This week as I have reflected on the nature of suffering, there is one final thing I’d like to add. In my lesson Wednesday I mentioned the plethora of bad teaching on suffering. Throughout the history of mankind, theologians and philosophers alike have struggled to find meaning and purposeful reflection on this very difficult topic, so it’s no wonder that pastors today continue to fumble the ball.

With that in mind, I want to add a number of things that suffering is NOT. These points are taken from the Driscoll sermon I mentioned in my last post, and I think they provides some helpful boundaries for not only interpreting our own suffering, but comforting others in their suffering as well:

• Suffering does not make you a victim. While it’s important that we not blame ourselves or believe that God is somehow punishing us when tragedy strikes, it is also important that we understand sin has consequences. For instance, choosing to have unsafe sex can result in contracting diseases. Choosing to date someone that you know is wrong can result in massive heartache. In these instances God’s is not punishing you, but there are very real consequence for your bad decisions.
• Suffering is not to be pursued. There is some very faulty theology that exalts the path of suffering and considers it to be more virtuous. This belief is problematic in two ways:

1. In Genesis 1 God declares the world and all that is in it to be good. Then in 1 Timothy 6:17 we are reminded that God gives us richly all things to enjoy. While we should never let material things become our master, they are not evil. To resist the good things of this world and impose suffering on our ourselves is to deny the gifts that God has given us. This thinking also strays into a kind of heretical theology called gnosticism.
2. The pursuit of suffering is rooted in guilt. As I have mentioned before, the suffering that we as Christians endure is not a punishment from God. Jesus received that punishment on the cross. The suffering we endure is a result of living in a thoroughly broken world. God is a redeemer and He can use it, but for us to pursue suffering for its own sake indicates a belief that Jesus’ sacrifice was not enough to restore our relationship with God. Instead, we find ways to add to the meaning and power of his sacrifice. The pursuit of suffering is not the only way we do this–any action that is driven by the belief that we must make ourselves better in order to be accepted is rooted in the same errant belief. Do not imply that Christ’s crucifixion is somehow inadequate by seeking out suffering. Jesus’ dying words, “It is finished,” remind us that his suffering and death was not only enough, but also complete.

• Suffering is not to be excused because God uses it. Driscoll told the story of a father who beat his sons growing up. Reflecting upon their childhood the father concluded, “Well, look how good they turned out! I must have done something right!” The father’s actions were inexcusably wrong, and the fact that God redeemed the situation was no validation of the father’s behavior. God, by His very character, can take a bad situation and make it good, but that does not mean the evil actions of a person are somehow justified. Sin is sin no matter how God uses it.
• Suffering is no excuse to allow evil. I CANNOT emphasize this point enough, especially when talking to women. In fact, I wish I had mentioned it on Wednesday. Do NOT allow people to sin in the name of your own sanctification! If you are in an abusive relationship and you feel God has used it to grow your relationship with Him, then praise God, but the man who is abusing you needs to be sanctified too. Call the police and let God deal with him! You are facilitating evil by allowing Him to abuse you. God HATES the actions of any person who treats you as less than the beautiful, divine image that you are. Never ever excuse your own suffering when it enables the twisted sin of another person in your life.
• Not all suffering has an explanation. In the face of tragedy we desperately seek to understand why. It is this desperation that often leads us to superficial answers. There are some things we will never know this side of eternity, so we must find solace in the knowledge that God DOES love us, even when we don’t feel it.

If you find yourself in a place of despair right now, please know that God has not forgotten you. I don’t know why you are there, but I do know the character of your Father. It is the character of One who could easily distance Himself from our pain, but instead became a man to share in our suffering. It is the character of One who is so intimately tied to His people, so much so that we are called His “body.” When we are wounded, His own body is wounded. So remember His character! He grieves along side of you and aches when your heart aches, but not as one without power or hope. God is also a redeemer. He is loving and He is good. In those darkest of moments, place your hope in Him.

