I write this piece The Interdependence of Men and Women in the context of a healthy thriving society, not yet in the context of marriage and relationships, although I may touch just a small part of it.
As I went home last night, I feel that God allowed me to experience a temporary sense of weakness, the feeling of needing strength or a boost of faith and encouragement. It made merealize my own vulnerabilities and how the men were naturally designed to partner with us to boost our morale and create a healthy thriving and balanced society.
As a single woman, my source of strength is really my God. I have no husband yet so God is really the source of my strength. But sometimes just because God has filled me with enough strength each day, I forget my own vulnerabilities. And personally being single, I do forget sometimes that there are real men, brothers in the faith or wherever that God also designed to help us.
God had me realize in a very real way His masculine heart - how we women need His strength and the strength of men (who were made in the image of God). I was designed to draw strength ideally from the presence of my Father, my earthly father, brothers and even the men that lead me at work or people and brothers who lead us in Church because their strength is their "gift" to the world. They were meant to provide the women, and the weak in general their leadership and strength (and courage is not bad either). And we can allow them if we are willing.
Men have the strength physically and mentally. Their drive to achieve or lead is the engine that gets us toward our goals. Not that women's resolves are not strong, but as design by built, man was really the one intended to be physically stronger. Their presence to me visually is like the trunk of an oak tree, a strong pole you can lean on when you're weak to support you or the arm rest for people injured. That depicts the picture of man being the strong support that will keep us and society in general from falling apart.
As I went home last night, I feel that God allowed me to experience a temporary sense of weakness, the feeling of needing strength or a boost of faith and encouragement. It made merealize my own vulnerabilities and how the men were naturally designed to partner with us to boost our morale and create a healthy thriving and balanced society.
As a single woman, my source of strength is really my God. I have no husband yet so God is really the source of my strength. But sometimes just because God has filled me with enough strength each day, I forget my own vulnerabilities. And personally being single, I do forget sometimes that there are real men, brothers in the faith or wherever that God also designed to help us.
God had me realize in a very real way His masculine heart - how we women need His strength and the strength of men (who were made in the image of God). I was designed to draw strength ideally from the presence of my Father, my earthly father, brothers and even the men that lead me at work or people and brothers who lead us in Church because their strength is their "gift" to the world. They were meant to provide the women, and the weak in general their leadership and strength (and courage is not bad either). And we can allow them if we are willing.
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| Credit: Van Heusen |
However, women's vulnerability is that without God, she can try to satisfy her need for strength in a way where she places her identity too much on the attention or approval of a man and may feel broken, unprotected and exposed when a man leaves her or rejects her or if no one is courting her and she feels alone and lonely. Women are very relational by design and loneliness is one vulnerability of a woman. Abandonment is also a lady's fear or problem.
How to solve this? While I don't have every answer, I do know God is our security. He is our help, comforter, Lover and best friend. If you will let Him, He'd love to fill that role for you. :-) He loves you just as you are and thinks you are beautiful, lovely, talented and wonderfully unique.
Knowing our design for me is to our advantage because we know where we are strong, where we can provide some assistance or service to others with the gifts that we have, and where the enemy can possibly thwart those valid God-given needs and turn it into something that it wasn't designed for in the first place.
For men, they need the women's refreshing and encouraging spirit. Refreshment can be in the form of their beauty, their words of comfort, solace, refuge and nurture. According to the book Captivating by John and his wife Stasi Eldredge, women have this God-given design to bring men and people to a place where they can rest, be soothed and be comforted. Visually, she is a spring of life. By our presence, we women invite the people around us to rest and be comforted.
For the women, our words have power to the men. There is statistics I heard before that women speak a lot more words than men and I don't think that's an accident. A woman's tongue has power to give life (as is her nurturing life-giving role). God designed her to be the one to give birth biologically. She brings forth life and one way is through her words. On the other hand, since we are fallen, we can also sometimes birth death with our tongue instead of life. We birth death to dreams by discouragement, to a people's morale by a critical, discontented, and nitpicking spirit. Women's talk (as the natural talkers) can either pull people up or tear them down.
