Armchair QB- Respect

Fathers, do not exasperate your children;

instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. 

Ephesians 6:4 NIV

What a simple verse, but oh, how it irked me yesterday.  My friend, a single mother, sat beside me.  While I know the brokenness of our relationships is due to sin, what now?  What about the fatherless?  What about those who have experienced failure as parents?  What about those who no longer have children in the home?  What does this verse mean for those not parenting?

(Note: As I was researching this blog, my NIV translation actually says fathers could be translated parents.  That was not brought up in the message yesterday and I did not utilize that understanding as I processed this verse.  Although I often bristle at the patriarchal tone of Christianity and the Bible,  for this post it is inconsequential.)

Sometimes the sermon just has little to do with you.  On those Sunday mornings, it is just a time to have fun singing with a rockin' band, catch up with friends, and plan where to have lunch while praying the speaker wraps up early.  This could have been one of those for me.  Except for this blog.  I use this Armchair QB series as a place to push myself, or really to push the message, to find out if it applies to me.  Sometime during the message, between my snarling and jotting down questions to help construct the future post, I found it.  It was a memory.

My road to Christianity was twisty dirt paths with lots of steep turns and hills that would take the road out of view while I climbed.  One day, I was trying to figure out how this Christian thing would work for me.  It was during a particularly challenging moment in my life when I was healing some old wounds.  As I prayed, because you don't really need to believe to pray, God clearly offered to be my Father.  Think what you will.  Doesn't matter if you believe or not because it doesn't change the reality of the experience.

I didn't have this Christian household when I was growing up.  I didn't have this father who would train me in the ways of God.  It just wasn't the way that my family was.  But what I had was a relationship with a God who wanted to be my Father.

Of course, that could seem bizarre.  How could God train me up in the ways of the Lord, right?  You didn't really ask that questions, did you?  I hope not.

As I said, this has been a long journey.  God has been training me, was instructing me, before I was aware of him.  When I came to an understand of God within the context of the story of Christianity, it was like seeing your parent from that new perspective when you transition from teenager to an adult.

The richness of his Word startled me.

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding (or, for me, on the God of my own understanding)." Proverbs 3:5

“Because he loves me,” says the LORD, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call on me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him." Psalm 91:14-15

"Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear." Isaiah 65:24 

"Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the LORD...“Get yourself ready! Stand up and say to them whatever I command you. Do not be terrified by them, or I will terrify you before them." Jeremiah 1:8,17

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Galatians 5:1

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38-39

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast." Ephesians 2:8-9

"He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus." Revelations 22:20

These are just some of the treasures that are closest to my heart's surface.  God has been good, so good, to me.  While I may not have had the father that trains children to love God, God did not abandon me (He is a father to the fatherless. Psalm 68:5).

But what about the instruction?  The warning?   Well, there is always this: "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 6:23

Or there are the words of Jesus himself, my personal preference: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." John 15:5 

I don't know if there is much that I want to do, other than learn to love and trust God even more.  I am not counting the 5K or shooting my first pheasant or finishing my degree or even teaching my grand-daughter about Jesus.  Those are all terrific things, but in one way or another, they are impermanent.  This God who has stolen my heart is constant.   While apart from him I can do nothing, with him, anything is possible.

With my Father, that is.

Armchair QB

Oh, the lovely chapter 5 of Paul's letter to the Ephesians.  It causes feminists to bristle and men to stick out their chests, right?  Well....not if you read the chapter.

Today Kirk led Hope farther into the text, to how the husbands should treat their wives.  You can read the verses here. 

Now, based on my earlier post on submission, y'all, (all 2 readers that I have and one of you is my husband), probably think that I would be hooting and cheering.  Not really.  What I thought was actually how odd that things seem so backwards in society.

Perhaps it is the feminist movement of the 70s that all my friends who are mothers and also work full time outside the house despise, or the self focused, self help generation of the 80s, or just the ancient, good old, sinful self-centeredness of the ages.  Somewhere, we as women, have gotten so used to giving up all dreams for the good of the family that when women began to gain more rights in the culture, we decided that men needed to submit to our needs. 

We give so much of ourselves away in pursuing our own interests, our own benefit, that we don't want to share what little we have left.  We no longer need a man for security so he better put out, shut up, help out.  No one can tell us that we can't do something.  No one can tell us what to do with our bodies.  No one can disrespect us by not loving us the way we want loved.  No one can make us stay when we don't feel in love.

Genesis 3 describes the curses that resulted from sin.  Women would want their husbands but the husband would rule over them and men would have to work very hard, not the work of the garden but the struggle of toil.  Basically, God told both that there would be no rest, no security.  So if that is the state of marriage after the fall, what about now?

What does Ephesians tell us about the redemption of marriage?

While I still dislike the submission word, I understand it.  I understand it because I am a woman.  I understand it because my life was no longer my own when I gave birth to my son.  Because when his father chose to walk away, I still had my son to consider.  Because when everyone is sick, mothers still care for the family.  Because it is in our nature somehow. Because we are given baby dolls to care for and kitchen sets to cook in as little girls.  We teach our girls to consider others before themselves. 

Perhaps Paul went to more pains to be explicitly clear with the husband about what their role is because it is not one of being the superior to the wife, as their culture seemed to paint it.  Men needed to see the picture of what "submit to one another" looks like.  And it is painted in the blood of Jesus.

I don't hoot and cheer because I don't want my husband to struggle.  I don't want him to be uncomfortable.  Sure, sometimes I would rather he just put out, shut up and help out, but it isn't long until I remember that I love him, his strength, his tenderness, his wisdom, and everything gets set  right again. 

Dear Jesus, keep working on our hearts!

How do you see....

I was angry earlier this week.  While I want to buy into submission, all I have ever seen associated with it is a twisted devaluing of the marriage relationship.  Never have I seen it pleasant or what I would consider godly.  My grandmother, who is probably one of the most God fearing women I know, once told me that how she saw submission is the man is the head, but the woman is the neck that turns the head.

I "get" that, but it has left me dissatisfied with a sense of underhandedness that I am sure she did not mean.

Must we be so covert in our dealings with our spouse as to allow him to "think" that he is in charge because he is too dumb to realize that he isn't?

Or is there a way to honor both the husband and the wife in a relationship, not at the expense of the other?

While I have been wrestling with this subject, a friend, who is not a Christian, was listening to what I was working through this week.  I casually mentioned this topic of submission and she gasped, "You don't believe in that do you?!?!"

My nonChristian friends see me as submissive because I pack my husband's lunch or ask him before I fill my schedule.  I don't see it as submissive, just being courteous to someone who shares my house and caring about making sure that he and I have time together. 

I will continue to wrestle with this-not because I am rebellious, tho I am-but because I love my life with my husband and I know that God hasn't given us marriage merely as permission to have sex.  We have been married too long to believe that anyway.  

Everytime I think that we are getting somewhere, arriving, that it is getting easier, God chuckles and throws us something new.  I really do love my life and my God.

And my husband.