This week I spoke to the women at my church on Philippians 1:12-30, which addresses the topic of joy amidst suffering. This is a really tough topic to handle, not only because it’s so fraught with emotion but because it is so frequently mishandled. There’s a lot of really bad theology out there on the topic of suffering, so I did my best to reflect a Scriptural understanding of it.

In particular, Paul’s experience reminds us that suffering can either be purposeful, or purposeless. You can either run from your suffering and shield yourself from it, learning nothing and gaining nothing in the mean time. Or, you can make your suffering purposeful, making it your servant and using it for the glory of God and benefit of others.

However the choice is yours.

For more on what it means to endure your suffering in a purposeful way, you can listen to my lesson below:

Finally, there are two resources that I didn’t have time to use in my lesson, so I thought I would post them here. First, if you have not already checked out Matt Chandler’s blog, do so. Matt, a pastor in Texas, is currently battling brain cancer. His approach and his attitude about this trial are a modern day example of Paul’s words lived out. Though his burden is heavy, Matt openly rejoices that God has counted him worthy to suffer for His name. I promise you will be challenged and inspired by his testimony.

You can view Matt’s video updates at Matt’s blog.

The second resource I would like to recommend to you is a video produced by Mars Hill Church in Seattle. Last year Pastor Mark Driscoll preached on this topic (a sermon I would also highly recommend) and he concluded his sermon with the following video about the life of Charlotte Elliott, the women who penned the now famous song “Just As I Am.”

As a newlywed who has witnessed many marriages in my parents’ generation dissolve, I entered into marriage with a small degree of anxiety. Although my parents have been married for over 30 years and I thoroughly trust my husband, one never ceases to hear stories about pastors and other respectable men who one day reveal that their entire lives have been a lie. In an instant, everything their wives had known was shattered. That terrifies me.

However, I’ve noticed an equally startling as well as puzzling trend among married couples my age. At this stage in life, I already have a number of friends whose marriages have ended in divorce, but not because of the men. Within my own circle of acquaintances, every single instance has been a result of the wife’s decision to exit the marriage. Whether she was unfaithful or simply felt trapped, I have been shocked by the number of women who have chosen divorce relatively early in their marriages.

What has been even more startling is that their husbands were good men. This isn’t always the case, of course, but many of these women left husbands who were godly, faithful men. Any woman would consider herself lucky to have a husband like them. So what’s the deal? Whereas men seem more prone to have affairs in conjunction with a mid-life crisis, why are so many women leaving their husbands at such an early age?

I did a little research on this topic to find out if my experience is unique, but it’s not. Psychology Today estimates that while 50-70% of men have affairs, 30-60% of women do as well. A separate study published in the New York Times reported that this number is particularly on the rise amidst young women: In new marriages, about 20 percent of men and 15 percent of women under 35 have admitted to cheating. So while infidelity is stereotypically attributed to men, statistics indicate otherwise. What is unclear is the reason behind these rising numbers.

The New York Times article offered several possibilities. Due to past cultural pressures, it’s possible that women have always been as equally unfaithful as men but were more likely to lie about it until now. Others speculate that as the number of women in the workforce increases, the late nights in the office provide opportunities for temptation that women never before had. Even women who do stay at home have the added temptation of internet, e-mail and text messaging.

While researchers have yet to establish a conclusive consensus about these “early exits,” I have my own theory. Based on my own experience in marriage thus far, I suspect it’s a result of several cultural influences. To begin, women grow up absorbing unrealistic stories about fairy tale romance from movies, t.v. shows and books. However, these romantic fantasies never provide us with a glimpse of the “happily ever after.” We see the pursuit and the climax, but then the movie ends.

As a result, we enter marriage subconsciously expecting that the same hot pursuit will define the rest of our lives…only to quickly realize that it doesn’t. Even six months into my own marriage I find myself sighing as I watch movies like the Notebook. There’s a part of me that’s sad I’ll no longer experience the newness of love and the hot passion of that initial stage. My husband is incredible and he pursues me every day, but it’s different now. There’s a small part of me that misses that.

