A Beautiful Balance
A Beautiful Balance
Judges 13:22-23
And Manoah said to his wife, “We shall surely die, for we have seen God.” But his wife said to him, “If the LORD had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering at our hands, or shown us all these things, or now announced to us such things as these.”
It is a man’s virtue to fall prostrate before Almighty God in stupefied submission. It is a woman’s virtue to lift him to his feet again.
Now, I’m not intending to establish a distinction between a man’s responsibility toward God and a woman’s, but only to present a general observation from the biblical record. Think of Moses at the burning bush where he removed his sandals upon recognizing the holiness of the atmosphere, and Isaiah during the vision of Heaven’s throne where he cried out in bewilderment, “Woe is me!”, and Job, when God replied to his litany of accusations with a whirlwind, and Gideon at the Terebinth tree when he trembled before the Stranger, and Paul after being flung from his horse and struck blind by Christ’s glory. There seems to be a distinctive sort of fear that grips men when they encounter the divine, as they suddenly realize the weakness of their position. In that instant, even the most alpha-male, macho-man, testosterone-laced tough guy suddenly collapses like a corpse under the weight of such Glory.
Women in the Bible, however, tend to react differently during theophanies, as if their fear is of another sort. Consider the prayer Mary prays after that awesome visitation from the angel, and the triumph in Mary Magdalene’s tears as she lavishes her risen Lord with hugs upon His resurrection, and, here in Judges 13, notice that Samson’s mom doesn’t instinctively drop to her knees but instead seems to rise higher. What a marvelous mystery! That one and the same theophany can simultaneously leave a godly man near to death and a godly woman more alive.
Maybe this isn’t the case for you, friend, but I can’t count how many times I’ve been crippled by fear, only for my wife to place her hands on my face and stir me with a reassurance of God’s favor. Oh, how beautiful the bond between man and woman! How marvelous the God-created balance between the two sexes that marriage expresses. When one’s faith cowers, the other’s towers.