The Girl Child

A precious brother read this post https://pdlionunlimited.wordpress.com/2018/03/08/respect/ and we had the following conversation. It’s quite long but it is worth your time.
Q: Good evening, sir. I have a question relating to the last question too. Yesterday and today, we had a workshop on gender development in my office, and very interesting discussions ensued.
This is an issue for both the male and female genders, but it is mostly tilted towards the women because they suffer abuse the most in this regard.
So my question therefore is, how do strike a balance between helping a woman achieve her dreams, living up to her full potentials and exercising her rights when necessary and being a submissive wife to the husband. I asked that question bcos unconsciously, we breed our girls to submit to boys or see boys as stronger or smarter etc. So how do you train up a girl child to stand up for herself and not be intimidated by any man and yet be a submissive wife?

A: See jamb o
Q: Hahahaha
Jamb is simple for you naa😁

A: I believe the balance is in the scriptures.
How should the girl child be treated by her family? How should she be raised?

Not in comparison to the boy child. We make a mistake trying to prove that men are stronger or, in order to fight for the women, make them strive to disprove that general thought.

The issue is not about who is physically stronger. The average boy will always be stronger than the average girl in terms of brute strength, but in terms of emotional fire power and attention to detail, women were created with extra strength in that regard. I say the average because you can always find a girl who’s stronger than some boy around her.

The roles we were designed by God to fill are seen in our everyday medical science. The average man’s skeleton is thicker, bulkier, and rougher. Muscle mass is greater, and there is less fat. Whereas the woman’s skeleton is more lithe, gentler, smoother. She’s got less muscle mass and more body fat.
Did you know that the average woman has a more acute sense of smell and taste? That’s why our homes smell as good as they do, and particularly, our children are better catered for because their mother can perceive them using more parameters than their fathers can.
Did you know that whereas a guy uses one-half of his brain over time depending on the task at hand, a woman uses both halves per time? This helps men focus on the now but helps the woman remember more and in greater detail. Guys remember stuff in summary while women recollect in detail. It’s like black and white versus colour.
Necessity is the mother of invention, and based on what each gender was invented by God to accomplish, the design is spot on. Each gender was designed to be stronger than the other in its area of strength and weaker than the other in the other gender’s area of strength. Why? So they can complement each other. Two halves coming together to become one whole, two partially strong persons coming together to make one all-round strong entity.
So, the girl should be raised not to compete with a boy in strength or smarts, but to be as strong and as smart as a woman was designed to be.

She should be proud to be a woman. She may not be able to run as fast as the man, but when she runs, it is with more grace and beauty; hence, she is being slower out of necessity. She brings more with her when she moves whereas the man needs to leave more behind in order to be able to move the family forward. But thank God there is someone coming right behind who picks up the things that were left behind and makes sure they all reach the finish line.

Her brothers should be raised to see her difference as her strength, to take advantage of the strength for the benefit of the family and to value her for it.

See the bible
Pss 127:3 Lo, children [are] an heritage of the Lord: [and] the fruit of the womb [is his] reward.
Pss 127:4 As arrows [are] in the hand of a mighty man; so [are] children of the youth.
Pss 127:5 Happy [is] the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

The Bible says Children, not sons. All your children are arrows, precision instruments of warfare that can fly off into the future to bring victory to your name. But guess who the quiver is. Based on this scripture, I believe it’s their mother. She is the one who keeps them.

How should she be treated outside her home? Well, outside your home, it is a battlefield. So don’t expect any one to hand things to you on account of being sensitive to your gender, but rather out of respect for your person. How you get that respect is the issue.

More and more people, in this context women, are trying to gain respect by being better than the other person at that person’s own game. Why not play to your own strengths?

Like in the above scripture, you are an arrow; you need to find your own target. Don’t go out there trying to prove something or to be someone; you already are someone the world needs, and that is why you need to go out there. One lady said “I am not trying to be a he-ro, I am a she-ro”.

In society, certain roles have been assigned to men and others women. Our customs have evolved around the concept of roles. It is a misfortune that the necessity of these roles have brought us to the point of contest for supremacy rather keeping it in the celebrated context of complementality.

Just like in choir, the lead singer or preacher is the obvious recognized face. The sound engineer working behind the scenes is not often noticed, until something goes wrong, of course. But each is playing a role and each role needs the other to perform and deliver.

How should she be treated in her church?
The girl child should be treated as God, the Lord of the church does. The woman has kingdom rights just as the man does.

Gal 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

As long as there is no female or male Holy Spirit, and it is the same Holy Spirit who fills all believers in spite of their gender, then it is to be accepted that in the realm of spirit we are without gender. It is our bodies that are either male or female.

Of course, our minds function based on exposure and training and so a male person is trained and exposed to male relevant or male filtered information; same for women. So it’s easy for us to get it mixed up thinking we are gendered in the spirit.

