Two old guys were walking along the shoreline of a lake when a frog came hopping up to them.
Creaking with age, one of the old-timers slowly bent down and scooped up the frog in his hands. As he stood there gazing at the frog, fascinated by its ugliness, the frog croaked, “Hey, mister! I'm not really a frog. If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess who will do anything your heart desires.”
Startled, the old man slipped the frog into his pocket and headed on down the shoreline. For the longest time he and his friend trudged along in silence.
“Well?” his buddy finally blurted out. “You gonna kiss it?”
“Naw, I guess not,” the first codger replied. “At my age, I think I'll have more fun with a talking frog.” (Roby Mitchell, Christian Appeal; www.PreachingToday.com)
There are some days when we men feel like a talking frog would be more useful, and certainly a whole lot more fun, than the woman we’re married to. It is in those days, especially, that we need to remember the true worth of a woman. We need to remember how valuable our wives really are to us.
So on this Mother’s Day, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Genesis 2, Genesis 2, where we find out why God gave us women and the immense value He places on them.
Genesis 2:18 The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.”
Up until now, God has declared every aspect of his creation “good.” Genesis 1:3 God saw that the light was good. Genesis 1:10 God saw that [the dry land] was good. Genesis 1:12 God made the plants and saw that it was good. Genesis 1:18 God made the sun, the moon and the stars and saw that it was good. Genesis 1:21 God made the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and saw that it was good. Genesis 1:31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. But here, God makes a man and He says, “It is NOT good.”
Why? What is not good? It is not good for the man to be alone. And herein lies the first reason why God made a woman.
God made a woman to be WITH her man.
God made a woman to keep him company and to be his companion.
The fact is we men don’t do too well without such a companion. Researchers from the Universities of Utah and South Carolina recently collected data from 148 different studies, conducted over three decades, involving more than 300,000 people, and discovered that what God said here is literally true: “It is not good for man to be alone.” People who have no social life are 50 percent more likely to die early than those who are well connected. (“Being Lonely ‘Can Kill You’, research Shows,” Telegraph.co.uk, 9-14-10; www.PreachingToday.com)
In 1990, researchers at the University of California found that unmarried middle-aged men face twice the risk of dying within 10 years as their married counterparts (Associated Press, 10-3-1990). It is not good for man to be alone.
In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell tells the strange story of Christopher Langan, a genius with a staggering IQ of 195. (For some perspective, Einstein's IQ was 150). During high school, Langan could ace any foreign language test by skimming the textbook 2-3 minutes before the exam. He got a perfect score on his SAT, even though at one point he fell asleep.
Even so, Langan never used his exceptional gifts and ended up working on a horse farm in rural Missouri. According to Gladwell, Langan never had a community to help him capitalize on his gifts.
Gladwell summarizes the story of Langan in one sentence: “[Langan] had to make his way alone, and no one – not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires, and not even geniuses—ever makes it alone.” Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers, Little, Brown and Company, 2008, p. 115; www.PreachingToday. com)
It is not good for man to be alone, so God gave him a woman to be WITH him. God made a woman for relationship, for companionship, and that’s where the rub comes sometimes in male-female relationships, because according to Genesis 2:15, God made a man to work!
The man wants to work. The woman wants to talk; and sometimes, those two things don’t go together. So we need to learn to accommodate each other on these things. Women need to respect their husbands’ passion for work, and men need to respect their wives’ need for time together.
For me, I schedule time every week for Sandy, my wife. In fact, there are TWO weekly dates in my schedule – Monday morning and Friday morning. It’s a special time that she has just to be WITH me for while. That gives her something to look forward to even when my job and ministry get too hectic.
On the other hand, Sandy has learned to respect my need to do a good job even if it cuts into our date time. After all, people don’t schedule their personal emergencies around our dates. People don’t tell their doctors, “I can’t go to the hospital right now, because it’s Friday morning and my pastor is spending quality time with his wife.” No. People get sick, and some of them have the audacity to die at times that are not convenient for us. Does Sandy gripe and complain? No! She packs me a snack, gives me a bottle of water, and prays for me while I do the job God has given me to do.
She respects my need to do a good job. I respect her need for time with me.
Ephesians 5:33 puts it this way: “However, each one of you… must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” Husbands, love your wives – that’s the relationship part. Wives, respect your husbands, especially his work.
If every couple would follow this simple advice from God’s Word, then they would solve about 95% of their relationship issues. The problem is the wife feels unloved at times, so she disrespects her husband. She resents his time away at work and begins to harp at his faults. Then when the husband feels a lack of respect from his wife, he backs off and ignores her. He shuts down and doesn’t show her the love she needs. Well, that just causes her to withhold respect even more, which causes him to withhold still more love until the couple finds their relationship in a vicious, downward spiral from which many never recover.
