by A R Bernard
Modern culture tries to convince you that all the rules have changed, that God’s model for marriage is no longer valid, and that the old system just doesn’t work anymore. But the message of modern culture is untrue. The model for a successful marriage isn’t out of date. In fact, the formula hasn’t changed since the New Testament times when Jesus advised husbands and wives to become so totally committed to each other that “they are no longer two but one flesh” (Matthew 19:6 NKJV).
The Man from Galilee taught us that a successful marriage isn’t about selfishness; it’s about selflessness. It isn’t about finding yourself; it’s about binding yourselves to each other. When two people truly become one, that’s the two-thousand-year-old formula that works. Anything less is a prescription for disaster, no matter what the culture says.
“If you don’t grow together, you will grow apart.” Growing apart is automatic. Growing together is a choice. That choice requires discipline and commitment. We use a great book in our premarital program entitled His Needs, Her Needs: Building an Affair-Proof Marriage, by Willard F. Harley Jr. I recommend it highly to couples getting married or having trouble in their marriage. All relationships are based on needs. Harley covers the basic needs of each partner in the marriage relationship. When we focus on each other’s needs as well as our own, it protects us from selfishness. Selfishness is a sign of immaturity, which is a failure to accept responsibility for anyone other than one’s self. This is why I call marriage an empathetic union. Empathy is my willingness to open myself up to the feelings and needs of the one I love and make them my own!
On the pages that follow, I’ll examine the institution of marriage, not as defined by pop culture or social norms, but as defined by God. His formula hasn’t changed, it’s not going to change, and it doesn’t need to change—because it works. Always has. Always will.
It’s a formula based on proven patterns and eternal principles.
— QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION —
When you think about the changes the institution of marriage has gone through, how do you feel? How have you or your partner let self-expression get in the way of commitment? How have you had to adapt and adjust in your own relationship? Have you seen bitterness take root in your own life? How have you dealt with it?
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— PRAYER —
FOR MEN: God, I believe you created marriage, and I want to honor that creation. Show me ways in which I have put self-actualization ahead of Your will. Help me to adapt and adjust. I want to let go of “finding myself” and instead “bind myself” to my spouse. In Your name, Amen.
FOR WOMEN: Lord, please help me make the necessary sacrifices, along with my spouse, so that my marriage will be centered on an indivisible union instead of an individual. In Your name I pray, Amen.
— 3 —
PATTERNS AND PRINCIPLES
We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.
—Jimmy Carter
The book of Genesis describes patterns of character and behavior that have come to all men and women from the original man and woman. This historical record affords us the opportunity to understand God’s plan for marriage. If we acknowledge His patterns and use them as the cornerstone of our relationships, we are inevitably blessed. But Genesis also serves as a clear warning to those who would ignore God’s guidance. Couples who choose to disregard God’s blueprint for marriage do so at their own risk.
“I know that God has a plan for our marriage. Some days, it’s easy to understand that plan, and some days it’s harder. That’s why we must ask for God’s guidance every day.”
—ANGIE B.
Here Angie raises the question, how does God guide us on a daily basis? We understand the wisdom and guidance that comes from the study of Scripture. But a wonderful passage of Scripture speaks to this daily guidance. It is found in the Psalms of David 37:23. The translation that expresses the beauty of the text is the New Living Translation. It reads, “The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives.” First, it’s exciting to know that although God is involved in world affairs and running this vast universe in which we live, he still cares about the details of our lives. The key word in the text is direct. How does God direct?
The word direct means to cause someone’s attention, thoughts, or emotions to relate to a particular person, thing, cause, goal, or objective. God knows how to draw our attention and how to influence our thoughts and emotions in ways that move in a certain direction. I cannot tell you how many times I have felt a divine hand at work in my life, opening doors and bringing the right people into my life. God has a plan for you and your relationships!
God designed men and women according to a perfect plan: His plan. Trusting that plan is essential if we are to build better relationships, better marriages, and happier homes. But increasingly, it seems that happy homes are getting harder to find. Traditional values are being devalued by modern culture, and marriage is under attack.
During the twentieth century, women gained rights in the workplace, in the voting booth, and in our institutions of higher learning—all good things. Thankfully, the trend continues. It’s been a long struggle, and the struggle isn’t over. But here in the twenty-first century, women are increasingly evaluated, not by gender stereotypes, but by their abilities and their contributions. These changes, long overdue, have done much to level the professional playing fields and to bring fairness into everyday American life. As a nation, we’re improving slowly—far too slowly at times—but surely. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. correctly observed, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
While the benefits of the women’s rights movement and the continued efforts for equality have made our country a far better place, there has been an unintended consequence: As a society, we’ve managed to confuse equal rights with equal roles. We’ve come to believe, wrongly, that the roles of husband and wife are interchangeable. Guided by this mistaken notion, we’ve arrived at an erroneous conclusion: that role reversal inside the marriage is not only an acceptable thing but also a desirable thing. We’ve confused equal treatment under the law with equal roles inside the marriage.
