A lot of this post will be about submission, specifically in regards to being a wife. My disclaimer, of course, is that I'm not married. And neither are many females who I know & love - and who inspired this blog. I'm going to focus on submission as a wife, though, for 2 reasons: it's a huge issue in our post-modern society, and understanding God's design for "helpmating" should be the foundation on which we (single women) base our decisions for [potential] relationships.
In other words, understanding what God says about being a helpmate should inform our decision making process regarding the type of man to whom we pledge our life.
Have you ever read 'those Scriptures' that just left you confused, frustrated, and maybe even a wee irritated? For many, I Corinthians 7:8 has been one of those verses. God created marriage. He designed men & women to desire marriage. He blesses marriage. Marriage is beautiful, godly, and good. Why, then, does Paul say "to the unmarried and to the widows: it is good for them if they remain [single]"? In my experience, people rightly explain this passage by saying that when a person is single s/he can 'focus fully on God in their free time,' but then they depart from Scripture's focus and tend to give examples such as: "when a woman gets married, she has laundry to do, and cooking, and cleaning, and..."
And I already do that. I cook - and clean - and do laundry.
Paul is not talking about practical chores. Sure, men are (from what I hear) notorious for scattering dishes, missing the toilet bowl, and draping socks & skivvies halfway across the hamper (if they make it that far), so a wife's practical responsibilities do increase. Yet marriage's significance in a man's or woman's life far exceeds the monotonous household hubbub or bringing home the bacon.
Let's go back to the first husband & wife for a moment. Genesis 2 details God's creation of mankind. He said, "It is not good for the man to be alone" (2:18). He ushered each of the beasts & birds past His beloved man, granted Adam the privilege of naming each animal, but then noted that "there was not found a helper suitable for him" (2:20). God's solution? It wasn't to say, "Welp, them's the breaks! You're better off a-l-o-n-e anyway. Them females is jest trou...ble." No! God fashioned a specific helpmate for Adam. He created marriage, designed man to need a helpmate, fashioned woman to help man, and blessed the union.
Before turning from Genesis into the New Testament where I will attempt to thrash the liberal concepts of womanhood, femininity, equality, and marriage out of you, I want to discuss part of woman's curse. Genesis 3:16 reads, "To the woman He said...'Yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.'" Yep, another oft-misunderstood, or vastly skipped, passage because people don't seem to want to face & deal with the tough stuff these days.
I've heard this verse interpreted as a wife's desire to usurp the husband's position of authority within marriage, and the husband responding harshly - with an iron fist, so to speak. I won't argue against this interpretation, but God spoke something to me through this verse a while back that reflects an unarguable weakness in women, and I think it actually supports the interpretation of usurpation.
Woman feels the need for constant reinforcement of love, perceived through receiving attention from man, and therefore constantly desires that his attention & focus remain on her. We seek to usurp God's rightful place as the focal point of man by drawing man's focus onto ourselves.
Yep, chicas, I called us on the carpet. Not because we can help being cursed, but because we can submit our emotions to our Creator and allow Him to direct our responses to our nature. In other words, we may have natural struggles, but we have supernatural help for disciplining ourselves & overcoming those struggles. We are not called to pull man's attention onto ourselves! And in regards to marriage, we are called, conversely, to call mankind's attention to God by reverencing our husbands.
Ahh, the time has come. My favorite passage about women, particularly wives, in the whole Bible! I Peter 3:1-6. For the sake of space, I'll only quote a selection:
"In like manner, you married women, be submissive to your own husbands [subordinate yourselves as being secondary to and dependent on them, and adapt yourselves to them], so that...they observe the pure and modest way in which you conduct yourselves, together with your reverence [for your husband; you are to feel for him all that reverence includes: to respect, defer to, revere him - to honor, esteem, appreciate, price, and, in the human sense, to adore him, that is, to admire, praise, be devoted to, deeply love, and enjoy your husband]. Let not yours be the [merely] external adorning...but let it be the inward adorning and beauty of the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible and unfading charm of a gentle and peaceful spirit, which [is not anxious or wrought up, but] is very precious in the sight of God."
Take a moment to process that.
No really, take a moment....and process the Word of God.
Marriage isn't a game. It's not a fairy tale. It's not a romance flic, or 'growing up and playing house.' Marriage is not a curse on those for whom God has fashioned a helpmate. Neither is it a blessing for those who rush forward in life, grasping in fear for a relationship in order to feel 'normal' and 'fulfilled.' It certainly isn't a state of being designed merely for mankind's pleasure.
