Am I my brother’s keeper?

I just read a wonderful message on Revive our Hearts about womanhood and modesty. Here is a clip from the transcript:

A young girl walked past, and she was dressed very, very seductively. She was spilling out everywhere. She walked past, and it wasn’t just what she was wearing, it was the way she was walking. She kind of gave my son the eye. So I asked him, “What do you think, and what do you feel? Like, what do you think when you see a woman like that?” That’s a pretty daring question. I thought he might avoid it. And he said to me, “Mom, to be perfectly honest, she arouses the male in me, but she does not appeal to the man in me.” “That’s a good answer, sweetheart.”

Did you catch that? Do you see the difference? The “male” and the “man” are two different things. This young man set a distinction between being “male” and being a “man”…and the alluring appearance arouses one but not necessarily the other…interesting thought. It seems to me that it is quite easy to arouse the “male”, but appealing to the “man” is something totally different and much deeper.

Now, I’m not going to go about trying to tell men how to be men, for obvious reasons. I am not a man. But I do want to say something to my fellow women folk…we need to listen to what this young man is saying and think it through. Do I want to arouse a “male”, or do I want to appeal to a “man”? Before I go any further, I do need to state at the outset that my ultimate purpose is to live for Christ, not for man. But in the course of things, and in the context of male/female relationships, I need to ask myself that question. As a single woman relating to men – both single and married – what message am I seeking to convey? Am I being respectful to the man I am interacting with by being careful to not unnecessarily arouse the male in that man.

Please hear me clearly: I am not responsible for whatever a man chooses to do; but I am responsible for what I can do as far as it depends on me to encourage my brothers in Christ. And it is really not a matter of “limiting” my freedom in Christ; it is a call to love my brothers by doing what I can to not put a stumbling block in their path.

Too often when we as women read these kinds of things, we grate against them as if they are implying that we somehow are the keepers of men’s moral compass and are responsible for their moral behavior. Again, we are not. But we are responsible for our own. And there are too many mandates in scripture about modesty; about removing even the hint of sexual immorality; about purity for us to use this objection as our excuse. We are called to purity – irrespective of the response of anyone else. But in our seeking purity, we are called to care for the purity of our brothers and sisters in Christ.

And let’s be honest ladies…sometimes we can complain and dog out a man for being “male”, when in actuality, that is all that we have really tapped into in the way we interact with them. Men are sinners (clue in: so are we…), and sometimes, it doesn’t really matter what we do or don’t do; they are just not going to act correctly. But, there are other cases where we can do things that encourage a wrong response, and if what we are doing appeals to that base nature the response will be sinful. But if we are seeking to honor that man as a human made in God’s image; and then, if that man is our brother in Christ as a fellow co-heir in Christ, the response will be much different.

Just something to think about…more later…

Grace and peace…

Humble pie…

My weekend definitely did not go as planned. I was all set for a relaxing weekend at home – out of the heat – reading, praying, napping (my personal favorite)…housework, laundry. All that came to nothing. I was sick most of the weekend. So, half of what I wanted to achieve this weekend didn’t happen. I did manage to get to church Sunday, but the rest of the day went downhill from there.

Needless to say, I’m behind on my meditations. But, no worries – I shall pick myself up and keep moving from here.

Last night I thought through some of the issues that were raised in my reading about humility. I think it was a good that I got sick this weekend – not because I particularly enjoy being sick, but because it forced me to stop at Day Three and camp there, which is what I did last night, and may do again tonight. As a matter of fact, I may put the actual True Makeover meditations on hold for a minute and spend some time working through the recent series on ROH about meekness. I was listening to the program on the way to work today, and became convinced of this when I found out the title of today’s message: Think before you speak. Whaaaa? Oh boy!

Why does the Lord insist on messing with me? Of course, I say that tongue in cheek! But boy, oh boy – this is a rough road I’m traveling right now. But, what does Hebrews 12 talk about? God is treating me as His child through the discipline He administers. So I suppose I should worry when the Lord stops messing with me, eh?

Well talk more later…until then…

Grace and peace…

Grains of wheat and stuff like that…

Day Two: Proverbs 31 and the counter-cultural woman…

Okay, things are get way too uncomfortable right about now…and I’m only on the second day!! Oh well, what did I expect really?

