stroke a man and speak into his heart in a non confrontational way that will have a man eating out of her hands that brings God's peace on the scene.
We are intelligent people, so, can I be real with you? I'm keeping it real, are you? I know at some point in your life, you may have been guilty of saying this; that goes for men too. �One of the worst things a woman can do is to say to the man that God places in her life is �I don't need you�. Women who tell the man in their lives �I've got a job, it's better then yours; I can buy my own food, and unlike you, I can cook it too; I can pay the rent and buy my own car because I'm smart, what do I need you for?� See, when a woman or man say they don't need the man or woman God places in their life, they have actually killed his or her desire to take care of them, if they don't know who they are in Christ; and the only thing that's left that's holding them together is money or sex.� If we keep going our separate ways as men and women, we will never rule and have dominion in the earth. We need each other according to the order of God. The truth is that if we don't get with the order of God, we will all die in this miserable, lonely, wicked place that we're in now. If we trust Him, step into the right place, in God's divine order and perfect will. God has called us to be humble men, so a humble man must reply to a smart woman: �You may not need me, but I need you, when you declare your independence from me, based on some economic or schooling advantage you enjoy, it implies that I have abused my authority to provide, care for, love, and teach you what I have been taught by my FATHER. You disarmed me as a man and left me on the side of the road in your quest for something that God never gave you. All of your knowledge is good, but I prefer wisdom over mere knowledge. All that you've acquired and achieved is good, but you were created to help me and stand with me, not over me.�
All right, so what about all of that man's problems? How can I submit to that mess? If the man you are with is less than the man you thought you were getting, join the club. None of us are perfect, but there are two things men do respond to, and that is the power of God and the gifts He placed in a wise woman. God gave women four of the greatest gifts to disarm any masculine weaponry: Beauty, Brilliance, Discernment, and the power to wrap men around their little fingers with a quiet spirit. How does a woman deal with a man? Pull out your secret artillery, the gifts God gave you for this very emergency. Assault the carnal man with your gentle and quiet spirit, if you will tap into it. Please understand, everything that God gives us is tied up in our submission and our obedience to His Order. Don't get in your man's face and attempt to argue or push him into position. Your part is to resist the urge to �fix� the man through your own efforts, arguments, and marital pressure. All of this reinforces what I am about to say. How often does a woman or man utilize the wrong methods in getting their mate to get into position? You know exactly what I'm talking about! You can accomplish the same things by doing it God's way. I know all this may sound good and religious, but, it's the truth.
For some practical advice from some other wise women; If you want to help your man, make sure you use the gift's God gave you to help and motivate him into his calling. Please understand, if God doesn't force us to Love him, then we can not force our mates to Love him either. Draw your husband into place with intimacy and unmerited grace, �fix him his favorite food, whatever it takes, bring him a beer, play with his toes or rub his bald head, just do something.� After a while, he will go to church just to find out what suddenly made you treat him like a King. When you neglect your husband in some area, there will always be a �Bathsheba� bathing so he can see her. There will always be a �Delilah� inviting him to lay his head in her lap. I can assure you, Delilah isn't saying: �Take out the trash, Don't drink this, clean up this, pick up that, the kids need this; Oh no, that woman is getting busy running bathwater and lighting candles, She is constantly whispering in his ear, If I had a man like you, I'd take care of him.
Please understand, Women can get things done that men can't get done. Esther saved a nation by cooking a dinner. She won a nation by being submissive to the king. She didn't just march in there and say, �Listen to me, man!� No, she prepared herself in advance, and then she submitted to his authority and entreated him as his bride. My prayer for a woman, is that you have accepted or reaffirmed your true identity in Christ and have tapped into the gifts He has placed in you as a Walking Epistle. My prayer for a man, is that your eyes, mind, and heart have been opened to the mystery and wonder of a wise woman in God's hand and you will take responsibility and walk in your position in kingdom order. May the Words of Christ reign in our minds and hearts, Amen.
:peace:
Post Reply
|
