My reaction to these articles that are very disturbing in our denomination:
There once was a knife. A beautiful, shiny delicate little knife that lived snuggly in the case it was designed to fit in. One day, someone came along and took the knife out of her case, carried her around, and left her in an office on the corner of a desk.
A man came in the office who wasn’t feeling good, was having trouble with his job, financial pressure was piling on his shoulders, his marriage was not what it had been and he was almost at the end of his rope. He saw the knife laying on his desk. He took the knife and went and stabbed his wife, his children, his grandchildren, his church members, and then himself. He then tossed the knife aside. _____________________________________________________________
In the trail of the devastation that was caused, two conclusions are drawn. Who is guilty – the man or the knife? We have differing opinions on who is guilty and we feel pretty settles about it. Or do we? I would like to throw a couple more things on the table.
1. The knife belonged in its case – not in the office.
I am not sure where it is in the Bible that we are told to take our children to a Pastor for counseling. Actually, I find it all over the Scriptures that it is the parent’s job to raise our children. Not the Christian school. Not the Sunday school. Not the church youth group. If we are having trouble and needing counsel for our children, then WE should be the one’s in the office – not the kids. Children will have a hard time getting taken advantage of, if parents would quit delegating their own God-given responsibilities to the church. As a parent, this challenges me to not blame anyone else for who is to help my children according to God’s Word.
2. The knife was an object for a greater desire.
The knife was used all right, but the knife was not the main problem. There was a desire to do something that was already planted in the heart. If it wasn’t the knife, it would have been the letter opener, or a book, or an office chair. The point? One young girl, willing or not, is not the problem. The problem was a deeper desire that was acted upon a girl.
I have heard much preaching that if women would only “…..” then men would not have such a lust problem. Wrong. Men have a lust problem…period. It is in their sin nature and that is why a godly man will do whatever it is that he needs to do to flee. Sin is available everywhere we turn. It is available with the push of a TV remote, the typing of a website, the texting of a number, the walk down a magazine aisle and the look around your mall’s shopping windows. However, not one of those things literally can pry open the eyelids of a man, or grab his head and turn it in that direction. The problem is not the lure of sin. The problem is the lure of our very hearts to gravitate and act upon that sin. We can gripe, preach, write and blame the object all day long but if we involve ourselves in that sin, then the blame must rest squarely on our shoulders.
As a Christian woman, I would not want to be the object of a man’s lust, but the truth is that if a man wants to lust he will even if I am dressed in my Sunday best. I am a firm believer in modesty, but I will not have the blame shifted away from the individual responsibility that we all must have to not yield to our own fleshly desires.
3. The knife was crafted for a unique purpose.
I have read so many books that teach women that their purpose here on this earth is for her husband. Books elevate the role of the husband into a god-like position whose opinion and every word must come straight from heaven, into his heart and out of his mouth. And we women, are to listen and follow every thing that he says and if we do not, then we will not be protected spiritually because he is our head and authority and therefore, our spiritual protection falls under him. I disagree. Let me say that I heartily disagree!
I agree that the Bible says that the man is the head of the wife (I Corinthians 11:2) but that headship does not refer to a self-centered power play but of a leader who takes care to serve the spiritual, emotional, and physical needs of his wife. I also agree that God created Eve to be a help meet for Adam and it is our wonderful privilege as godly married women to be an encourager and a help to our husbands. As we do this, this is manifested in different ways in our marriages between two people who love each other.
What I disagree with is that the sole purpose for a woman is to be for her man. What about women that don’t marry? Is their sole purpose to be for their fathers? I don’t think so. Our sole purpose as a human is to glorify and worship the Lord – not our husbands. As a woman, I can glorify the Lord married or single so my identity is not wrapped up in a man. It is wrapped up in being a child of God.
If our identity, our strength, our security and our belief system is wrapped up in our husbands, then what happens if they are human and sin? What happens if they make wrong choices? What happens if they deceive and fool you? What happens if they tell you that what they are doing is what God says is okay and what Jesus wants for you, but is in direct disobedience to the Word of God?
If our lives are dependent on our husbands, then if they fail, we will fall apart. It is not even fair to them to make them our gods. They can’t be, and God doesn’t want them to be. If our lives are dependent on Jesus Christ, then He is the ultimate Healer. He desires to heal our men, and He desires to heal us. As we both make Christ our goal, and seek to glorify Him, Christ alone will then heal the brokenness in our own lives. Our purpose is not to glorify and uplift a man. That belongs only to God. It is not my job as a wife to help my man find this place in Christ. It is the man’s individual job to find what He needs in Christ so that he is also fulfilled.
If man-worship is ultimately being taught in our marriages, it will end in sad results. I know from experience that every time I have allowed my reverence for a man to become higher than my reverence for God, that God has allowed that man’s humanity to crash my world. God will have NO other gods before Him and idolatry is still idolatry. (See my husband’s post here and then apply it to our marriages). Worship of any human will always lead to devastation.
As a woman, I want to be used for exactly what God designed me to be used as. Not as an item of destruction, not as one who worships a man, or not as one who is the object of another’s worship, but as one who glorifies my God.
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There once was a knife. A beautiful, shiny delicate little knife that lived snuggly in the case it was designed to fit in. One day, someone came along and took the knife out of her case, carried her around, and left her in an office on the corner of a desk.
The knife looked around and realized she was in the wrong place. She realized this was not where she was supposed to be. This little knife did not lay there unable to do anything about it. She was not going to be held hostage to the whims of the one who took her there. This little knife cried out for help and a stranger with kind eyes and scars on His hands heard her cry. He took her gently in His nail scarred hands and delicately carried her back to her case. He told her that she must be careful to not listen to those who would carry her away from the safety of where He had placed her. The little knife was happy and content and forever grateful to the One who showed her the way home. We could all have been this knife, our children could be this knife, and maybe we have already been this knife. Is the fault the knife or the man? I think there is more than just this shallow vote. There is so much that has been horribly wrong in all of this on many levels. It is time to wake out of our spiritual slumber and allow Jesus Christ, through His precious Words, help us find our way home as a parent, a church member, a wife and an individual.
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