Woman Thou Art Loosed! 20th Anniversary Expanded Edition (15 page)

This discussion is for women married to men working in high-stress positions—men who are powerful and full of purpose; men who are the envy of everyone around them. Samson was that kind of man. Jesus described well the problem of highly motivated men. Jesus said, “
Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head
” (Lk. 9:58). Where can the mighty man lay his head? Where can he become vulnerable? Where can he take off his armor and rest for a few hours? He doesn’t want to quit; he merely needs to rest. Is your home a restful place to be? Is it clean and neat? Is it warm and inviting? Delilah’s place is ready. I am sure she has problems, but he doesn’t have to solve them as soon as he comes home from fighting the enemy. She knows he is tired, so she says, “Come, lay your head in my lap.”

I
s your home a restful place to be?

I know we have pictured Delilah as being as lust-ridden as a porno star. But remember that the Bible doesn’t even mention their sex life. I am sure that it was a factor. But Samson has had sex before. He had gotten up from the bed of the prostitute in Gaza and drove back the Philistines. He is not a high school boy whose mind is blown away by a new sexual idea. No, he is a mighty man. Wasn’t it David who questioned at the demise of Saul, “how are the mighty fallen”? (2 Sam. 1:19) Well, tell David to ask Delilah, or if she is not at home, to ask Bathsheba! Delilah knew that all men are little boys somewhere deep inside. They are little boys who started their lives being touched by women. You sang their first song. You gave their first bath and when they were tired, they laid their weary heads against your warm breast and lapsed into sleep. They listened to your silky voice calling them, “Momma’s little man.” You talked to them. You touched them and they felt safe in your arms—not criticized, not ostracized, just safe. Delilah stroked Samson. She talked to him. She gave him a place to lay his head. Even God inhabits the room of a praiser and allows the murmurer to wander. Men, created in the likeness of God, respond to praise. Praise will make a weary man perform. A woman who knows what to say to a man is difficult to withstand. For all men’s tears and all their fears, they need your arms, your words, your song.

Marriage is a ministry. There is much more involved in it than selfish fulfillment. Love is centered around giving, not taking. When you marry someone, you marry everything he is and everything he has been. You inherit his strengths, fears and weaknesses. It is impossible to pick the parts you want and to leave the parts you don’t. It is a package deal. God grants you the grace of ministering to your spouse, to the child in him. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t see immediate change. I want to remind you that it takes time even for a small cut to heal. Healing is a process and it takes time! God will give you the oil of compassion and the sweet wind of a sincere love to pour into the wounds of your husband.

G
od grants you the grace of ministering to your spouse.

But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife. There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband.
1 Corinthians 7:33-34

Marriage is so much a ministry that the apostle Paul teaches the married woman she cannot afford to become so spiritual that she is unavailable for the ministry of marriage. The Greek word used there for “careth” means to be anxious about or to have intense concern. God says, “I want the married woman to be concerned about pleasing her husband and vice versa.” Many married women who spend a great deal of time fellowshiping with single women do not realize that their perspective and availability should be different. Your ministry, as a wife, begins not in the mall, not in the nursing home, but in your own home and to your own spouse. Now, I am certainly not implying that a woman should be locked in the kitchen and chained to the bed! I am sharing that priorities need to start in the home and then spread to careers, vocations and ministerial pursuits. For the woman who “careth for,” God will anoint you to be successful in the ministry of marriage.

M
arriage is for this world.

There will be no marriages in Heaven (Mt. 22:30). Marriage is for this world. Inasmuch as it is a worldly institution, married people cannot divorce themselves from the “things of the world.” Notice this definition of the Greek word
kosmos
translated as “world” in our text:

Kosmos (Strong's #2889) is defined as follows: “a harmonious arrangement or order, then, adornment, decoration, came to denote the world, or the universe, as that which is divinely arranged. The meaning ‘adorning’ is found in 1 Peter 3:3. Elsewhere it signifies the world. Cf.
kosmios
, decent, modest, 1 Tim. 2:9; 3:2. See (WORLD)” (
Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words
, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1985).

It implies that there should be a concern for a harmonious order in the house. God gives the gift of marriage, but you must do your own decorating. Decorate your relationship or it will become bland for you and for your spouse. Decoration does not come where there is no concern. So God says, in effect, “I release the married woman from the level of consecration I expect from the single woman so she will be able to spend some time decorating her relationship.” You have a ministry to your companion. I can hear someone saying, “That is good, but I need to spend time with the Lord.” That is true. The Scripture didn’t say married women were to be carnal. It just sets some priorities. Where there are no priorities, there is a sense of being overwhelmed by responsibility. You can still consecrate yourself as long as you understand you are called to be a companion to your spouse. God has ascribed honor to marriage. Your bed is undefiled. (See Hebrews 13:4.) However you choose to decorate your relationship is holy. Do not neglect each other in the name of being spiritual. God wants you to be together!

G
od gives the gift of marriage, but you must do your own decorating.

The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
1 Corinthians 7:3-5 (NIV)

If you are looking for someone to be your everything, don’t look around, look up! God is the only One who can be everything. By expecting perfection from the flesh, you ask more out of someone else than what you can provide yourself. To be married is to have a partner: someone who is not always there or always on target or always anything! On the other hand, should you ever get in trouble and you don’t know who to look to for help, you can count on your partner! It is to have someone to curl up against when the world seems cold and life uncertain. It is having someone who is as concerned as you are when your children are ill. It is having a hand that keeps checking your forehead when you aren’t well. To be married is to have someone’s shoulder to cry on as they lower your parent’s body into the ground. It is wrapping wrinkled knees in warm blankets and giggling without teeth! To the person you marry you are saying, “When my time comes to leave this world and the chill of eternity blows away my birthdays and my future stands still in the night; it’s your face I want to kiss good-bye. It is your hand I want to squeeze as I slip from time into eternity. As the curtain closes on all I have attempted to do and be, I want to look into your eyes and see that I mattered. Not what I looked like. Not what I did or how much money I made. Not even how talented I was. I want to look into the teary eyes of someone who loved me and see: I mattered!”

As I close this chapter, I hope you can relate to what a blessing it is to be alive, to be able to feel, to be able to taste life. Lift the glass to your mouth and drink deeply of life; it is a privilege to experience every drop of a human relationship. It is not perfect; like a suede jacket, the imperfection adds to its uniqueness. I am sure yours, like mine, is a mixing of good days, sad days and all the challenges of life. I hope you have learned that a truly good relationship is a spicy meal served on a shaky table, filled with dreams and pains and tender moments. Moments that, in those split-second flashbacks, make you smile secret smiles in the middle of the day. Moments so strong that they never die, but yet are so fragile they disappear like bubbles in a glass. It does not matter whether you have something to be envied or something to be developed; if you can look back and catch a few moments, or trace a smile back to a memory, you are blessed! You could have been anywhere doing anything but instead the maître d’ has seated you at a TABLE FOR TWO!

F
URTHER
C
HALLENGE
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