Respect and Relationship

A couple days ago I wrote "Chick Flicks and the Single Girl" and have gotten a lot of feedback from friends and have had some excellent conversations that have led me to want to follow up some.

VerticalFocus17 commented on the post and said, "I would recommend this for girls in a relationship as well. It's easy to become dissatisfied with the mate God chose for you when you compare him to the romantic heroes of chick flicks. God's love story is always the best one, but it's easy to set yourself up for discontentment when you live in Hollywood Fairy Tale Land."

She is absolutely correct. Not only is it unfair to the man God prepared just for you to compare them to men that exist only in fiction, it is disrespectful to both he and God, ungrateful, and unloving. And it brings up some more thoughts. I wonder if secular romantic portrayals are not indicative of the attitude people have regarding relationship and marriage which, in turn, leads to the large number of broken and failed relationships and marriages. That attitude being this: relationships should be easy and happy all the time. If they're not, it's ok to bail. The primary function of a relationship is my fulfillment and when he doesn't live up to my (unrealistic and ridiculously high) expectations then he has become worthless, etc., etc., etc. This is, of course, not the way it is supposed to be at all. We live in a fallen world and marriage is the joining of 2 broken sinners so how on Earth can we expect a blissfully perfect relationship? And while husbands are called to love their wives as Christ loves the church, we are never to expect fulfillment from any place but from God. Furthermore, the goal of marriage, as with every other part of our life, is to bring glory to God.

That being said, I want to go even further. I am not sure that chick flicks are the only media-based indication of brokenness in our society. Those who know me well know that one of my hottest button topics is feminism and the lack of respect shown men. I like to say I am a "Jo March" feminist. Those of you who are fans of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, may understand what I mean. To those of you who are not, I explain it like this. In its original form, the women's right movement had merit. Women should be allowed to vote. Women should be allowed to own property. Women should receive the same wages as men for the same work. Women should not have to tolerate abuse, be it physical, emotional, etc. Women should have the abilities and rights necessary to pull themselves and their children out of those abusive situations. Women should be on equal legal footing with men. Does that mean I think we are the same? Heck no. Men and women are entirely different in so many ways. What it should mean is embracing those differences and the strengths and abilities each sex brings to the table and working as partners. Unfortunately modern feminism has perverted this and instead of bringing women from being second class citizens to being equals, it has swung so far over to the other extreme that now I see the emasculation of men in the name of equality.

Don't believe me? Turn on the TV. Watch “The Simpsons,” “Still Standing,” “The Proud Family” (I don’t know if that is that even still on but I hated the few episodes I saw because of this). The husbands/fathers are portrayed as slovenly, pig-headed, lazy, dimwitted, and clueless. The wives/mothers, on the other hand, are portrayed as well put together, intelligent, witty, individuals who hold the family together and tolerate their idiot husbands with condescension. Now, is media focusing just on tearing down men? No, they aren’t. In discussing this with my friend Chris, he pointed out that women are demoralized even more prominently than men. And it’s true. Women are put in positions of inferiority constantly. And in commercials? Women are constantly being put in slutty outfits to appeal to men and get them to buy their products (though in effect this is disrespectful to both women and men, but I’ll get to that in a minute).

Additionally, man-bashing has become a national past-time and, I'll tell you, it makes me MAD. There is absolutely no cause and no excuse for speaking that way about our brothers and especially about your spouse. And I don't mean the good tempered joking about the reality of the differences between the genders and the resulting confusion it inspires, I mean the mean-spirited, condescending comments that I hear women use to make themselves feel superior to men or their man. What I’d say it boils down to is respect.

Remember that verse I referenced earlier about men being called to love their wives as Christ loves the Church? It is in Ephesians 5 and it says, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her,...He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church (5:25, 28b)." This speaks of cherishing and nourishing and giving up of oneself. This love is  protecting, providing, etc. While men are called to love, cherish, protect, and nourish, what are we as women called to do?  "Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband. (5:33)" Notice the difference? Men are called to love and cherish their wives and women are called to respect their husbands. Women want and need affection. Men need to be respected. To love them well, you must respect them well. Does that mean they don't want affection or that women don't want respect? Of course not. And does this apply only to marriage relationships? No, I don’t think it does. The roles of the genders in marriage speak to the basic definitions of biblical masculinity and femininity.

So what does respecting well look like? Well, it has many faces. It means not undermining, not emasculating. It means accepting their leadership graciously. It means supporting them in the decisions they make. Does that mean always agreeing with them regardless? No I wouldn’t say so. Sometimes support means being the Genesis “helper” and gently bringing forward your concerns but supporting them regardless of the decision they make unless it causes you to be in sin. It means being careful of yourself and your decisions and how they affect your brothers.  It means being conscious of their weaknesses. An example would be not dressing in a revealing and provocative way that would cause them to fall into sexual sin. It means the word that modern women recoil from: submission. Biblical submission isn’t something to be afraid of though (I mean to discuss this further at some point in the future, but in the mean time look into the Biblical roles of women – I also highly recommend reading the book Let Me Be a Woman by Elizabeth Elliot).

Beyond even that, I’d say respect is something that goes many ways. Men should be respecting and honoring women also. And we should respect ourselves because of our Creator if for no other reason. If a woman really had a grasp of the fact that God created her in His image, that she is His daughter in whom He delights, that men are her brothers and that relationship should be protected and built, would she ever become a Playboy girl? Would a man who understood the heart of his Heavenly Father and how much he is loved and protected shirk his responsibilities as a father himself? It becomes a vicious cycle because then it becomes almost a self fulfilling prophesy; men who are not respected eventually become men who do not deserve it and their sons turn into those men. Their daughters get involved in unhealthy relationships and end up giving themselves up to men over and over, often becoming ensnared in abusive relationships, becoming pregnant outside marriage, both, or worse because they were not fathered well. They are not shown how men should treat them and how much they should respect themselves and the men in their lives. They in turn become mothers who are bitter and angry. They man-bash and become critical shrews. Their daughters see this and adopt their attitudes. Their sons see this and become the men their mothers gripe about because that’s what a man “is”. This is only the tip but I don't have even a fraction of the time and space here necessary to fully analyze the long term consequences.

So where do we go from here. Women, respect the men in your lives and give them reason to cherish you. Men, cherish the women and be men worthy of respect. But most importantly, all of us, seek after the Lord in your relationships and seek to honor Him through them. Be a light to the world through how you live your relationships and how you love each other well.

"By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." John 13:35