Compound that disappointment with the very real challenges of marriage and every day life, along with a culture in which divorce is pretty normal. The result? Young women suspect they got married too quickly. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be!” they think. “I must have married the wrong guy!” Either that, or they suddenly feel they’re missing out on the passion and romance of their single friends. No more exciting first dates. No more thrill-of-the-chase.

And so they feel trapped. That word, “trapped,” has been the common denominator among the young women I’ve known to leave their husbands. She thought she knew what she was signing up for, but then she got married and felt she’d been duped. She felt stuck and she needed a way out. Then a handsome co-worker or family friend caught her eye…

Perhaps I’m totally wrong, but this “theory” is based off of my own battle with the culture’s influence on my expectations. I never realized how powerfully my understanding of romance had been shaped by media until I actually got married.

While psychologists and sociologists are still unclear about the cause for this growing trend, there are two ways in which we can go ahead and be on the defensive when it comes to fighting for our marriages:

1. Be discerning about the messages the culture is feeding you. Romantic movies may seem innocent enough, but be wise to the ways in which they are shaping your expectations of marriage. If you’ve read my blog for any amount of time, you know that I think about this stuff ALL the time and it has STILL affected me. It’s hard to resist getting swept up in fanciful dreams about what your life should be, all the while sabotaging the life you actually have. Marriage is a blessing and a gift, but we ruin it by imposing unnatural expectations upon it.

2. Don’t forget your Heavenly Lover. Even in the best marriages, it’s not all romance and steam. Some days you feel ordinary and plain, and your husband may not pursue you the way he did when you were courting. So on those days when you feel trapped, or at the very least forgotten about, remember that you have a Father in Heaven who never stops being enthralled by you. His extravagant loves puts the Notebook to shame. No one knows you as intimately, loves you as unconditionally, and will ever sacrifice more for you than Him. No man will ever pursue you as consistently or perfectly as God, so let Him be your satisfaction on the days when you might be tempted to look elsewhere.

Regardless of whether you are single or married, it’s time that we start talking about the fact that more and more women are sabotaging their marriages through infidelity. Women are just as likely to be tempted as men, so we must be on our guard against it. None of us is any safer than the woman next to us. Let’s be realistic about that fact, and pray for grace and wisdom all the while.

When it comes to gifts in ministry, there is one that I’ve always been certain I do not possess–hospitality. I’ve opened up my apartment to host Bible studies and dinners, but it’s not something that has ever come naturally to me in the traditional sense. Whenever I go to a friend’s house and see their gorgeous place-settings, I always feel envious of their artistic eye. Just last night Ike and I had dinner at a friend’s house, and as we waited for dinner to be served she presented us with an assortment of delicious finger foods–cheese, crackers, veggies, and wine. As I filled my mouth with yummy cheddar cheese cubes I thought to myself, “How come I never thought of this! Appetizers!!” as if it was some sort of new invention.

And in case you forgot, I just started cooking when I got married 6 months ago. Fortunately there haven’t been any more chili debacles since the one I mentioned a few months ago, but there’s definitely a learning curve. Hospitality is a learned discipline for me.

With this in mind, I’ve been encouraged in my study of Philippians to learn of a different kind of hospitality. As I mentioned in my last post, the Philippian church was unique in that it began with the conversion of women. As one scholar put it, “Women were an important part of the church in Philippi, helping to provide for the missionaries’ needs, as well as working alongside of them.”

In particular, Lydia, a God-fearing woman from Asia, was the first convert in Philippi and became a major resource to the church. Acts 16:15 tells us that following her conversion she “invited us to her home.” saying “‘If you consider me a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my house.’ And she persuaded us.” This verse may not seem like much, but for me it was revolutionary.

Before meeting Paul, Lydia was already an entrepreneur. She was a dealer in purple, one of the most costly substances in the ancient world. She was a successful businesswoman, and she used this pioneering spirit to make the most of her resources for God. Specifically, she used the resource of her home.

