The difference between men and women (2)
‘A woman must know only one man in order to understand every man, whereas a man, even if he knows all women, does not even understand one woman’ ["Why Men Lie & Why Women Cry"]
A man does not understand a woman properly. I think it is more appropriate to say that the man cannot understand the woman. After studying psychology at college, I have said few times that I want to write a book about the psychology of a woman as half joke and half serious. But I had to give up too soon because I thought it was impossible to know woman’s mind. Haha. Even if I gave up writing a book about woman, I am still reading books about woman in order to understand only one woman that is my wife.
The woman seems to be very complicated. One interesting example comes from the book, "Why Men Lie & Why Women Cry”: ‘The women want men to be sensitive, but on the other hand they don’t like men to be too sensitive.’ How many men in this world will be able to notice this subtle distinction? Many times I thought I know a woman but actually I don’t know her. With the man's logical thinking, he cannot understand why a woman is like this or that and what she wants or what she doesn’t want. The reason for this is because the man cannot understand what woman wants with their logical thoughts. He can understand her when he approaches her emotionally. So I think that if he wants to understand her, he can follow Jesus's way of how He loves the church. I want to call it the "incarnation" method. As Jesus incarnated on earth because He loves us and to save us, the man must humble himself to love the woman as Jesus loves the church. In a more specific application, when a wife speaks emotionally to a man, the man should humble himself and listen to her actively in emotional level rather than to listen to her logically. In doing so, he will be able to feel her feelings little by little. Of course, if he thinks logically, sometime what she says sounds ridiculous. But if he listens to her emotionally, he will understand why she feels in this way or that way. Then she seems to feel secure because she realizes that he sympathizes with her feelings. When she thinks that 'Oh, he understands me now', then he should lead her to the stage of reason from the stage of emotion. In other words, after a consensus is formed at the stage of emotion, the man has the responsibility to guide the woman slowly, carefully and intelligently to the stage of reason, to illuminate the woman's emotions with biblical principles.
Then what is the responsibility of the woman? A woman must know just one man. The woman in Genesis was responsible for knowing only one man, Adam. A woman should not try to get to know her man by looking at this man or that man. The reason is because she will not become the wife of many men but the wife of one man. Then what should she do to know her man properly? I want to find the answer in the Bible. What does the Bible say how the church should love Jesus? Ephesians 5:22 says the church should be submissive to Jesus. Here, the word "submission" means "listen from below." In other words, the woman must humbly listen to the man's words in order to know him. This is not easy. Psychologically, the women speak more than the man. So, in the woman's perspective, she wants the man to listen to her words. But the Bible tells the woman to listen to man's words. Why did God command it? In Genesis, the first woman Eve supposed to listen to God through her husband Adam and not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But she listened to the serpent (Satan) instead and ate fruit from the tree. Therefore, sin entered into the world, one of which is that the wife rejects the husband's guidance because the wife does not listen to her husband. Of course, it is a sin for a husband to refuse to lead his wife. But it is also sin for a wife to refuse her husband's guidance and disobey her husband's words. Therefore, in order for the woman to know the man, she must listen to the man humbly. More specifically, the woman should train herself to listen to the man's words logically. If she listens to his words emotionally, she can get upset, and then there can be conflict.
The first man Adam in the book of Genesis refused to guide his wife Eve. So Eve heard Satan's voice rather than quick to listen to God's voice. As a result, both Adam and Even have committed sin against God by eating fruit from the tree. But in the New Testament, Jesus listened to the voice of God the Father and obeyed His will until the death on the cross. In other words, Jesus came to this earth, wearing the sinless human body, and died on the cross on behalf of our sins in order to lead us, His church. Therefore, the man must approach his woman with incarnation method in order to lead her. In order to understand her properly, he needs to form a consensus while listening to her at the stage of emotion. Then he must lead her to the logical level of the Scripture. The woman should humbly listen to his words. As she does so, she should hear God’s voice through him. When they do so, both man and woman will be able to understand each other better.