Several years ago on a Florida highway, a businesswoman was on her way home from the airport and noticed an Indian woman on the side of the road. Feeling a bit of compassion, she pulled over and let her in. After a few minutes, the Indian woman noticed a small bag in the back seat and asked, “What’s in the bag?” The driver answered and said, “It’s a bottle of wine. I got it for my husband.” The two passengers were silent for a moment until the Indian woman nodded and said, “You made a good trade.”
No doubt our wives have often looked at us and wondered what they signed up for on that remarkable day that they had planned since childhood. I can personally attest to the disappointing reaction my own wife gave on the first quiet evening that I gave up trying to hide my smells. Today it’s a running joke in our house as it is in many homes across the nation. Who knew when we asked these women to marry us that we’d eventually be willing to let them witness the things we were trying so hard to hide? Perhaps that’s why they say that even the man who has everything needs a woman to show him how to use it.
We are indeed a unique creature on this earth, but our daily experiences in life tend to play a key role in how we view ourselves spiritually as well. In many cases, we end up tracing our manhood to our masculinity and vice versa. Rather than seeing ourselves as men because of who we are, we see ourselves as men because of who we are not. The proverbial skeleton in the closet is that we see ourselves as men simply because we are not women. And this, my dear friends, is one of our great downfalls. What’s worse is that we take this invisible notion and begin writing mental notes to ourselves about what women are to be… all the while evading the nagging truth that our first responsibility is to know what WE are to be. This lesson has been written that Men of God might come out of the shadows and find out who they are.