If Women Did Not Share

 If Women Did Not Share

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I am just about to conclude that if women did not share their life struggles, we would never know how to pray for men.

 

Just the other day, I received ed a prayer request from a sweet Christian lady. She said, and I paraphrase, that they were going through so many impossible situations at the moment that she had no idea where to begin asking for prayer support.

 

Here’s the thing, I speak with her husband with reasonable frequency. He always approaches with a smile and speaks with a quiet sort of confidence. If he has situations that he views as impossible, or if he is concerned about those impossible situations, he certainly does not communicate those concerns around myself or any of those he and I hang around.

 

I get it that men tend to be much more private than women are. I counsel women quite regularly to learn the skill of discretion.[2]

Guys, come on! When your wife senses situations that she feels are so impossible and so numerable that she, who regularly asks for prayer, can’t find a place to begin to pray, she needs you to pray. You will help her more, not by taking the bull by the horns and handling things, but by asking for prayer from your male circle too. Can’t you see how she would find comfort and support knowing that you will enlist men to pray? 

 

I’m not suggesting you have to reach into your innermost being and share all that is in your heart with your peers and “besties.” I’m just telling you could use some prayer support too.

[2] Titus 2:3-5 (KJV)

The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;

That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,

To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.

 

A Crabby Perspective

A friend of mine recently gave me this illustration. He said he was out fishing for crabs and needed a bucket. He couldn’t find one with a lid but the guy he was going crabbing with told him, “ You won’t need a lid. Crabs are losers. “ He promised he would see what he meant once they got their first crabs. Sure enough he said, they were losers. As soon as a crab started to climb out of the bucket another crab would pull him back down. 

The illustration has obvious lessons doesn’t it? Don’t let the people we hang around pull us down. 

But those lessons depend on one huge presupposition, that being in the bucket is a bad thing. Admittedly, it seems bad. The crab is going to get cooked and eaten if he stays in the bucket. That sounds bad except that I believe he was created for that very purpose. Perhaps his crabby friends are only helping him fulfill one of the chief reasons for his existence. 

I understand the analogy and even agree with it. But I do see another lesson from a different perspective. We need people in our lives who help us fulfill the purpose for which God created us. The corrupted nature of man constantly strives to climb out of the will of God and make themselves something God never intended, to be their own gods, the masters of their own destiny. Thank God for those people who remind us to stay in the will of God. 

In this respect I see a few buckets a person is best to stay in:

Marriage

God has designed marriage to be one man and one woman for a lifetime. There are numerous temptations that make us seem like this bucket is small, confining and maybe dragging us down. We need friends to keep us in our bucket. 

Work

If a man won’t work neither should he eat. We would like to rationalize that to refer to the ne’er do well. The man who climbs his way to financial independence or works his way to an early and prosperous retirement must be excluded, right? I am not so sure. To become financially able to serve God more freely is certainly advisable. To become free enough to spend time and money in a vacation for the rest of one’s life would be a terrible waste of God’s will. 

Church 

It is impossible to put a group of people into a tight community like a church without some disagreements and disputes. The devil would love to convince the Christian that he could do better without the confinements of the local church. The matter of fact is that God created that church specifically to provoke us to love and Good works. Someone needs to keep pulling us into the unity of the local church. 

I’m not criticizing the first application of the illustration. We would do best to avoid friendships that pull us down into sin. But the friend who keeps us in the will of God is no loser.