While we traditionally think of hospitality as the baking of casseroles and the hosting of dinners, Lydia had a different idea. She was gifted at hospitality in a way that actually grew the Kingdom of God. For Lydia, hospitality meant turning her home into an outpost for God’s mission field.

I find this to be a tremendously challenging and inspiring example. Especially for women who find themselves at a season in life when they are somewhat bound by their homes. Some women are so busy raising kids and taking care of the house that the idea of anything beyond that is overwhelming.

In the face of this seeming obstacle to ministry, Lydia challenges us with a different approach to hospitality. While place settings and casseroles aren’t bad things, the real question is how are you using your home to further the Kingdom of God in your community? Creating a nice ambience for dinner parties can certainly be one way to do this, but it’s not the only way.

Lydia challenges us to think outside the box when it comes to hospitality. It takes the focus off Martha Stewart and places it back on Christ. How is your home an outpost for the mission field? What are you doing with the resource that you’ve been given through your home? As women, we compose half of God’s church and one of the primary resource we’ve been given to use is our homes. How are you being a good steward of it? How could the Kingdom of God be furthered were we to all follow in Lydia’s steps? Let me know if you have ideas, or if you’ve been using your home in a creative way. Let’s brainstorm this possibility together!

This semester I am co-teaching a Women’s Bible Study at my church and we’re going through the book of Philippians. I will be posting the audio from each week as a resource to the women in the study, but I also thought my regular readers might enjoy it as well!

I’ve really loved studying Philippians because the church at Philippi in particular is a testimony to the amazing things that God can do through the service of women. It’s really incredible, but also very challenging!

I’ll be writing some posts based on ideas from my talks, but to hear more about the birth of the Philippi church and the role of women in the spread of the Gospel, you can listen to my first talk below:

For the second talk by my co-teacher, Cas Monaco, you can listen to the audio below.Whereas my talk was a basic introduction to Philippians, Cas dives into Philippians 1:1-11.

I’ve already learned so much and been so encouraged by the book of Philippians. In this book we find a perfect balance of comfort amidst suffering, mixed with vision for the Kingdom of God. Philippians has a great word for women today, so I hope you will join me as I dig deeper into this challenging letter!

Last night my husband and I went out to dinner to celebrate 6 months of marriage, as well as the second anniversary of our first date. It was a very special Valentine’s Day to be sure! As we sat across from one another at dinner, he slid a folded piece of yellow notepad paper across the table. I opened it up to read a wonderful love letter expressing his commitment to me and repeating his vows.

Now before you say “blech” and then click the “exit” button on this window, I promise this isn’t going to be a mushy gushy tribute to Valentine’s Day and my husband. The reason I mention this letter is that there were two things in it that were challenging to me, not only in the way I view my faith but the way I view my marriage as well. On the day after celebrating a holiday about love, Ike provided me with a thoughtful perspective that I think is helpful for us all:

1. Love is a Lifelong Commitment, Not a One-time Promise: What follows is a quote from the letter. Those of you who know Ike are going to crack up. He’s the only one I know who would quote Soren Kierkegaard in a love letter:

“Kierkegaard once quoted the saying, ‘To promise is honorable, but to keep is hard.” And then commenting on a generation that he saw make a lot of promises that it didn’t keep, he added his own corrective: ‘A promise is only honorable if someone does the hard work of keeping it!’ As I began to think on this, I thought of the promise I made to you and to God on the day of our wedding. I thought of the way in which it becomes so easy to pat myself on the back for making the promise as if the making of the promise itself is somehow meritorious. But in fact, the failure to keep such a promise would void the promise altogether and it possibly would be better not to have made the promise in the first place. The promises I made that day are honorable if and only if I keep them every single day.”

The truth of his words cannot be understated. In a culture that no longer views promises as binding commitments–more like a solid “I’ll do my best”–we as Christians have the opportunity to stand out by letting our yeses be yeses. (Matt. 5:37) This is true of our marriages, our friendships, our work commitments, and most importantly our commitment to God. The sincerity of a one-time promise to follow Him will be found lacking if it’s not followed by a lifetime of allegiance.