Marriage is a union designed by God, for the purpose of glorifying God. For women, the role in marriage is simple: be a helpmate, fully submitted to your husband.
When Paul expresses his personal desire that all be like him, he doesn't mean that marriage is bad. (NOTE: Paul does not say, "God changed His mind - marriage is outmoded, terrible, awful. He's modernized, so we need to modernize with Him and eradicate this antiquated institution from society.) Paul was aware that being a "helpmate" is a spiritual call, not simply a practical transition from doing chores as a daughter to playing house with a lover.
As an unmarried woman, I do chores because I have to, but I'm free to devote all my spare time (time unconstrained by practical necessities like working, eating, and sleeping) to undivided worship of my Creator - prayer, fasting, singing, dancing, reading.... I can literally spend every available moment of every day doing nothing but focusing directly on God. I can volunteer my bountiful spare time to charities, or nursing homes, or schools. I can even put off some of the practical - with no negative impact on a husband or children - to spend more time with Him for a season.
As a wife, the spiritual expression of glorifying God is through submission and service to my husband. Our ministry, as women, is to our husband. We glorify God through counting ourselves as secondary to our husband - meeting his practical needs before our own, grooming ourselves to honor him (attractively & modestly), comporting ourselves in such a way as to externally demonstrate our reverence and adoring of our husbands, both privately & publicly.
In practical terms, we speak highly of him to our girlfriends - not tearing him down, complaining about all his bad habits, and wondering what we ever saw in him. We back him up in front of our children - even if we disagree with his decisions. We pack our bags and move if he says God is leading the family elsewhere - even if our emotions aren't convinced he's right. We enhance others' admiration of him through our behavior. And yes, ladies, we care for our appearance (not elaborately, but consciously) so that he doesn't have to be embarrassed by a slovenly bride whose disheveled looks reflect a habitually unkempt house.
This is not an affront to equality. This isn't an enslavement of womanhood to patriarchal concepts of femininity.
This is an external articulation of our spiritual relationship with a very real, and very holy, God. Submission isn't simply obedience: the outward conformance of behavior to rules & regulations. In genuine submission, obedience translates the internal humble compliance of the heart into a practical outpouring that testifies to Christ's work of salvation. As William Barclay explains in his study The Letters of James and Peter, "It is not a spineless submission that is meant, but rather...a 'voluntary selflessness'...based on the death of pride and the desire to serve. It is the submission not of fear but of perfect love."
I used to fear marriage because of submission; however, God spoke very clearly to me that just as submission of our will to Christ's brings freedom (redemption), so also 'relinquishing autonomy' to a man (submission) frees a wife to glorify Christ through her ministry to her husband. Through the complete abandonment of her individual rights, a woman is freed to serve her King.
This freedom through submission cannot be fully realized & appreciated, though, if we ignore the most crucial step: laying down our lives, hopes & dreams included, at the foot of the cross. If we have been crucified with Christ, if we have been ransomed by His holy blood, then we must not persist in demanding our way, our time. God does place a burden of action upon His children, but not in the sense of 'making things happen.'
Consider Mary, mother of Jesus. Francis Schaeffer describes Mary as a typical young Jewish girl, about 17-18 years old, and in love with Joseph. An angel visits her, announcing that she'll give birth as a virgin to the Savior of the world. Schaeffer suggests 3 possible responses to this news: heck no, heck yeah & I'm gonna make sure everything goes just right, or "Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word" (Luke 1:38). Mary's response illustrates what Schaeffer terms "active passivity." He states, "She took her own body, by choice, and put it into the hands of God to do the thing that he said he would do, and Jesus was born" (52). Mary's actions were not in her own will or strength. She submitted to God's will (active), but refrained from executing His plan in her own time or strength or according to her own dreams/concepts of how her future would progress (passivity).
Like Mary, many of us have ideas on how our future should go. But also like Mary, as adoptive heirs of the King, we are bondslaves. "We are in the same situation," Schaeffer encourages, "in that we have these great and thrilling promises we have been considering, and we are neither to think of ourselves as totally passive, as though we had no part in this, as though God had stopped dealing with us now as men; nor are we to think we can do it ourselves" (52-53). God knows our desires, our hopes, our fears. And so I plead with you, submit to God today...trust your Creator today...know that the God of Eve, Sarah, Hannah, Mary - that very same God - has a plan for your life. Hold out for the Abrahams, Boazes, and Josephs!
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