God has qualities of both men and women. He is strong and also tender. He is the pursuer but he is also the most beautiful one worth pursuing. He created man and woman, so why would he be limited to be either one of the two?
In the Bible, God created one man named Adam and then took a chunk out of him and made it into a woman. Named aptly because she came from the womb of man. I wonder if when God made that first human, Adam, he made him very much like himself with both masculine and feminine qualities. I don’t imagine this first person being an emasculated man that squeals like a girl, or a butch woman bullying her peers around. I picture this creature as a strong, and tender creature. A strong leader of the animals with at the same time a soft, willing heart to serve his creator. A passion for justice but a heart for mercy at the right time. For God’s ultimate earthly creation, would he not want it to encompass both what we now call the masculine and feminine of God’s qualities?
After he had created Adam and was looking down at that lone creation, and pondering the love that existed between two of the parts of his being (Father and Son) maybe he decided that it could be exemplified in humans as well. So he decided to split the first human into two halves that make a more complete being together than half of the same apart. And he bound them together by this very important trait called love. Perhaps this was the BEST exemplification of His own character.
Then as we developed language and got overwhelmed with the tangle of minute details like assigning pronouns, maybe we forgot the deep theological concept of the beyond-gender creature of God. So now, We try to describe God using our limited rules of language, and we default to label God as a Him.
Now this makes me think. Is it possible that the closer we get to becoming like God, the more traits of the opposite sex we will incorporate? If I were a tough general leading an army of men with justice and strict discipline, exemplifying physical strength in battle, and doing so with unbreakable integrity, while protecting the fragile beauty of my wife, could I not also benefit from some feminine traits? Would I not be godlier if I also knew a time for mercy, and the time to comfort a broken soldier. And when to take an orphaned child under my proverbial wing. And is not the greatest of all honor acquiescing your will to your president. The greatest of generals is still to be a servant.
If I were a loving, compassionate mother, with grace and beauty in everything I do, taking lame birds and hurting children under my nursing care, would I not be more godly if I adopted some masculine qualities as well? If I also was very strong and taught tough discipline on top of the compassionate love I showed to the children, and led my household with strength, order and justice while my husband was gone, would that not be even more admirable?
So do not feel less honorable to cry or dance at church, dear men. For king David cried and danced before his people and was a man after God’s own heart. And women, do not be afraid to move the furniture when there just aren’t enough hands, and rebuke falsehood when you recognize it. For the duties of Jesus are yours as well.
But both men and women, we must be feminine in one main thing. We are the bride of our eternal bridegroom. We are anxiously awaiting our prince who will rescue us from this rotting place and show us the beauty he built into our beings before the beginning of time- and the potential to be the full character creatures he created us to be before time. Our feelings of incompleteness will once and for ever be fulfilled. We will be made complete in him.
Raw Spoon