All it takes is for one or the other to break into the spiral. Men, show love and you will get respect (eventually). Even if she is not respecting you right now, move towards her; don’t move away. Schedule some time together. Take the initiative to talk to her. Do something special for her, and you will be surprised at how that changes your relationship over time. The same is true for the women.
Ladies, just show some respect and you will usually get some love back. Affirm your husband in his work. Give him the freedom to work hard. Allow him the time to get the job done well, without making him feel guilty. Tell him how much you appreciate what he does to provide for you and the family, and see if that doesn’t make him a little more willing to spend time with you.
Love and respect: It’s important to every relationship, but I speak especially to the men. On this Mother’s Day, and every day, schedule some time with your wife. Love her. Your very well-being depends on it, and it will actually help you accomplish more with your life in the long run, because that’s the way God designed us. God made a woman to be WITH her man. Second…
God made a woman to HELP her man.
God made a woman to support him and to assist him in the task God gave him to do.
Look at vs.18 again: The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a HELPER.”
Now, I know some women bristle at the idea of being a man’s helper like it’s some inferior role, but is it really? Think about it. When a person is drowning and in need of help, who is the stronger party: the one who helps or the one who needs the help? The stronger party is the helper, of course! So it is in the husband-wife relationship. The helper role is the stronger role.
In fact, God Himself is called the “Helper” of His people on numerous occasions throughout the Old Testament. Psalm 33:20 We wait in hope for the LORD; he is our HELP and our shield. Psalm 70:5 Come quickly to me, O God. You are my HELP and my deliverer. Psalm 115:9 O house of Israel, trust in the LORD – he is their HELP and shield.
God is the Helper of His people! Does that mean He is inferior to them? Does that mean He is second-rate? No way! He is the Sovereign Creator of the Universe. He is in no way inferior to His creation.
So it is with women. Even though God made her to help her man, she is in no way inferior to him. The fact is she has the honored role, the stronger role in many respects.
That’s so she and her husband, together, can accomplish the mission God has given them to “fill the earth and subdue it,” Genesis 1:28 says, and to “rule over…every living creature.”
I like the way Kevin and Karen Miller put it in their book, More than You and Me. They write: “Adam and Eve must have had fun working together in the garden. No commutes, no child care, no financial worries. Just the opportunity to be with each other all day and feel the satisfaction of doing something together that neither could do alone.
“We hunger for this today: cooperating together, meshing, working like a mountain climbing team, ascending the peak of our dream, and then holding each other at the end of the day. God has planted this hunger deep within every married couple. It's more than a hunger to create new life. It's…a hunger to do something significant together. According to God's Word, we were joined to make a difference. We were married for a mission.
“Marriage expert Dennis Rainey says, ‘One of the missing ingredients of couples today is they do not have a mission; they do not have a sense of God having called them together to do something as a couple.’ But often, as we begin to feel this basic longing, we don't know what it is. We get the ‘seven-year itch’ or the ‘12-year anger’ or the ‘18-year blahs.’ We think, WHAT'S WRONG WITH US? OUR COMPANIONSHIP MAY NOT BE PERFECT, BUT WE HAVE EACH OTHER. AND, many can add, WE HAVE OUR CHILDREN. SO WHAT ARE WE MISSING?
“We may be missing [a big part] of what God created marriage for – serving Him together. Counselor James H. Olthuis writes, ‘To try to keep love just for us…is to kill it slowly… We are not made just for each other; we are called to a ministry of love to everyone we meet and in all we do. In marriage, too, Jesus' words hold true; in saving our lives we lose them, and in losing our lives in love to others, we drink of life more deeply.’” (Kevin and Karen Miller, More Than You and Me, Touching Others Through The Strength of Your Marriage, Focus On The Family Publishing, 1994, pp. 8,9; www.PreachingToday.com)
Don’t be content just to BE together. Find something God wants you to DO together. Go on a missions trip. Reach out to a neighbor in need. Just find some ministry you can do together, and see if that doesn’t re-energize your marriage.
It’s the way God designed us to be. God made a woman to be WITH her man. God made a woman to HELP her man. And third…
God made a woman to FIT her man.
God made a woman to be wholly adequate for him and to correspond to him in every way.
Look at verse 18 one more time: The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper SUITABLE for him.”
Literally, God says, “I will make a helper according to what is in front of him, or one who corresponds to him.”
