Leadership in the Family and Gender Differences (a revelation)

I was watching my daughters play with a friend from church and I was struck by a sudden profound revelation that impacts how married couples view leadership and why, at least in part, we struggle in our marriages. 

As I said, I was watching the girls play when I realized that girls determine leadership very differently than boys.  The girls decided on a general theme for the game, "school."  Then the battle began.  Everyone started trying to make the rules for the game: who would be the teacher, the students, sit in which desk, etc.  The leader of the group was the one who finally asserted her will and was allowed to make the rule for the game.  For girls, the leader is the rule maker.

Growing up, I was one of three brothers.  When we decided to play a game the rules were agreed upon prior to beginning the game.  Eg. Kickball:  Number of outs, boundaries, can you get someone out by hitting them with the ball, etc. are all determined at the outset.  The leader is determined by who picks the team.  For boys, the leader is the team captain.

Can you see how different these two methods of determining leadership are?  Now, consider the impact that this has on our spousal relationships.  Who is the leader in the household according to these two different methods?  The husband thinks that he is the leader of a game (marriage) whose rules are set.  He is the leader because he picked the team (he gave her a ring and asked her to be on his team).  He is the team captain, and when you are the captain you are the leader for the duration of the game ('till death do us part!).

The woman goes into the relationship with the expectation that they have agreed upon a general premise of play (marriage), but the leader will be determined by who makes the rules.  So, early on in the new relationship she begins to establish her leadership by changing (or determining) the rules of the game!

Can you see the chaos that can ensue?  The husband thinks the rules are set and the wife keeps changing them.  But every boy knows that you can't change the rules once the game starts!  The wife, however, cannot understand when her husband is having such a hard time adjusting to the rule changes on the fly.  After all, every girl knows that the leader has the right and is full expected to exert her authority by adjusting the rules in the middle of the game.  It is the followers job to keep up and adapt. 

The way that we learn how leadership is determined and exercised, according to our gender, impacts our expectations of marriage in our spouse, but we are playing with two very different expectations. These two views of leadership within the marriage are not only incongruent, they are incompatible. Both think they are the leader, and are likely making each other crazy because the other is not playing according to the same leadership definitions and expectations.

Let me know what you think.  I could be crazy...just ask my wife!

Living in a Pandora World

If you don't know the Greek myth of Pandora, you should.  It speaks poigntly into the current secular world view.  Here is the myth in a nutshell:
Pandora (whose name means literally "all-gifted," but can be translated "well-endowed") was the first woman.   She was created by Hephaestus (the god of craftsmanship) at Zeus' command.  She was the then granted wonderful gifts by the other gods to honor Zeus (beauty from Aphrodite, music from Apollo, etc.).  As humanity begins to grow, Prometheus has pitty on them for they live more like beasts than gods and so he steals fire from Mount Olympus and gives it to them.  Zeus now fears that man shall become like the gods (are you picking up some Eden-type themes here?).  Zeus reasons that man's curiosity and self-determination will be insatiable, and decides to play on that.  He entrusts Pandora with a jar (not actually a box) with a warning that it contains great power and should never be opened. Pandora is indeed overcome by her curiosity and upon opening the jar releases into the world all manner of evil and violence.  But Zeus' greatest revenge is not in the loosing of evil, but in what lay on the bottom of the Jar.  As Pandora realizes what she has done she quickly replaces the lid to the jar trapping its final component: hope.  Thus the world was plunged into a hopeless struggle with all manner of evil.
   This view of the world has held to our present day.  People live lives of despair and hopelessness as they realize that evil does appear to be winning.  But here is the difference between truth and the lie.  God has dealt with our Pandora reality, by birthing hope into the world.
   For it was into this world of hopelessness that a baby was born.  He was a child unlike any other.  All children bring with them a sense of hope for the future, but this child did not bring hope, this child was hope.  In Jesus, the Father loosed hope into the world.  Jesus came to set the children of God free.  He would take the evil loosed upon the world in the fall of mankind into Himself, bottling it up forever, and in turn He would release hope from the bottom of the jar into a world that desperately needs it.  The truth is that Jesus reversed the curse.
  I am not claiming that the Pandora myth is true, but its parallels to the fall of mankind in the garden is striking, at least as far as the consequences are concerned.  And what a beautiful illustration it makes that Jesus looses the hope bottled up in our hearts, that it might be free to reign among us.  That we might be the people of Hope in a Pandora world.
   This was the basis for my Christmas message this past December.  You can hear it at www.risenchristlcms.org and click the sermons button.