It seems I am working backwards in this passage of Scripture, but that’s okay…I’ll go with it. Most people who know me will know that this works well with my personality…wink, wink. But as I read through the chapter tonight, I rested once again on the “fear of the Lord” being the mark of a truly beautiful woman. For the woman described in this passage, her motivation to honor God with her life is what drives her to live such a noteworthy life. And this motivation drives her to service. She serves because she loves – she “does not eat the bread of idleness” (v. 27).

The direct context of this verse has to do with the “ways of her household”. What does that mean for me? 1. Taking care of the home I have been given; 2. Loving the people God has placed in my life and will place in my life; 3. Being fully engaged in my job; 4. Becoming more responsible with my money (that’s a mouthful…more on that later…); 5. Utilizing the gifts and talents God has given me.

What struck me most about this woman is her work ethic. She labors in love for her family and then for others. As a single woman, I do not have a family in the sense of a husband and children, but I can labor in love for my family (parents, brother, etc.), my co-workers, my friends, and those around me that need to be loved.

This woman is not selfish. She thinks of others before herself. My pastor spoke of this in his sermon on Sunday: The Christian life does not work unless you give it away. In John 12:24 our Lord reminds us: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies it remains alone; if it dies it bears much fruit”. In today’s reading, Nancy Leigh DeMoss spoke of the message of this world – it’s all about self-fulfillment. What’s in it for me? How can I make myself more comfortable? How can I get what I want? If I can do that, then I’ll be happy – I’ll have peace and fulfillment. But it’s all a lie; this focus on self only makes us miserable. It is only when we give ourselves to serving the Lord and loving other people that we truly find peace and joy.

So, the question I’m left with tonight is a hard one: What must I die to in order to live more fully?

Lord – I pray that You would make this plain to me. Help me to see my life – my relationships, my job, my family, my finances, my time, my talents – through Your eyes. Give me a greater vision of how to live and love as You have called. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

More later…

Grace and peace…

Back to this question of identity…

Before I took my writing hiatus (not self-imposed, by the way, but I’ll talk about that another time…) I began to write down some preliminary thoughts I have had about what it means to be a godly woman. I have been listening to Nancy Leigh DeMoss for a number of years and frequent her ministry website, Revive Our Hearts. Last year, a conference was held in Chicago called True Woman. I was not able to attend the conference, but I did purchase the audio messages, and have been truly blessed by them.

A I quick perusal of my blog will demonstrate that much of 2008 was about my wrestling through questions of identity, first racial and then in terms of gender. The “gender identity” question has been dominating my thoughts lately even more so than the racial question. This is no less true in 2009 than it was in 2008, perhaps even more so.

Today I decided to begin a “30-day Challenge“  called the True Woman Makeover. I have been distracted by many things in the last months, and have not focused my heart as I would like on this topic. So, I decided that this would be a good way to renew my focus on this question that has been swimming around in my head for months now: What does it mean to be a godly woman? a woman after God’s own heart? For this is what I truly long to be.

Each day, an email will be delivered to my inbox. And, as I meditate on the things I learn from these emails and messages, I will share as I am led. I already know I’m in for it: the Lord is challenging me to meditate on Proverbs 31 each day for these 30 days. Oh boy…with Day One’s reading under my belt, I know my journey is going to be rewarding and difficult…here goes nothing!

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Day One: I shall title this day “Proverbs 31 and the counter-cultural woman”. I want to begin my meditation of Proverbs 31 at the end because there is one verse that is the key to it all:

Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. (v.30 ESV)

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Prov. 1:7). And what does it mean to “fear the Lord”? First - to recognize His sovereignty, His holiness, His perfections. To gaze upon His splendor and be in awe of Him. When Isaiah did this, he was undone (Isa. 6:5) – the breadth of the chasm between a holy God and sinful man struck him with the fear of death. How could he gaze upon such beauty and splendor and live? He knew in that moment that he was completely unworthy to see the purity and holiness of God. Our greatest achievements are filthy and spent when compared to the radiance and brilliance of God’s holiness.

Second - to “fear the Lord” is to see myself in light of who God is and to respond appropriately. God has ultimate authority in and over my life – if I call Him Lord then I must submit to Him. He defines me, not the other way around. I want to camp out here because this is huge! He defines me. I am a creature – a created being, which means I derive my existence from a source outside myself. I do not have the luxury of deciding why I was made. My life was formed by God and for God. To Him, through Him and for Him all things were made (Rom. 11:36). That includes me.