Let me take a moment to make an observation that is so obvious, so easily recognized, so completely, totally, and indisputably apparent that it almost doesn’t need to be stated. But I’ll state it anyway: men and women are different.
Very different.
Not just physically different.
Not just emotionally different.
Not just psychologically different.
Men and women are different in all these ways and more. But modern culture has encouraged us to ignore these differences, with the predictably poor consequences. Husbands and wives have become confused about the roles they’re expected to play inside a “modern” relationship. Yet the internal constructs of human nature are not in flux. They were established by our Creator long ago. And, like every other thing that God created, He did it according to His own principles and patterns, irrespective of cultural trends.
So it’s time to rethink the institution of marriage, not based upon society’s point of view, but upon God’s point of view. And it’s time to pay particular attention to the God-given personality traits that are as old as mankind and womankind. To understand these traits, it’s always wise to begin at the beginning.
As a beginning point, we need look no further than the second chapter of Genesis where God stated a simple, straightforward fact. He said, “It is not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). In this verse, God didn’t mince words. He didn’t say, “Sometimes, it’s not good for man to be alone,” and He didn’t say, “Maybe it’s not good for man to be alone.” He said, “It’s not good for a man to be alone.” Period. This statement is clear-cut; it doesn’t leave room for interpretation. The Creator declared that intimate female companionship was (and is) needed by man for his own
good.
Next, God followed up with a second declaration of equal importance: He said, “I will make for him a helpmate.” Think for a moment about the word helpmate. What was the Creator saying when He chose that word? Again, the answer is straightforward: God was saying, in no uncertain terms, that man needs help.
It’s worth noting that we men don’t think like that. We see ourselves as the helpers, not the helpees. We don’t want any advice, any warnings, or any second opinions. We view ourselves as independent operators, problem solvers, autonomous leaders whose authority must never be questioned. When we look in the mirror, we see decision makers, coolheaded commanders in chief capable of surveying the landscape and then boldly going where no man has gone before. We don’t need the instruction manual; we don’t like committee meetings; we hate asking for directions (even when we’re lost). And we don’t see the need for help, even from a helpmate appointed by God.
We’re bulletproof.
Or so we think.
In truth, we do need help, and lots of it. But we don’t realize how much help we need or how desperately we need it. In our haste to gain “autonomy” and to preserve our “freedom,” we men seem destined to make countless blunders, some great and some small, because we’re too hardheaded to accept assistance. So we disregard the implied warning of Genesis 2; we ignore the fact that we need help. And we forget that God has appointed our wives to help us.
A wife strives mightily to help her husband because that’s how God made her. A woman’s desire to support her husband is simply a manifestation of her God-given nature as a helpmate. Our wives were created with a natural need to secure, protect, correct, and give advice—whether we men want it or not. In fact, the number one complaint that men have about women is that women are always trying to control them. Women can be subtle, of course, but their messages still manage to get through.
When a woman asks, “Are you going to wear that tie?” she means, “I hope you don’t wear that tie.”
When a woman asks, “Are you hungry?” she means, “I’m hungry. Let’s get something to eat.”
“Are you sure you want that parking space?” means, “There’s probably a better parking space down front.”
A woman’s question (which seems harmless to her) may be interpreted by her man as meddling. He likes the tie he picked out (or he wouldn’t have picked it out); he’s not hungry (or he would have already stopped for food); and he doesn’t need help finding a parking place (because he’s already spotted a perfectly good one, thank you very much).
What to a woman seems helpful advice can be interpreted by the man as a threat to his authority. What to a woman seems “assisting” is often viewed by the man as “controlling.” A woman’s subtle hint can be easily misinterpreted by her man as nagging. But that’s usually not how she meant it at all.
Until men understand that their wives have an internal need to help—and until wives begin to understand that their husbands have a built-in “control-detector”—communication inside the marriage will suffer. And as the lines of communication begin to fray, bad things begin to happen. These unfortunate circumstances are entirely preventable if husbands and wives understand two important facts: first, that God created women with an inborn need to help, and second, that men need the help women were created to give.
Left to their own devices, men sometimes behave immaturely, thus beginning an unfortunate cycle of events as the male’s desire for independence comes into conflict with the female’s God-given urge to help. This cycle is as predictable as it is destructive. Often it begins when the husband does something that his conscience tells him is “borderline” at best. But he does it anyway. Then the wife, who knows her husband better than he knows himself, senses quite correctly that her man needs some sort of midcourse correction. So she communicates this fact, usually (but not always) with words.
