Waffles and Spaghetti
Romans 15:7
This morning I want to start a brand new series that I have called "Fireproof" - a title I borrowed from an awesome film on the circuit right now on relationships in general, and marriage in particular. Like you, I have discovered that relationships can be the area of greatest joy or greatest sorrow. They can be the place we experience the love of God most plainly, and the attack of satan most painfully. Is it not true that the measure of our sense of fulfillment in life is can be no greater than the measure of how fulfilled we feel in our relationships? In fact, the river of fulfillment flows out of healthy relationships or it does not flow at all. Society cannot stand the pain when the river of healthy relationships is disrupted. That is why when people are unable to relate meaningfully or healthily to others we isolate them from society by incarcerating them or institutionalizing them. That is why when people live in a world where the flow of healthy relationships is disrupted they isolate themselves. Why? Because the pain of isolation or institution or incarceration is better than the pain when that occurs when the river of health relationships stops flowing.
I have realized that it is not the uniqueness of our abilities or the strength of our gift-set or the astuteness of our learning that determine the joy and impact of our lives. It is the product of our relationships.
This is true in business, friendship, marriage, parenting and every other sphere of life. Think about it with me for a moment if you will. After all, the only way you and I get to heaven is out of relationship - a relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Now we do not need a whole lot of healthy relationships for life to be full, rich and meaningful - but there are some key relationships that have to work or else they become a source of pain and failure in our lives. Firstly, my relationship with God must be healthy. If that is not right then nothing else can be right. Key relationships that I need to be healthy include my relationship with my spouse, and my children and others in my home, and my pastor or church, and my close friends, and my parents and my business associates. Somewhere in the mix is the way I relate to myself. If I cannot get that at least half-way decent in relating to myself I will never enjoy healthy relationships with others are any level.
So it is my goal in this series to help you Fireproof your marriage, and your relationships with your kids, and your relationships with your church, and your friends, and your parents, and at work. A lot of what I say will be applicable at all levels and in all types of relationships. Some of what I say will specifically apply to marriage. So I invite you, over the next few weeks, to join me prayerfully, as we look together at Fireproof - building healthy and meaningful relationships that stand the test of time and familiarity, and are the source of joy and richness in our lives.
This morning I want to speak with you specifically on the subject of Waffles and Spaghetti. I borrowed the title from a book written by Bill and Pam Farrel that makes a profound point that I have built into this mornings message. You see, in a deeply profound and Divinely designed way, men are like waffles and woman are like spaghetti.
Men Are Like Waffles
Men are like waffles. How is that? Men can generally only live in one box at a time. They have many boxes in which the live, but they generally only be in one box at a time. When a guy is at work, he is at work. When he is fishing, he is fishing. When he is romancing his wife, he is romancing his wife. When he goes to a box and finds a problem this is what he does. He analyzes the problem, lines up all the possible alternative solutions he can think of at the time, then based on an equation of profit and loss, pain and please he chooses the most pain-free, loss-limited option available, assigns the solution and moves on. If he cannot find a solution to assign to the problem he simply moves on. A guy cannot figure any good reason to stay in a box he do not have a solution for.
And if some time in the future he discover a solution he goes back and visits that box - and assigns the solution, then moves on. Now that is great in a relationship because sometimes there are things in relationships that need that one-thing focus in order to be dealt with. They need a one time solution - and then they need to be left behind.
Women Are Like Spaghetti
But women are not like that - they are like spaghetti. If you look at a plate of spaghetti - and follow one strand of the spaghetti - you will find that it winds its way around the plate of spaghetti and touches almost every other piece of spaghetti on the plate. It is connected to everything and everything is connected to it.
It is not simply that men are logical and women are intuitive, it is that men compartmentalize and women integrate. What that means is that women go through life and make emotional connections with the things that are important to us. And that is why women are good at multi-tasking.
That is why a woman can be busy cooking supper and talking to her friend on the phone, and at the same time she is a shopping list because while she is cooking she is thinking of what to cook tomorrow and what she needs to but next time she goes to Ingles - and at the same time she is signing to the kids to go and bath. Men never do that. Men do not stand at the grill thinking about what to cook next time they are grilling. When they are grilling, they are grilling.
Here’s the woman "Honey, how are your plans for the fishing trip going because I drove past Sally’s house today and Sally’s husband Ben was going fishing with you, and Sally wanted to go on to the makeup party with me on Thursday and Mary, who is also going to that party said that her daughter had started wearing a lot of makeup to cover her acne but sometimes when girls wear too much make up that are pimping up and I am worried about our son because his girlfriend has started wearing too much makeup and so I was wondering if you and I could pray for them right now?
Now guys are frantically jumping boxes trying to figure out what the subject of the conversation is and while the wife thinks the guy is praying for the kids he is really thinking, "Well what about the fishing trip - is that up for grabs now?"
Now watch this folks - there are things in life that function best when they are single-Focused and there are things in life that function best when they are multi-tasked - and that is why we need each other
I did not say we understand each other - I said we need each other. Why? Because we are different - and the challenge is to make those difference work for you rather than against you.
