"male and female he created them" Gen 1:27
Men and women are different. I know that not only because I married someone of the opposite sex but because I have two daughters. I remember the day the first one appeared. I was expecting a boy because I thought God had told me it would be a boy. It's all very embarrassing and involves a piece of wallpaper that I may even still have somewhere. I was praying one day and noticed that the nursery that I was using as an office had wallpaper with a pattern of two big blue dogs carrying blue balloons and one little pink dog carrying a pink balloon. Well obviously God was telling me that I was going to have two boys and then one girl. So with the wallpaper having spoken you can imagine my surprise when a girl arrived.
Suddenly life became an adventure. I know how boys work. I am one which helps, I had a brother, and when I was young all my friends were boys who liked boy things. I could map out the next decade at least in terms of what we would do, the things we would hit, and explode and re-build and break and burn again. Suddenly the next decades of my life were a wonderful mystery. And I loved it! It was one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. I had a daughter! And then a year or so later another one! And every day it's got better and better and more wonderful and more flowery and more pink and dolly.
But not all girls are like that however and not all boys like hitting things with sticks. If we look into it we find a statistical distribution of traits with a few girls hitting things and a few boys knitting things. Or put another way although spacial awareness may be a stronger male trait some women can fly a fighter aircraft better than most men. So actually although certain characterisics are more male or more female they don't define what it is to be male or female. Just because I am bad at football doesn't make me less of a man. It's not really to do with that.
So what is it to be male and what is it to be female? Is it just biology and statistical distributions? No, there is something more profound going on.
Because this is a blog and not a theology paper, and I'm a man and not a woman, I'm just going to consider what it is to be a man and how I can be a better one. A while ago we ran an evening for men about what it meant to be a man. In it we talked about general principles (which was much easier than a more recent one where we talked specifically about sex). Anyway, here are some of the things we identified from the bible that a man should carry in his heart and look to express in appropriate ways; protection, provision and leadership.
There is something put in the heart of a man by God to protect the women around him. Not because they are necessarily weaker (some may not be) but because they are valuable and special and worth protecting. It's such a tragedy when that does not happen. A man is made to provide for those around him, especially his wife and family. How sad when men leave their families, or lay about and don't provide for them. Finally, the most tricky one in our culture, a man carries a burden to lead, or more specifically a sense of primary responsibly to live and lead others in a Godly way. To call his family to prayer, to initiate reconciliation where a marriage has faltered. Frankly I find many aspects of these things challenging. Even harder than learning about football. But at least I have some sense of where to aim and how to be more of a man.
No comments:
Post a Comment