*I should also add that Ike’s commitment to love me is in no way encouraged or eased by who I am as a person. I am not super lovable, somehow making his promise an easy one to keep. On the contrary, I’m often a VERY difficult person to love, but that’s what gives meaning to his promise. A promise means little when it requires little of us. The promises that we must work to keep are the promises that say the most about our commitment.

2. Love is a Lifestyle–Ike closed his letter with the following words:

“The experience of Valentine’s Day cannot be created in a single day if it is not cared for and nurtured throughout the rest of the year.”

As romantic as his words were, the first thing I thought as I read them was, “So it is with God!” No woman should have to wait an entire year to be romanced by her husband. While we can’t all afford to go out to nice restaurants every night of the week, the affection displayed on Valentine’s Day should not be a once-a-year event. Otherwise, it doesn’t seem incredibly sincere. It’s more like a payoff to make up for the other 364 days of mediocrity.

And so it is with God. A once-a-week or once-a-year trip to church is no substitute for a lifestyle of adoration. And like a faithful wife, God desires our constant affection. The hour or two we spend in church should be a natural continuation of all that you do to love Him the rest of the week.

So those are just two lessons that I was reminded of on Valentine’s Day. On a day that is often cliché and superficial, they helped me to reflect on love in a fruitful and edifying way.

And for those of you who don’t have an aversion to sappy-ness, I will close with the this final tidbit from our date: As I read the letter in the restaurant I started to cry, and of course our waitress walked up right at that moment. She looked at me and asked if I was alright. (Looking back, I think it would have been funny if I’d told her that Ike just broke up with me, just to see how she’d react!) But anyways, I told her that we just celebrated 6 months of marriage and that it was the 2 year anniversary of our first date, so Ike had written this beautiful love letter to me in honor of the day. Well apparently our waitress was a hopeless romantic because SHE began to cry. In fact, she had trouble keeping it together as she collected our plates. She kept saying how beautiful it was and how she loved romantic gestures like that. All the while her bottom lip continued to quiver. It was very sweet, but also very funny!

One of the things that Ike and I have discussed a lot lately is how we can constantly reinforce the strength of our marriage. It’s a tough thing to gauge because a marriage can seem fine when the circumstances are easy. It’s not until a storm hits that the cracks in its foundation become apparent. Until then, how can you really be sure that you’re building a strong marriage?

I spoke to a friend of mine about this question the other day. She’s been married 28 years and she gave me the following advice: Never EVER lie.  

This rule is actually a lot more difficult than it sounds. It means that when you break your budget by purchasing that pair of shoes you really wanted, you have to tell your husband. Have you been scoping out pics of an ex-boyfriend on facebook? Tell your husband.  Did you slip and tell someone a secret that your husband had shared with you in confidence? Then tell him. No matter what, no matter how seemingly small (unless it’s a surprise birthday party, of course!) you have got to be honest.

What’s tricky is how we convince ourselves that the little lies don’t matter. What he doesn’t know can’t hurt him, right? That might be true…at first. But as soon as you open the door to one lie, no matter how small,  you open the door to lying in your marriage.

Straight up deception doesn’t begin all at once. It is the culmination of hundreds of small lies that increase your boldness while decreasing your communication. Those seemingly innocent little white lies stand in the way of you and your husband having an open and honest relationship.

A marriage in which you can “tell each other anything” not only requires a forgiving spirit, but it especially requires the humility and courage to admit you screwed up, even when you know it might disappoint or frustrate your spouse. It’s easy to reason that a minor offense isn’t worth the trouble it will cause by bringing it to light, but that logic is woefully short-sighted.

Honesty helps you to protect your marriage from the chief weapon of the great Deceiver, lies. But honesty is important for other relationships as well. One of my seminary professors once said that one of the greatest challenges facing Christians today is not to lie. I think he’s right. Not only are we afraid to be honest with our friends when they need to hear the truth, but our lifestyles often reveal a startling discrepancy between the truth we preach and the way we live.