I have given up expecting to ever understand what it is like to be a woman - instead I want to celebrate womanhood and enjoy the richness of the differences. Ladies will never understand what it is to have testosterone flowing through their system 24/7.
Did you know that testosterone actually affects the way men think? There are actually more connections between the left and right hand side of the women’s brain than in the man’s brain because during the testosterone bath in the womb the connects are actually severed. The corpus callosum gets twisted and parts of it are changed. The woman’s brain has about 200 million connections between the two hemispheres - and there are studies that suggest the vast majority of these 200 million connections in a man’s brain are absent.
So guys do not do nearly as much cross-talk between the two hemispheres of their brain. It not that guys are left brain and girls are right brain - guys can use either the left side of their brain or the right side of their brain, but you ladies get to use both sides at the same time. Men do not have signals going from left brain to right brain the way ladies do.
Men have 5 easy steps - no matter what the problem is. Why you are sharing a concern he is fixing it. You need to say something like, ‘I am not looking for your advice right now - I am not looking for you to solve this for me - I simply want to process my thinking with you.’ If men see woman in pain they want to fix it - to make it better.
So guys - when your wife talks with you, turn off the ‘fix-it’ mechanism you were born with, that switch in your mind. We are all problem solvers. Our wife says, "Let’s talk!" and we are all, "OK, what’s the problem - what is the best solution I can assign to it."
Turn it off - when your wife talks with you she is not always wanting you to fix it - sometimes she is simply connecting her life with your - that is how she does it.
Men looks a box problem, (pain/pleasure, profit/loss) assign a solution and need never needs to go back to that box again. But for a woman that issue is now part of her life.
And when all a guy has done is just listened, he feels he has another box without a solution assigned. Men don’t simply process - they are driving to something - fixing something, building something, solving something.
Romans 15:7 says something profound:-
"Therefore, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God."
You see my friend, we are not called to understand one another, we are called to accept one another - accept one another despite the difference!
So replace ‘I want to understanding you’ with ‘I acceptance that this is the way God made you.’
Watch this clip from the 1976 blockbuster - Rocky. - "Together we fill gaps."
Each one us approaches each and every relationship we enter into, every opportunity we encounter and all of life we experience with two chronic disorders - we each have a suitcase of baggage and a we each have a vacuum of needs. In other words, we have gaps - and together we fill gaps.
That is some profound information on how relationships work. But what normally happens is we come into a relationship and we expect each other to operate the way we do - and we expect them to be strong where we are strong. But God designed us differently so that we would fill in different gaps.
You see my friend, if we do not accept each other with their differences, we will end up trying to change one another. And the things that first attracted you to your partner will become the things that pain you about your partner. Because without acceptance, opposites first attract - then they attack.
Try and encourage one another not to become like you but like what God made them to be.
So wives, learn to give you husband some queues - "I just need to talk for 5 minutes - I need to share this. I really do not need you to fix it, I just want to unload it" In other words guys, you do not need to assign a solution to this one. Guys, if you are not sure, go ahead and ask, "Is this a ‘fix it’ conversation or are you simply connecting your life with mine?"
And ladies, do not assume that when a guy goes quiet that he has checked out. That’s not what is happening.
Studies have shown that when guys go quiet they are often not disengaging, but rather they are engaging at a deeper level. They are feeling the pain - but what they are doing is going into a free or safe or easy box that they can process in.
Men feel stress as much as woman, but we process it differently.
Do not assume quit or inactive = not interested or opting out.
When guys need to process and they have the option, very often they will resort to a favorite easy box - and God has helped you ladies because most of their easy boxes are shaped like a box - they are square. Guys will turn on the TV - it is shaped like a box, or boot up the computer, the screen is square. The newspaper is square, so is the movie, the football field, bed.
When a guy becomes emotionally flooded he wants to escape to an empty easy box.
If my husband is not listening to me, or if my wife is not respecting my boxes they do not care about me or they do not love me.
We are in trouble when differences become interpreted as a lack of caring,
How do I get my man to talk to me?
If you want to get a guy to talk find him in a box that he is good at, that he feels successful in, that is one of his favorite boxes, and compliment him in it. Because guys like to live in boxes they feel successful in - that is where the communicate.
When a guy has one box to open that is one problem to solve - but sometimes ladies, when the are talking start to open a whole lot of boxes, and when a guy starts to conclude that he is not very good in one box he must either solve it or he will try and avoid it.
So when a guy wants to shut the conversation down in all likelihood it is because he has become emotionally overwhelmed, and he has become aware of problems he does not have good or easy solutions for.
By the way, if you want a guy to grow, compliment him in a box if you want him to grow in.
Give a guy time warning - hey, tonight I would love to talk about the kids, or retirement - then he can be successful in that box.
Just like girls need a warning when getting into the physical box.
Sexually - girls are like electric stoves and guys are like gas ovens.
Not ‘cheer leading’ but ‘called alongside’ - like the Holy Spirit. God designed and equipped you specifically to minister to those around you, and to your spouse. Do so deliberately. Do so intentionally. Do so fruitfully.
And your reward will be great.
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