Ah, I hear my lover coming!
He is leaping over the mountains,
bounding over the hills.
My lover is like a swift gazelle
or a young stag.
Look, there he is behind the wall,
looking through the window,
peering into the room.

Song of Songs 2:8-9

From the intro to "Wild at Heart - Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul", John Eldredge writes:

"Every man was once a boy. And every little boy has dreams, big dreams: dreams of being the hero, of beating the bad guys, of doing daring feats and rescuing the damsel in distress. Every little girl has dreams, too: of being rescued by her prince and swept up into a great adventure, knowing that she is the beauty.

But what happens to those dreams when we grow up? Walk into most churches, have a look around, and ask yourself: What is a Christian man?"

I believe God created men to have those big dreams of rescuing his fair maiden, of pursuing her and winning her heart. We often do fairly well at this during the dating relationship, but our pursuit of our mate often diminishes after many years of marriage. Too often we settle for where we are right now, just like we may do in our relationship with God. But that is never enough, and eventually we have to renew the pursuit of our maiden just as we did at the beginning. One of our main needs is to have both the opportunity and the encouragement to be drawn back into this pursuit, making life exciting again as we strive for the next level in our relationship.

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God is complicated. It's easy to pretend that He isn't. Many of us have a shoebox and we put God in it and store it under our beds. Sometimes we slide Him out and pet Him when life is hard or ask Him questions like He's a Magic 8 Ball with nothing better to do than to wait on us. We forget that He is in control. He is big. We cannot comprehend Him. God is complicated.

Lucky for us, God is smart, too. He knew we wouldn't understand Him so He gave us tools to help us begin to realize His greatness. One such tool is marriage. God created men and women in His image. Both men and women are like God, yet we are different from one another. These differences are necessary to begin to represent the vastness of God. One person cannot encompass them all.

Within a marriage, women and men have particular needs and particular roles. Men have been charged to be leaders in the marriage. Like Christ sacrificed himself for the church, men are to sacrifice themselves for their wives.

Sacrifice is a word that is thrown around glibly in our society. Dictionary.com defines sacrifice as, "the surrender or destruction of something prized or desirable [here the man himself] for the sake of something considered as having a higher or more pressing claim [the wife]." God has charged men with a very difficult task yet through it we begin to understand Him more deeply. God surrendered His son to destruction for the sake of something more important to Him and that was us, His creation. When we consider how difficult true sacrifice is for a man, we realize how wonderful God is. He achieved true sacrifice with perfection the first time He tried it. Our own efforts pale in comparison.

Marriage is one of many tools that God has given us to help us know Him, to help us be like Him. When marriage is difficult, it can be helpful to remember that this is another step on the journey to becoming more like God.

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Genesis 1:26 and 27 says, "26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the air over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."

Since we are created in the image of God, we must first understand ourselves before we can understand God. God has woven his characteristics within both man and woman. These characteristics begin to emerge when we give our lives to God. That's when His original perfect design for us begins. That's when we begin to love others regardless of their walk in life. That's when we develop a strong foundation in Christ and care more about others than we do ourselves. Since both men and women have been given characteristics of God, doesn't that mean that if we love others for the love and caring they show us than we love God?

In Ephesians 5:22 it says, "Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior." A marriage is a beautiful thing. It brings the two parts of God that He laid in male and female together in an everlasting bond with one another. A good marriage will reflect the image of God; however when we choose not to use the gift of the image of God within us the covenant of marriage could break. Since we're talking about men's needs this week, I'll focus more on that subject. "Wives, submit to your husbands". Your husbands are to love you as Christ loves the Church, and you (the wife) are to love your husbands as you love Christ. Now some women may be offended by this scripture. Some may see it as a ruling dominating husband, but if that man's heart is in God, than his plans, decisions, goals, excreta will be in God as well. So let your image of God show for all to see, God will bless you.

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When I sat down to write this devo, I was more than a little concerned that I had no idea what to write. I've been married for awhile now, and had expected that writing about the needs of men in marriage would come easily for me. I was wrong, though, and had to consult my husband. His response was one single word: "Respect." While I knew this was true, I struggled a little at first with making this answer coincide with the verses from scripture I had been given as a reference. With a little more thought, though, it was clear to me how true this was.

"Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church...as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands."

I'm sure I'm not the first woman to read these verses and cringe. My generation grew up hearing how we could be anything we wanted and how we are equal to men. We are women. We think for ourselves and stand alone. That's the way we were taught.

However, my husband is obviously not the only man who desires a degree of submission and respect from his wife. This does not imply that wives are to become mindless and subservient. We don't have to lose every ounce of intelligence we have, and we don't have to lose our identities as individuals. This does not mean we are not allowed a certain amount of disagreement in our relationships. We are, simply, to love and respect our husbands the way that the church is asked to love and respect its Savior. Are we allowed to question God? Certainly! Are there disagreements within the church? Of course! Is everyone's relationship with the Lord the same as everyone else's? Definitely not! However, when there is tension, confusion, and pain in the church, Jesus is the One the church should turn to. The church should never lose sight of the cross and the One who died there, just as a wife should never lose sight of the fact that her husband is her head.

What this tells me is that just as much as I need my husband to pursue me, he needs me to look up to him. He needs my support, and he needs my respect. The word "submit" does not take away from the fact that we are a team. I would not be the same without him, and he would not be the same without me. God made it that way, and designed the church to be a living model of this idea.

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Even though Genesis states that man was made in God's image, men and women are "wired" differently. In a marriage, the bible says that a man will leave his mother and father and unite with his wife and become one (Genesis 2:24). Even though God made man and women in His image, both were created differently, each with a specific purpose. Throughout history, man has been the breadwinner, the head of the house. Ephesians 5:22-33 speaks of how husbands and wives are to respect and love one another. This love for a man's wife should be the same love that Christ had for the Church.

Sometimes I wonder if God's sense of humor is what caused him to create men and women so differently. I do not say this lightly. Oftentimes, it seems as if we speak two different languages. The message sent is not always the message received. Men's needs are vastly different then a woman's, as evidenced by this list compiled by Charles Swindol: marital fulfillment, recreational companionship, an attractive spouse, domestic support, and admiration. At the top of the women's list is affection, but it is absent from the men's list. Why then do men have different needs than a woman? Could it be that since the earliest times, men have been considered the provider? Men had to be good hunters, or else their family would go hungry. Could it be that men have traditionally been the protector? It seems that men's needs are set by society, as evidenced by the list mentioned above.

Why is a man's desire to have an attractive spouse, recreational companionship, and admiration placed above a desire to have a good wife, one who loves him unconditionally? I was once told that I needed to place God above everything. If I did this, everything else would fall into place. In my mind, I protested. I felt that I had to put my family first. As I have taken the "baby steps" in placing my trust in the Lord, I have found that by placing Him first, things do tend to fall into place. The list above is fulfilled and my wife and I have a meaningful and satisfying relationship. I have seen that when I try and place other things ahead of the Lord, things don't generally turn out well. It seems that when I place my trust in Him, my needs are met. Maybe we should spend more time pursing God, and living according to God's plan. If I, as a man, spent more time loving my wife as Christ loved the church, everything else would fall into place. Instead of getting caught up in the "worldly list", maybe I should strive to get back to the basics.

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