Honesty, in love, is not only crucial for a strong marriage, but for a strong community. The minute we excuse a little white lie as being harmless, we provide the Enemy a foothold. Don’t let him. And I’m not gonna lie (no pun intended!), it’s hard to be honest about those little things. Sometimes I would much rather omit them, but I keep forcing myself to come clean. It stings and I hate it, but in the long run I have no regrets, and I trust that God will use our honesty to strengthen us for the storms.

One of the things I have appreciated most from my husband is the knowledge that he’s always in my corner. No matter what people say to me or about me, I can always trust that he’s got my back. It’s not that he’s a passive yes-man who tells me what I wanna hear–I can also trust him to be honest. But he’s my personal pep talker. He builds me up and affirms me in all that I do. He helps me to hope and persevere. He speaks truth into my mind and my heart.

As a warrior in a spiritual battle, having a spouse is a major asset. You’re fighting alongside one another, you can protect one another, pick one another up when you fall, and help one another to heal.

Knowing this, I’ve been convicted about the vulnerability of my single friends, who don’t have this same built-in support system. At least, not as frequently. I was reminded of this yesterday as I listened to one of my single friends confess her struggles and pains. She was tempted to believe a whole host of lies about herself, but she lives alone so she is often isolated with these thoughts. Whereas my husband is always right next to me helping me to combat the lies I am tempted to believe, my friend doesn’t have the same resource. As a result, she’s been a lot more vulnerable to attack.

As I listened to her, I was struck by the significance of the marital language used to describe Christ’s relationship with his church. My husband models that relationship for me every day, but not everyone has a supportive husband. In fact, not all married women have supportive husbands. It is in that gap that the church is supposed to step in. Our single friends should not be going it alone. They are still pursued by a Lover, and we serve as His hands and feet. While their relationship status might read “Single,” they’re not really single at all.

The only voice of support that really matters is Christ’s. My husband often serves as a vehicle for that voice, but husbands aren’t the only ones who can. The church can and should as well. As the hands of feet of Christ, we must do the work of the bridegroom in loving his bride. Countless women need to hear truth in the face of lies, insecurities and shame. We should be the bearers of that truth.

So if you have single friends, get involved in their lives! Know what’s going on with them. Don’t hole up in married world and shut them out. They need you as much as you need your husband. Speak truth to them and build them up. That is what it means to be the church to your single friends, so be there for them. Your husband may be your teammate, but we’re all soldiers in the same fight. Make sure you’re not sending your single friends out to battle alone.

Acts 12 has single-handedly transformed my prayer life. But before I explain how, let me share with you a story I recently came across that is both funny, challenging and relevant:

There’s a story of a young girl who wrote a letter to a missionary to let him know that her class had been praying for him. But evidently she’d been told not to request a response to her letter because the missionaries were very busy. So the missionary got a kick out of her letter. It said,

“Dear Mr. Missionary, we are praying for you. But we are not expecting an answer.”

For many Christians, this girl’s letter is an analogy for their prayer lives. We pray all the time for the healing of a loved one or the reconciliation of a broken marriage, but we secretly believe it’s too late. We think we already know what God is going to do. So we pray, but we don’t expect a positive answer.

And that is exactly what happens in Acts 12. Peter is in prison awaiting his near certain execution. Verse 5 tells us that his church was earnestly praying for him, but they probably felt hopeless. Their brother James had been executed just days before.

Fortunately, God hear their prayers and delivers Peter. And He does so in a pretty extraordinary way. He sends an angel to wake Peter in the night and lead him out of the prison. Peter himself can’t believe what’s happening. He thinks it’s all a dream.

Ironically, his friends have the exact same reaction. Once he arrives at the house of Mary, they can’t believe it. The servant girl who answers the door and claims to have seen Peter is immediately dismissed. “You’re crazy!” They say.

They can’t possibly imagine that God would actually answer their prayers.

