Friday, August 22, 2014

“Guys, grow a backbone!”

Can my future husband please be in this room and hear this??”

Bible study. Tuesday night. A room full of single young people studying the book of Ephesians, specifically the chapter of wives submitting to their husbands and men loving their wives as Christ loves the church. Not your typical class structure for a singles group, but something we often tend to ignore in core groups until we’re ready to walk down the aisle.

As a young woman, how often do you run into young men walking in the Biblical model of manhood? Being trained—or learning from a godly mentor how to be the leader of his home—the father who leads his children in Christ and the man his wife gladly submits to and respects?

I certainly don’t run into very many. And those that I do are a rare breed.

We just aren’t teaching our young men to step into and command this role. And we’re not teaching our young women to step back and let him. We’re not teaching our young women to let the man take the first step, to cross the line of initiative and pursue the girl.

As girls, we want to be pursued. We want a guy who wants to put effort into getting to know us. But we’re not always the most patient. We’re not wanting to wait around for a guy to…well…grow a backbone. Or learn enough about you to realize you're not out to run over the top of him.

As I sat in the class and looked around the circle, there were a few pairs sitting together throughout the room, but most of are unattached—looking to become attached. And the leader’s wife pipes up from the back of the room, giving us a speech I could have stood to my feet and cheered to.

 Our guys have to grow a backbone.

AND

Our girls have to let them.

Our situation of guys stepping to the side, more comfortable with not taking the lead, is not all their fault. It’s us--as women-- not letting them step into the lead. When we rush God’s timing and hurry ahead of what He has for us, we run over the top of the plans He has for us. We run over the top of the God-ordained structure of what the marriage relationship needs to look like.

It’s not just “getting the guy” and having the grand plan of letting the guy take the lead—because if you’ve been directing the chariot, what makes you think the man you’ve got is going to take over now? He’s not being demanded to step into his godly role.  

Is it hard to wait for a guy to actually step forward? Sure. I never said this would be easy. Can’t even pretend that something like this is.

We have a tide in our culture that is turned against the godly structure of a courtship and marriage relationship.


It stops here. It stops now. At our choosing to step back—hard as that is—and letting our men step forward. At praying for the man who will enter our lives and our being submissive enough to wait. Submissive to God in trust for His provision. And submissive enough to step back. Let the man take the lead and trust that God is taking care of every detail—including when He brings the right man into our lives. 

4 comments:

  1. Oh Casey, I wish we could sit and have coffee right now! Love this. Love that you see this and believe it. In our culture it almost astounds me (and yet not, because its our God given image to reflect Him), that media still even loves a good romance that portrays this. It's like a double standard almost, that men and women are told to be PC, equal, etc., that a man/woman can go against this, and yet we all chase after it and pay really good money to watch it happen as God intended in movies and books.

    We are attempting to teach our 18/20 year old children this. My daughter and I laugh and cry that we are almost certain her noble future husband has been detained after he got thrown under the bus doing some noble act of heroism (thanks Becky Wade!) But the truth is---living this way is HARD. It takes a great amount of willingness to know yourself, to know your God, and to surrender your will to Him. It takes whim, yet a great amount of really looking at your motivations behind settling for anything less. To settle, to put it bluntly, means you don't believe. You don't believe God has a plan, you don't believe He can bring it to past, you don't believe you are worth the wait, the pursuit. It's Eve's apple--her temptation to reach for that which she was told she must not.

    Love you!! You rock girl!

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    1. I am really looking forward to getting to know you at ACFW this year, Anne, so save me a bit of time and let's make that coffee date!

      LOL! I have seen a pin very much like that. At 23, I often wonder the same thing. ;-) But the crazy thing to think about, is we might have already met our future husband and I've been in the center of God's will too many times and see the mightiness of His working to want to be in ANY other place. Living this way IS very hard. It's harder more days than it's not and I have my moments of absolute peace and contentment and then moments of absolute get-me-out-of-here-quick. But I would MUCH rather be single for the rest of my days than settle for the wrong person. Because you're right, settling is just a passive way of saying you aren't worth the wait. That God doesn't have this all put together. So I'm waiting to be pursued. To be cherished. Trusting my Heavenly Father for all of the above! :)

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  2. Somehow, my comment was lost so I'll re-post. Hope it's not a duplicate :)
    I'm not single but I still remember how my girl friends would lament the lack of good Christian men. I agree with what you posted, I've seen it myself. Some guys do try to act like a guy and get shot down by women who want to prove they're equal to men. Anyway, here's a blog post that's along a similar vein: http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/talking-about-man-boys

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    1. Thank you for taking the time to write another comment, Lis! I know blogger can be an absolute pain sometimes. :)

      I have written another post called "Don't Ruin My Man" because there is not a single subject I get fired up on more than when girls shoot down a good guy for the sake of trampling over the top of him. Men aren't weak. But girls of my generation so often just don't take the consideration to realize they are investing their heart into this relationship as well. So don't hurt a good man that could be my future husband, because you wanted to "have a good time". It reflects so poorly on those of us who are being held to higher standards.

      I could preach on this for hours. Haha! Thank you for stopping by and sharing. I so appreciate your time!

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