It Doesn't Fit

We were in a hurry that morning. My daughter was on the cell phone talking to me about the traffic that was in her way keeping her from picking me up on time. Finally she gets to our house and my younger daughter and I go out to get into her car. It's a two door so I have to pull the little lever and make the seat go up so my younger daughter can get in the back seat. I set the seat back up straight, but unbeknownst to myself in my state of hurried panic, the seat didn't slide back. Because my car is a four-door, it never occurred to me to check it. And as I was trying to fold my 5' 9" frame into a space far too small, the car door comes swinging back, knocks my arm, and my coffee goes flying all over me.

Don't worry, I wasn't burnt. I put too much milk in it for it to be scalding. But it was a mess.

The moral of the story is: Don't try to reduce yourself down to a size that doesn't fit even if you are in a hurry and/or being pressured by someone else.

You know. When you give your heart to Jesus, you just love Him. You love what He's done for you and what He still wants to do for you. And when someone comes along and, with great authority, tells you... "In order to please God you must do this..." you are inclined to believe them.

This what is happening in far too many segments of Christianity. And too many women are told to reduce themselves down to a smaller size in order to please God. They are told with great authority and many adjectives and many proof texts from the Bible.

The women try to do it, try to follow it because they love God and want to please Him. But it doesn't fit. It's too restricting and confining. But women try to make it fit and conform and turn themselves into something they are not. It is like me trying to fold my full frame into vehicle where the seat is pulled up far enough that only a person 5' 1" would fit.

This is what the restrictive roles of CBMW and sweeping generalizations of Wild at Heart do. And there comes a time when a person has to throw off such things and to stop listening to men of great "authority" because those men are not preaching the gospel. They preach their personal preference in culture.