But He did. And He does. Not only does God answer our prayers, but He can do so in the most miraculous, mind-blowing ways. We rarely see this happen because our prayer lives are so faithless. We are like the man in James 1 who asks but does not believe. Scripture warns us that such people “should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.”

I challenge you to test God in this. The next time someone calls you with a prayer request that you immediately think you know the answer to, resist that reflex. Instead turn it over to God in genuine trust and see what happens. If God can send an angel to bust Peter out of prison, then I feel pretty confident about what He can do with my requests.

As I’ve mentioned in several of my last posts I was out of the country last week, but I don’t think I ever actually revealed where I was. I spent the week in Dubai with some friends of mine who now serve as church planters in Central Asia. The trip was incredible! In case you’ve never been to Dubai, everything is over the top and most of the residents are ridiculously wealthy–they’ve built islands in the ocean and one of their malls has an indoor ski slope. It’s seriously insane.

The region itself is quite Western due to all the visiting tourists, but it still maintains its Muslim principles. Everyday, 5 times a day, the Call to Prayer is blared across the streets and through the malls. All the local women dress in traditional Muslim garb, and the malls are filled with signs urging women to dress appropriately, “covering their shoulders and knees.” Because Dubai is a little more relaxed, you’ll occasionally see a Muslim husband and wife walking hand in hand, but more commonly you see the wife following a step and a half behind her husband, as expected.

As I absorbed the culture and heard about my friends’ time in an even more conservative Muslim country, I was struck by what a revolutionary message the Gospel is for women. Unlike the U.S. where women are free to go and do whatever they want–even free to objectify themselves–women in many parts of the world are still viewed as property. Arranged marriages and polygamy are common. In fact, some wives secretly hope their husbands will take another wife or two so that they aren’t as obligated to the husbands they don’t love. Another woman or two can help shoulder those undesirable wifely duties.

I heard one story of a man who’d been married to a woman for years and had multiple children by her. Then he met a 19 year old that he preferred and wanted to marry her as well. As he explained it to one of my friends, “Now I can be married to someone I love.” Meanwhile, the older wife could do his laundry and cook his food for him. Basically a free slave.

Here in the States we read books like Captivating and talk about the Father in Heaven who pursues us, a healing message in the face of the world’s rejection. This is indeed a crucial message for us women to hear and accept. However, I’d never given thought to what that message means for the rest of the world. Not only is God’s pursuit of us a wonderful alternative to a culture that devalues women, but it is radical! In cultures where women are little more than goods to be traded, the Gospel romance offers a startling paradigm shift.

The message of the Gospel does more than offer an encouraging word to women in cultures that oppress them. It offers a critique of the entire culture, as well as the religions that drives them. What to us is a splendid love story of a King and His precious daughter is a life-changing, bond-breaking message to women in other parts of the globe.

All of that is to say, women’s ministry is about more than propping up our self-esteem when the world tears us down. Yes, healing and wholeness are important, and God offers us a love that the world cannot. But women’s ministry should be more. Women across the world are being oppressed, used, objectified, and devalued, but the Gospel has a message for them! In cultures where women are not allowed to make eye contact with men, we can share the story of Jesus, who broke his own cultural norms to seek out women and care for them. Here, we’re used to men talking to women so we forget how radical an act that was. But it was indeed radical, and other women need to hear it!

The message of the Gospel, the romance of the Gospel, is revolutionary. Let us not forget the implications it has, not just for ourselves but for women around the world. And we need to bring it to them. The boundaries of women’s ministry must not end in our own churches and small groups. They should expand across every tongue and nation.

As you think about women’s ministry in your own context, I challenge you to broaden your scope. Don’t minister to women solely to benefit those in your immediate area of influence. Dream bigger. Our churches need to be hubs for sending women out into the community and the larger world with the transformative message of the Gospel. Women all over the world are aching for it. The brightness of its message will surely sparkle in the darkness. The women are ripe for harvest! So go and reap. Millions of women are walking a step and a half behind their husbands, but God wants to hold them in His arms. We need to tell that love story.