Desire

Excerpt from Practical Theology for Women post:  Her Desire Will Be For Her Husband

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."

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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.  

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