Your desire shall be for your husband. Genesis 3:16
Recently I have been more aware of this notion.
Before the fall, God created Eve from Adams rib. The intent was for equal partnership.
After the fall of man, God is clear 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."
If God wanted man to rule over women, he would have symbolically created her from the heal.
I found a blog that has helped me put words to what I am contemplating. Of course I could reword to make it sound like I came up with these ideas, but that is simply not true!
"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."
I know manipulation all too well and I see it in the lives of other women around me. There are several manifestations of this...from the desperate woman that believes she must have a man in order to feel complete, to the woman who believes there is no man that possibly could complete and she remains alone and unwilling to see the goodness of partnership. I recently heard the thought that there is a reason Satan tempted Eve first. Perhaps Satan knew the potential vulnerability Adam had with Eve as a woman.
I long for protection and perhaps I hold responsibility to protect my husband by not alluring him with control and manipulation. And yet I do this because I desire him in ways that he is unable to fulfill. It is complicated and though I would like to believe with all my heart that God can only fulfill this deep desire within me, the truth is that I am still searching for that fulfillment. Our yearnings as women bring us to new places of understanding. I am not sure if I understand in a way of thought and theory, but more from a peace in my heart...the kind that surpasses understanding.
Onward Katy...
