There is a famine

http://duane-scott.net/there-is-a-famine/
She hoists her small body to see through the bars of the heavy gate and I hear her calling to me, “Sir, sir! Please give me some food.” When I look up, her frantic gaze meets mine.
Then she is gone.
A moment later, petite black hands grip the rusty bars of the blue painted gate and her face, shiny with sweat, appears again. “I’m so hungry, and God will bless you,” she tells me in her native language, and I don’t need to translate this in my head because I’ve heard it a thousand times.
Walking over to the gate, she lowers herself back to the ground and I notice she must not be more than six years old so I ask, “Where are your parents?”
“They are at home,” she replies, and steps back, head low as she stares at her feet, because the white man before her is  really talking to her, little her and she can hardly believe it. “They are hungry too,” she offers as an after thought.
I’ve also seen this scene a thousand times.
“I will follow you to your house,” I tell her, and she nods nervously. So we walk, not like we would in America side by side, but how we do in Ghana, with her in the front, leading me. We pass the “football” field where I play soccer with the local boys and I smile as I think how they all argue about which team I get to be on, not because I’m a good player, oh no, but because they like to watch me run.  She tugs on my hand as we near a small compound of huts on the other side of the village.
“My mother is inside,” she says and I call out a greeting asking permission to see her.
A lady emerges, squinting into the bright sunlight and instantly, I know her.  I have seen her a few times in our small church, but she has always left before the service was over.
“I knew you come,” she tells me in broken English. “I tell my daughta she call you and you would come.” I notice the tired look, the sunken cheeks, and I know it is true.
There has been very little food in their stomachs for days.
“Where is your husband?” I ask her and she looks at me, almost through me, as she searches my face. “He too afraid to call you. He is inside, but alone for shame.”
“I want to buy you some food,” I nod at the small kiosk down the road, “I will be right back.”
When I return, hands filled with two loaves of sweet bread and a yam, a man is standing there and again, I am startled to realize I know him… Quite well, actually.  He had attended church faithfully for over two years and had given his heart to God.  “It is stories like that man’s that bring me to Africa,” my dad says as he tells a fellow missionary what a beautiful work the Lord is doing in our small village.
With shaking hands, he takes from me the food. Silently, he empties my arms, one item at a time, almost in reverence.  Glancing up, tears spill from his eyes, “You bring me peace in the name of Jesus. And now you bring me food. It is too much…” and he is overcome, shifting from one foot to the other, unsure of how to express his gratitude.
I don’t know what to say.
So I reach for him, grasping his hands in mine, but he pulls me closer until black skin becomes white and white skin becomes black, and we are one together.  As he continues to whisper in my ear, “It is too much… it is too much.”

There is a famine the wide world over. 

A thirst and hunger in hearts of men. 

A million captives today are longing 

To be free from the curse of sin.

—————————————————————

I remember this incident in Ghana, a world away, as I and my family prepare for the upcoming winter. We have enough. More than enough, actually. So as I work, I silently pray for those with less. As Ann Voskamp says, “I travel the world on my knees.”

Her Desire Will Be for Her Husband

http://www.theologyforwomen.org/2010/04/her-desire-will-be-for-her-husband.html

I think this post may be controversial.  But I’m always concerned when those of us who most strongly advocate a straightforward reading of Scripture and obedience to it then don’t take Scripture at face value ourselves.  We have to guard our hermeneutic, folks.  So here goes my attempt to do just that. 

After the fall of man, God is very clear in Genesis 3 about the consequences for women.

¹⁶To the woman He said,
         "I will greatly multiply
         Your pain in childbirth,
         In pain you will bring forth children;
         Yet your desire will be for your husband,
         And he will rule over you."

Conservative, complementarian evangelicals (of which I am one) regularly interpret the next to last line to mean that her desire will be to rule over her husband.  But that simply is not what Scripture says.  And before you label me liberal (and it’s amazing these days what can get you labeled that way), hear me out.  If we can think about this topic anew, I think those who minister to women will be better equipped to apply the gospel to the core places in women’s hearts affected by depravity.  So let’s consider the particular consequence of the fall of man that a woman’s desire will be for her husband.  

Similar phrases are used in Genesis 4:7 and Song of Solomon 7:10.

Gen. 4:7  "… And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door ; and its desire is for you, but you must master it."

Song of Solomon 7:10  "I am my beloved's, And his desire is for me.

The argument used by some for interpreting Gen. 3:16 to mean foremost a desire to dominate the husband is that Gen. 4:7 could be read that sin’s desire is against us, to dominate over us.  But that argument is undermined by Song of Solomon 7:10.  There the phrase means exactly what a straightforward reading of it indicates.  His desire is for her.  I believe Genesis 3:16 should be read exactly as it says—her desire will be for her husband.  Plain and simple.  No contortions needed to accurately discern what God is saying here. 

Though some argue that the word “for” could be translated “against,” no Bible translation (that I could find) says her desire is “against” her husband.  They all say her desire is “for” her husband.  Apparently, no translation team thought “against” was the best meaning of that term.  It doesn’t make sense to say “desire against.”  The problem with our desires is always that they are either FOR the wrong thing or FOR the right thing but out of proportion to what is appropriate.     