Genesis 2:19-20 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. (NIV)
Out of all God’s creation, there was not one creature that could be a suitable companion for the man. There was not one creature that could make him feel like a whole and complete person.
Genesis 2:21-22 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. (NIV)
Then the man’s eyes popped out, his jaw dropped to the ground, and he said, “WOW!” What’s the matter? Isn’t that what YOUR Bible says? Well, believe me, it’s there… right between the lines. After all, men, what would YOU do if in your single days you woke up from a nap in the park and there, standing right in front of you, was a hot, naked young lady?
I doubt that you’d say, verse 23, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man.” That came later, I’m sure, as Adam had time to reflect.
After he retrieved his eyes (from popping out of his head) and put his jaw back together, he realized what God had done. God had given him a wonderful companion, a helper corresponding to him in every way, taken right out of his side.
You see, a man and his wife were made to fit together like two adjoining pieces of a puzzle, like a nut on a bolt, like spaghetti sauce on spaghetti. Each supplies what the other lacks, and each contributes to make the whole greater than the sum of its parts.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said it best when he wrote:
As unto the bow the cord is
So unto man is the woman;
Tho’ she bends him, she obeys him,
Tho’ she draws him, yet she follows;
Useless each without the other. (from Hiawatha)
That’s why men and women still get married.
Genesis 2:24-25 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. (NIV)
They were totally open to each other. There was total and complete intimacy without any embarrassment or shame.
In order to remove a tumor, the surgeon had to sever a facial nerve that controlled the muscles of a woman’s mouth. It left her permanently disfigured. After the operation, the doctor was there with the woman’s husband.
She asked, “Will my mouth always be like this?”
The doctor said, “Yes.”
The husband looked at his wife, smiled and said that he found her mouth “kind of cute.” Then he bent over and kissed her, twisting his own lips to meet hers. He showed her that their kiss still worked, that they still fit together as husband and wife. The doctor just stood in awe during that holy moment.
Men, how do you let your wife know that your kiss still works, that you still fit together as husband and wife? Find a way to let her know today, especially on this Mother’s Day, because you really DO belong together.
God made your wife to be WITH you, to HELP you, and to FIT you in every way like no one else.
Now, I can almost hear somebody saying, “Yes, that was nice for Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, but we live in the real world. That will never work for my marriage.”
Well, let me introduce you to Caleb and Kathryn Holt, a couple that considered divorce after seven years of marriage. In one last attempt to salvage their marriage, Caleb’s father asks Caleb to try a 40-day experiment he calls “The Love Dare.” Caleb agrees, but half way through, Caleb calls his father to talk about how things are going. Caleb explains that the night before, he had prepared a candle-light dinner for his wife. Her only response was, “I don't love you.” Perceiving that his son is about to give up on The Love Dare, Caleb's father comes to visit, and the two decide to go for a walk at an old church camp. (show Fireproof DVD, chapter 16, from 00:57:01 to 00:58:38)
Along the way, they come to a clearing in an area where church camp is held. There's a wooden cross and some tree stumps for seating. With Caleb seated on a stump, his father questions him: “Caleb, if I were to ask you why you were so frustrated with Kathryn, what would you say?”
Seated with his head in his hands, Caleb looks up and replies, “She's stubborn. She makes everything difficult for me. She's ungrateful. She's constantly griping about something.’
“Has she thanked you for anything you've done the last twenty days?” his fathers asks.
“No!” Caleb says. “And you would think that after I wash the car—after I've changed the oil, done the dishes, cleaned the house—that she would try to show me a little bit of gratitude. But she doesn't!”
As Caleb continues to vent, his father begins to walk slowly toward the cross. “In fact, when I come home, she makes me feel like I'm an enemy. I'm not even welcome in my own home, Dad. That is what really ticks me off! For the last three weeks I've bent over backwards for her. I've tried to demonstrate that I still care about this relationship. I bought her flowers, which she threw away. I have taken her insults and her sarcasm, but last night was it. I made dinner for her. I did everything I could to demonstrate that I care about her – to show value for her – and she spit in my face. She does not deserve this, Dad! I'm not doing it anymore! How am I supposed to show love to somebody – over and over and over – who constantly rejects me?”
By now, Caleb's father has positioned himself at a cross on the church campgrounds. Leaning against it, he replies, “That's a good question.” (Fireproof DVD, chapter 16, 00:57:01 – 00:58:38, Samuel Goldwyn Pictures/Sherwood Pictures, 2008, directed by Alex Kendrick; www.PreachingToday.com)
Jesus loved us from a cross. Certainly, with his power, we can love each other.