The husband—feeling somewhat chastised—becomes resentful. As a way of expressing his “independence” or his “manhood,” he digs in his heels and expresses his displeasure (often, but not always) with words. After all, he tells himself, he’s the boss.
As the husband’s stubbornness increases, so does the wife’s innate need to help, usually in the form of more vociferous advice, which the husband misinterprets as harassment. And so the cycle continues, with the husband feeling mistreated and the wife trying to help in the best way she knows how. Things might go downhill from there . . . but not necessarily. Husbands and wives can put an end to the bickering when they genuinely understand—and humbly acknowledge—a simple fact: men and women are different because God made them that way.
UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCES
Time and again, the Bible conveys the clear distinction between men and women: their responsibilities, their roles, and even their clothing (Deuteronomy 22:5). God created Adam first, in His own image. Adam represents God’s pattern for manhood. Being made in the image of God, Adam had the capacity to know truth, the capacity to recognize moral excellence, and the capacity to exercise his own free will. Adam had the power to choose. Whatever God took out of Adam to create Eve, He never replaced. And whatever God left in Adam, He never put in Eve. So it’s not in God’s plan for a man to be a woman or vice versa. God intended for the woman to be the completion of the man in God—not the competition of the man only, nor the competition of God in the man’s life.
As I’ve said, it’s worth noting again that God gave Adam a job before He gave him a wife: “The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it” (Genesis 2:15 NIV). Adam developed his talent first; he was a career man before he was a family man. That was the pattern that God established.
From the beginning, man defined himself through his vocation and through his ability to achieve results. And very little has changed since then. Men are often more interested in objects and things than in people and feelings. Men still value power, competency, and efficiency; they still experience fulfillment through success and accomplishment on the job.
But despite these admirable traits, God looked at Adam and decided that a man, even a man who took his vocation seriously, wasn’t enough. Adam was capable, and he was autonomous, but he wasn’t accountable. Adam had acquired his talents in solitude. Now it was time to acquire something even more important: character.
You can develop a talent when you’re alone, but you can develop character only when you’re with someone. Who you really are in life is not found in your skill, your talent, your ability, or your career; it’s found in your character.
Character naturally develops sooner in women, who mature more quickly than men do. But that’s only one of the differences. Women also tend to be more relationship oriented; their sense of self is defined through their feelings and through the quality of their relationships. More than their male counterparts, women value love, communication, beauty, and community. They experience fulfillment through sharing. They’re more interested in harmony, companionship, and loving cooperation. These traits do not occur by accident; they reflect patterns that are as old as the Garden of Eden.
Eve’s first relationship was with another human being. Unlike Adam, she never experienced solitude, nor did she ever focus solely on her work. God established that pattern long ago. Here are a few more traits that are as old as humankind:
• Women believe in collective effort; men often strive for individual success.
• Women tend to focus on relationships; men tend to focus on the task at hand, presuming that everything will be okay “once the problem is fixed.”
• Women want to solve problems together; men want to solve problems individually, by thinking things over in solitude.
• Women tend to approach decisions intuitively; men try to make decisions analytically.
• Women feel the need to improve things (gradually, if necessary); men feel compelled to solve things (once and for all).
• Women seek unanimity within the family or the group; men prefer to
act unilaterally, without supervision.
• Women want to talk about things first; men want to fix things first and talk about it later (if ever).
• Women experience everyday tasks more deeply and are more likely to attribute meaning to everyday events; men are more concerned with checking things off their to-do lists, giving little thought to the deeper meanings of everyday experiences.
Can you begin to see the patterns? Can you see how problems arise when husbands don’t understand wives and vice versa? And can you see how changing definitions of marriage have caused chaos for couples who simply cannot reconcile new cultural norms with God’s unchanging patterns and principles?
The best thing a woman can do for her husband is to make it easy for him to do the will of God.
—ELISABETH ELLIOT
INTERPRETING THE PATTERN AND DETERMINING YOUR RESPONSE
Recognizing our differences isn’t enough. We must also discover how to respond to those differences. As way of getting started, here are five simple strategies for husbands and wives:
1. Giving and Receiving Advice
For Husbands
When it comes to receiving advice, be more accepting of your wife’s counsel, recognizing that God created her to be your helpmate.
What’s Needed: Humility and Maturity
For Wives
When it comes to giving advice, be sure that your natural tendency to help is reserved for important matters, not for all matters.
What’s Needed: Discernment and Moderation
2. Expressing Emotions
For Husbands