The word for “desire” in Genesis 3:16 can mean craving or longing.  The issue is best understood if we make the simple substitution of God for her husband.  Her desire SHOULD BE for her God.  Instead, her desire/craving/longing is misplaced.  The curse is not that women want to dominate the men in their lives.  Women’s problem is that they worship the men in their lives and look to them for affirmation and provision emotionally and spiritually for things that God alone is supposed to provide.  Their problem is IDOLATRY. 

If you think that the foundational result of the fall of man in the average woman’s life is a desire to dominate, your ministry is going to miss … well … the vast majority of problems in a woman’s life.  Certainly, I know my fair share of dominating, manipulative, control freakish women (of which I am often chief), but our problem goes much deeper than the symptomatic issue of control.  We are idolaters!  We looked to men to meet a need they couldn’t meet—emotionally, spiritually, physically.  And instead of recognizing our sovereign, compassionate, and wise Father in heaven as the place to which we should have looked, we started looking within ourselves once the men in our lives disappointed us.  Control tactics aren’t the manifestation of an innate desire to dominate the men in our lives.  Instead, we resort to manipulation and control because we longed too hard to rest in the men in our lives.  We grasp and clamor, “Lead me spiritually.  Provide for me physically.  Affirm me emotionally.”  And when they can’t or don’t, then we attempt to lead ourselves spiritually, provide for ourselves physically, and seek outside affirmation for ourselves emotionally.  Instead, we don’t need to change our desire or craving.  We simply need to change the object of it. 

God, I need you to meet the spiritual void in my life!  “Certainly, child.  I will not leave you as an orphan.  I have sent my Spirit to bring to your remembrance all I have taught you, for apart from me, you can do nothing.”  John 15

God, provide for me physically!  “You can trust me, child.  Do not worry for your physical needs.  As I provide for the birds and flowers, I will provide for you.”  Matthew 5-7

God, I need help emotionally!  “Yes, child.  Meditate on all I have declared over you through Christ.  You have received the full rights of a child of the King (Gal. 4:5).   I will receive you one day into my arms with the affirmation, ‘Well done good and faithful servant.’  Find joy and rest in Me.”

We are not going to really understand how the gospel equips us reclaim God’s image in us as His daughters until we understand clearly what our problem is.  I can’t emphasize strongly enough that the problem in women created by the fall is deeper than control and domination.  It may play out that way in some women, but it doesn’t play out that way in all women.  There certainly is a battle between the sexes as a result of the fall, but it is often one-sided.  For every controlling, manipulative, take-charge woman (who tends to be out there in front of us all), there are 5 pathetic doormats (hidden in the shadowy corners of life) waiting desperately for crumbs from porno guy’s table.  They’ll do whatever it takes—perform demeaning sexual acts, sacrifice the hearts of their children to an abuser, and other unimaginable acts of desperation—like a prisoner chained in a cell lapping water that spills out the toilet because he’s dying of thirst.  This insatiable craving is an issue of worship and idolatry.  Apart from Christ, our tendency after the fall is to set up men as being able to meet needs in us that only God can meet, and there is no limit to how desperate we can become. 

Women often perceive weakness or strength among each other by how they react when men fail them.  The perceived strong feminist woman is the one who doesn’t need men.  She can do it on her own.  The perceived weak woman is the one who continues to follow loser men around like a whipped puppy.  In contrast, in Christ, we have a new and different way altogether.  The woman bought by Christ who is set up as God’s honored daughter with full access to the King of kings has her needs met in Him.  God pours into her.  God equips her.  God satisfies her emotional, spiritual, and physical needs.  Then and only then can she let go of her perceived rights and be the helper to her male counterpart that God created her to be. 

In Sacred Influence which I reviewed here, Gary Thomas begins his encouragement to wives by thoroughly fleshing out all we have in Christ as His daughters.  Thomas makes a point that it isn’t until we get our identity in Him that we can deal with what God requires of us in marriage.  The good news of the gospel is that Christ has paved the way for us to boldly come to our Father’s throne room in heaven to find spiritual empowerment, physical help, and emotional affirmation.  God’s help and affirmation are real and effective.  He will meet the void in your heart that years of looking to men have never filled.  Come boldly to Him in confidence and find grace and mercy at the points of your deepest longings today, for apart from Him, you can do nothing. 

Blaise Pascal Quote

"Knowing God without knowing our own wretchedness makes for pride. Knowing our own wretchedness without knowing God makes for despair. Knowing Jesus Christ strikes the balance because he shows us both God and our own wretchedness."
— Blaise Pascal

The Mind on Fire excerpt by Blaise Pascal

"Take from me, O Lord, that self-pity which love of myself so readily produces, and from the frustration of not succeeding in the world as I would naturally desire, for these have no regard for Your glory. Rather, create in me a sorrow that is conformable to Your own. Let my pains rather express the happy condition of my conversion and salvation. Let me no longer wish for health or life, but to spend it and end it for You, with You, and in You. I pray neither for health nor sickness, life nor death. Rather I pray that You will dispose of my health, my sickness, my life, and my death, as for Your glory, for my salvation, for the usefulness to Your church and Your saints, among whom I hope to be numbered. You alone know what is expedient for me. You are the Sovereign Master. Do whatever pleases You. Give me or take away from me. Conform my will to Yours, and grant that with a humble and perfect submission, and in holy confidence, I may dispose myself utterly to You. May I receive the orders of Your everlasting provident care. May I equally adore whatever proceeds from You."
— Blaise Pascal (The Mind on Fire: A Faith for the Skeptical and Indifferent)