If a life-long marriage between one man and one woman is of great value (see previous post), then it would pay to spend some time strategizing how to protect it. Our culture and political correctness don’t have a clue of how to ensure a marriage lasts, let alone even consider it important to be married or protect marriage.
How can a marriage be strong if we’re not even willing to admit that the male and female have different expectations and roles in a marriage? Political correctness would say that males and females are the same. Gender confusion abounds. Kids are urged to experiment with their gender, and even have surgery to change it if they feel they were born with the wrong gender.
A stroll through any kids’ toy store, though, shows there’s money to be made on the differences in the sexes. The section that is obviously for girls and attracts girl customers has princesses, fairies and lots and lots of pinks and purples. The section for boys has monsters, warriors and lots of earth tones and cammo.
It doesn’t really matter though what pc or Madison Avenue preach. What matters is to line our thinking up with all the truth in God’s Word. He has righteous standards, and He is LOVE. He is the creator and sustainer of life, and He gets to tell us how things are. And He does so in order that things go well for us.
Males and females have separate but equally important roles. In general terms, males are created to provide and protect. Females are made to nurture and help. We are complex creatures with many individual differences, but it’s helpful to understand these basic differences in order to protect a marriage. We can see these gender differences in the original creation of humans.
“So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” ( Genesis 1:27) Males are different from females, yet each bears some of the image of God. They are different, yet of ultimate worth as the part of creation that reflects God’s image.
We see the different roles defined as the Genesis narrative continues in chapter two. “The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. But the Lord God warned him, ‘You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden— except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.’
“Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.’ So the Lord God formed from the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and the man chose a name for each one. He gave names to all the livestock, all the birds of the sky, and all the wild animals. But still there was no helper just right for him.
“So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While the man slept, the Lord God took out one of the man’s ribs and closed up the opening. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man.
‘“At last!’ the man exclaimed. ‘This one is bone from my bone, and flesh from my flesh! She will be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken from ‘man.’’
“This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” (Genesis 2:15-23)
As with Adam, males get a major part of their esteem/identity by being productive. God gave Adam many tasks to do and he set about doing them. For men, a great fear that messes with their identity is failure.
Eve was created when the male needed someone of his own kind to help him and be in a special relationship with him called marriage. Females get their greatest esteem/identity in relationships. A great fear which damages their identity is rejection.
For a man to have a good day, he needs to feel productive and successful by fixing something, figuring out a difficult problem or making progress on project. A bad day is when something breaks, a problem can’t be solved, or he’s distracted by the “urgent” and doesn’t accomplish the “important.”
For a woman, a good day is when she has a meaningful connection with a friend or family member. A bad day for her would be when she hurts someone’s feelings or they hurt hers and a relationship wounded. She won’t feel right until the relationship is mended.
Of course men enjoy good relationships, too. It may just be that they feel success if the relationships are going well or failure if they can’t identify the problem with the relationship and fix it. Females, of course, enjoy productivity and success, too. It may just be that they really feel all is right with their world when successfully completing tasks is simultaneous with good feelings about relationships. She doesn’t feel good if the task succeeds, but a relationship is wounded.
There are two major ways God has established to bring about the “oneness” He desires for the marriage couple. Not surprisingly they have to do with what is so very important to each gender. Couples can use them as powerful weapons against each other to strike where it hurts most (failure for him, rejection for her), or they can grow and become fantastic in these areas and experience more and more oneness. It’s really a spiritual battle, as the forces out to destroy marriage in these two areas are fearsome.
God made most men with the stronger of the sexual desires in marriage. There are a lot of good reasons for this, but one is to make sure the man always has a strong pull to come home and be with his wife and family. Guys need to be successful in the area of lovemaking. A Christian husband doesn’t need to conquer as many conquests as he can. God has given him a strong need to please his wife and have mutually satisfying lovemaking with her. God created sex to be pleasurable and a strong bond between a husband and wife.
You can see how the enemy of our souls has worked overtime since the first generation of humans to corrupt and foul everything in the area of sex. A glimpse at the culture around us is all we need to see that one man and one woman mutually satisfying each other in a healthy marriage is not what is promoted. It is a fierce battle couples need to wage to come to the standard God designed and at last freely enjoy what God intended for good in the area of sexuality.
We can’t engage the battle unless we’re aware of how past experiences have ruined our current thoughts and feelings about sex. Some common problems couples face and need to deal with are: an uninterested spouse, one or the other having been molested as a child or young adult, previous promiscuous relationships (anything outside of marriage), and sexual addictions including pornography. God wants you to be free from these past experiences so you can "enjoy the wife of your youth," (Proverbs 5:18). If any of these issues are damaging your current marriage bed or your future marriage if you’re not now married, there is help. Seek out a trusted Christian friend or counselor and engage the battle. Fight to make your marriage all it can be in the area of sex. If you don’t, your spouse may be tempted to go elsewhere, and the destruction to your family will be great.
The second tool God has given us for bonding in marriage is very relational, so women tend to desire it most of all. Guys tend not to engage this battle, as they often feel like a failure in this area, and we’ve already seen how important it is for guys to feel successful. The most important relational bonding between marriage partners is as a husband takes up his role as spiritual leader in the home and prays with his wife. Many youth pastors tell couples not to pray together when they’re dating because they know this is an avenue that creates intimacy quickly between couples. It’s best to save serious praying together until after marriage when God can use it in establishing couples in that oneness marriage is designed for.
Some Christian husbands are not willing to take up leadership in the spiritual area of their home, though they may feel guilt over not doing so. This may be because his wife intimidates him and makes him feel like a failure. This could be because praying out loud and sharing intimate feelings comes more naturally to women with their relational skills. He may think she’s better at it, so leave it to her to do all the praying and spiritual discussing. He may have even tried at one time to pray with his wife, but she made him feel like he didn’t do it the way she would. Men may also not have ever had a male to model spiritual leadership in their upbringing, so they don’t know how to do it, and to try would feel like a failure.
You can see that this is another area where couples need to wage spiritual battle to overcome and establish the pattern of praying together. Wives need to give their husbands the freedom to start slowly. I tell guys if they’ve never prayed with their wives to not feel like they have to be experts from the beginning. Start by taking her hands one morning and praying a prayer like, “God, help us today. We need you so.” As you get more comfortable praying out loud, add a thanksgiving or a praise for something good in your life. (Note to wives: do not put him down for a simple beginning. Thank him for taking the time to pray with you and encourage him to continue.) Soon you can add requests and adoration for Who God is. Give each other freedom to be yourselves and not worry about what someone else thinks of your prayer. After all, that's what marriage is for: intimacy with no regrets or shame.
If this is an area that husbands think they can let slide, they’re not aware of what a strong battle this is. Women are desperate for loving, spiritual leadership and may look elsewhere if they don’t get it at home. Why do you think so many male spiritual leaders have affairs? Of course they are strongly tempted and the enemy would like nothing better than to bring them down. But it takes two to have an affair, and the women most always come to them for counsel and prayer. An intimate relationship is established and barriers are let down. Unless they engage the battle, an affair is in the making. Protect your marriage, guys, by praying with your wife and letting her and God know it’s important to you that the two of you focus your marriage in God’s direction.
Neither Hollywood nor Madison Avenue can offer the wonderful freedom and experience a Christian marriage brings a couple. Understand gender differences and then fight to be sure all your spiritual and physical intimacies are being fully met only with your spouse and God. It’s so worth it for you, your children and future generations.