Men by God's design like beauty. It refreshes them. They are by nature attracted to beauty. Women can offer their beauty in various forms by coloring the world around them with their gifts and talents, fashion, housekeeping, etc. However, beauty is also where the men are vulnerable so guys do please watch out. ;-)
God has an answer and the enemy has an answer for our God-given needs. The enemy loves to thwart the purpose of how God designed things by packaging it differently that would otherwise lead us away from God not to Him.
If men do not rise up to be the men they were created to be, women will be forced to adapt to get the strength from themselves and have a self-guarded stance more than a protecting nurturing helping stance that was their initial design. If men will not lead and be thrusted into his God-given role, it will affect us women because we were designed to be co-functioning with your gifts.
Just men fulfilling their roles is no small thing, wherever they are. It's a big thing to us as women.
I believe the world will be a better place if both men and women fulfill their roles. People look up to and want to be a Steve Jobs or a Mark Zuckerberg someday. They are our role models for innovation and for creating successful technology startups. We also need role models for godly manhood and we desperately need it in this society. We need to be able to point somewhere Wow I also want to emulate that. I want to be a better man. Any wonder why little boys ever liked Superman and toy soldiers?
As a closing, I would like to share a reminder from Hebrews 13:1 that we "Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters."
Thank you everyone and may you have a refreshing weekend!
How to solve this? While I don't have every answer, I do know God is our security. He is our help, comforter, Lover and best friend. If you will let Him, He'd love to fill that role for you. :-) He loves you just as you are and thinks you are beautiful, lovely, talented and wonderfully unique.
Knowing our design for me is to our advantage because we know where we are strong, where we can provide some assistance or service to others with the gifts that we have, and where the enemy can possibly thwart those valid God-given needs and turn it into something that it wasn't designed for in the first place.
For men, they need the women's refreshing and encouraging spirit. Refreshment can be in the form of their beauty, their words of comfort, solace, refuge and nurture. According to the book Captivating by John and his wife Stasi Eldredge, women have this God-given design to bring men and people to a place where they can rest, be soothed and be comforted. Visually, she is a spring of life. By our presence, we women invite the people around us to rest and be comforted.
For the women, our words have power to the men. There is statistics I heard before that women speak a lot more words than men and I don't think that's an accident. A woman's tongue has power to give life (as is her nurturing life-giving role). God designed her to be the one to give birth biologically. She brings forth life and one way is through her words. On the other hand, since we are fallen, we can also sometimes birth death with our tongue instead of life. We birth death to dreams by discouragement, to a people's morale by a critical, discontented, and nitpicking spirit. Women's talk (as the natural talkers) can either pull people up or tear them down.
Men by God's design like beauty. It refreshes them. They are by nature attracted to beauty. Women can offer their beauty in various forms by coloring the world around them with their gifts and talents, fashion, housekeeping, etc. However, beauty is also where the men are vulnerable so guys do please watch out. ;-)
God has an answer and the enemy has an answer for our God-given needs. The enemy loves to thwart the purpose of how God designed things by packaging it differently that would otherwise lead us away from God not to Him.
If men do not rise up to be the men they were created to be, women will be forced to adapt to get the strength from themselves and have a self-guarded stance more than a protecting nurturing helping stance that was their initial design. If men will not lead and be thrusted into his God-given role, it will affect us women because we were designed to be co-functioning with your gifts.
Just men fulfilling their roles is no small thing, wherever they are. It's a big thing to us as women.
I believe the world will be a better place if both men and women fulfill their roles. People look up to and want to be a Steve Jobs or a Mark Zuckerberg someday. They are our role models for innovation and for creating successful technology startups. We also need role models for godly manhood and we desperately need it in this society. We need to be able to point somewhere Wow I also want to emulate that. I want to be a better man. Any wonder why little boys ever liked Superman and toy soldiers?
As a closing, I would like to share a reminder from Hebrews 13:1 that we "Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters."
Thank you everyone and may you have a refreshing weekend!
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