Mk 12:25 For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven.
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
God is spirit, so are the angel, and so is man. It is our gender designation that makes us either male or female. So, at the heart, where it really matters, we are the same before God.

Therefore, in His wisdom, God had dealings with women justa1 like he had with men, notably Mary the mother of Jesus and Mary Magdalene to whom Jesus showed himself after the resurrection.

If God does not look at us based on gender in manifestation of the spirit or in bestowing his love on us, then neither should we look at anyone in that way.

2Cor 5:16 Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we [him] no more.

How should she be treated in her marriage?
This is where it gets interesting and confusing for most people. The reason being that, because of all I’ve said before, it is easy to assume I am saying God is all about equality between genders in the marriage … the understanding of the concept of equality being that both the man and the wife are to be equal in their union.

Again, the balance is in the scriptures… always in the scriptures.

1Pet 3:1 Likewise, ye wives, [be] in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives;
Tit 2:4 That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,
Tit 2:5 [To be] discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.
If you look at the scriptures well, you will see that the woman was not asked to be subject to men but rather to her own husband. Why would God ask her to submit if she was inferior? He would have just said, “Woman, stay in your inferior place.” The reason one person needs to be instructed to submit to the other is because they are equal in capacity or strength.
1Pet 3:7 Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with [them] according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.
You are equally heirs of the grace of God. Breaching this understanding will hinder your prayers as a husband. She is that powerful.

In marrigae, the issue is not whether the woman has as much rights as her husband or is as strong. The issue is that they have been ordered by God to play different roles: one leads the other submits.

God operates in an orderly fashion, not in confusion. It is not order if no one is clearly given the directive to be in charge. There are responsibilities to being the head, both physical, and more importantly, spiritual. This is why Eve ate the fruit and nothing happened, but when Adam ate the fruit, all of heaven and earth was negatively affected.

There is a chain of command that maintains this order so that things flow properly as God intends.

1Cor 11:10 For this cause ought the woman to have power on [her] head because of the angels.
Gen 5:1 This [is] the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;
Gen 5:2 Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.

God created both male and female but called them by the name of the one He put in charge. It doesn’t mean that God doesn’t recognise the woman. In fact, it is because of the wife that the man is asked to be in charge. If there was nothing to take care of, he wouldn’t be asked to be in charge.

Just as God has given angels charge concerning mankind even though we are higher than them for the purpose of defined roles. It is a matter of duty, not power.
The focus is on what needs to be done. If you’re alone, you’re in charge; if you’re part of a team, someone would be put in charge.

Look at this account.

Num 27:1 Then came the daughters of Zelophehad, the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, of the families of Manasseh the son of Joseph: and these [are] the names of his daughters; Mahlah, Noah, and Hoglah, and Milcah, and Tirzah.
Num 27:2 And they stood before Moses, and before Eleazar the priest, and before the princes and all the congregation, [by] the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying,
Num 27:3 Our father died in the wilderness, and he was not in the company of them that gathered themselves together against the Lord in the company of Korah; but died in his own sin, and had no sons.
Num 27:4 Why should the name of our father be done away from among his family, because he hath no son? Give unto us [therefore] a possession among the brethren of our father.
Num 27:5 And Moses brought their cause before the Lord.
Num 27:6 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
Num 27:7 The daughters of Zelophehad speak right: thou shalt surely give them a possession of an inheritance among their father’s brethren; and thou shalt cause the inheritance of their father to pass unto them.

At the end of the day, God used these women’s case as occasion to rescue others in similar situations. They had as much rights as the men did before God.

So, in view of her future role in marriage, the girl child is trained in the area of submission not because she is inferior to men in general, but because she has to master the art of keeping her strength in check while she plays the role of a wife to her own husband.

The other side of the coin is that the boy child should be trained to become a husband who sees his wife’s submission as a deliberate gift to him in honour of God and not a sign of weakness or an identity that cannot exist without him.

Q: I appreciate you taking your time to do this. As you know, I’ve got 2 girls, and this would help set my mind in the right direction.

A: I know you have girls, and this was not a question of rhetorics for you, that’s why I took the time.

Q: I think the first thing is to not create the competing impression between the two genders but rather to see how they (girls) can complement the weaknesses of those around them (gender notwithstanding) and learn from others how to improve on their (girls) weaknesses. This is a view outside marriage and family as daughters. They should believe anything is possible, so they have the freedom of mind to grow at full capacity.

However, in marriage, while praying they get good husbands who will not seek to show their masculinity by trying to limit their wives’ growth, they (girls) will know that marriage is an institution created by God and just like every other institution, there is always a head. God has made the husband to be the head of every home. She will have to submit to him so there won’t be two heads in the home.
This is my extract from your explanation

A: But you have to know that this training won’t work on your girls unless their mother backs you up, and she will only back you up when she sees you’re one of those men who respect and empower their wives.

Q: Hmmm … yeah. Funny enough, I have already started thinking in that direction.

A: 😊