What was the temptation the serpent presented to Eve (and Adam)? “You will be like God. You will get to decide what’s good and what’s bad. You will be master of your own life!” Is this not the same old, tired siren song? We hear it everyday – promising something it will and never can deliver.

I do not get to tell God what to do, or even how to run my life. Or what I need to move me toward the goal of Christlikeness. A heart that is molded by God toward that end is eternal – its beauty does not fade with time. It becomes more radiant, more pure as time goes on…as it draws closer and closer to the Lord and is shaped into the image of Christ, its beauty glows brighter.

I was blessed with what many call “good genes”. None of the women in my family ever look their age. My grandma did not start looking her age until the last year of her life when she became very ill. I have relatively blemish-free skin. The gray hair is slowly showing, but I can easily hide it (at least right now!). But I will get old; I will look my age one day. I pray that the radiance of drawing near to God will be what marks me as a beautiful woman. 

So…this fear of the Lord – this reverence, awe, wonder and worship of the Lord – should shape how I live. I will seek to live in a way that honors Him if He is Lord of my life. And let me be clear – He is not Lord because I acknowledge Him as such. He is Lord – period. And my life ought to reflect my acknowledgement and surrender to the reality of who He is. Everything in my life will flow from this…

Lord willing, I will walk and work through what that means in every aspect of my life in these days to come.

Until then,
Grace and peace…

And we all fall down…

I want to be very clear at the outset: I know that the issues that feminism addressed and continue to address are very real. I am not in any way disputing that there were serious inequities and injustices that were and are being addressed by the movement. What I am concerned about is how feminism has adressed them and the underlying assumptions that drive the movement.

I am reading Radical Womanhood by Carolyn McCulley. This is my second read through this book – yes it’s that good. Carolyn’s first order of business in the book is to give a summary history of the three waves of feminism. During her discussion of the Second wave, she focuses on french philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. Beauvoir wrote The Second Sex, an examination of the status of women in the society. I was so struck by a direct quote from Beauvoir: “[woman] is defined and differentiated with reference to man and not he with reference to her; she is the incidental, the inessential as opposed to the essential. He is the Subject, he is the Absolute – she is the Other”. Her final assessment was that “all male ideologies are directed at justifying the oppression of women, of keeping women imprisoned in roles that leave them subordinate to me. These roles include that of wife and mother.”

My problem with this argument is that it places man (gender = male) in the place of creator and woman the created. This is problematic for a number of reasons, the most obvious being that man – male or female – is not the creator of anything. Both are the created that point to Another who created us both in His image…

The most important problem in my view is that this line of thinking focuses on the symptom rather than the actual problem. The problem is not man (gender = male), but man’s desire to usurp God’s authority and take His place as ruler. In a word, the problem is sin. I use “man” both in the generic (male and female) sense and gender-specific sense in the previous statement because this sin thing is universal; neither gender exceed the other in that department. Remember what Genesis 3 says about the consequences of the fall. In terms of our relationships with each other, men became a usurper by seeking to rule and subordinate women; women became a usurper by seeking to dominate and control men. Both could blame the other for their condition and response…which seems to be the natural course of things in our fallen state. But if both are seeking to take the place of God and sinning against God, which of us really has a leg to stand on?

So – it is not that feminism does not address a legitimate reality. I argue that it does. But does it rightly interpret that reality? I would argue that it does not for the simple reason that it removes God from the equation. Or, if He is considered at all, we define Him instead of allowing Him to define us. In doing so, we become our ultimate reality, the source and finish of our own existence. Without the ability to refer to something or someone outside ourselves, we go about the task of defining ourselves, each doing so according to our own desires, interests and location. But what happens when those interests and desires clash? Who or what is the final arbiter that determines what definition will stand as valid?

So…perhaps the problem is that man (gender = male) has sought to define woman in a way that subordinates her and woman’s (gender = female) response is to seek to define ourselves and by default redefine man in the process. But does this solve the dilemma, or move it to the other side of the street? Perhaps…just perhaps, there is a solution that trumps each gender seeking to define and control the other. That solution requires that both genders turn away from ourselves and look to our real Source…that would change everything.

More later…

Grace and peace…