Status Updates From Strength in Weakness: Heali...

Yet God does not grant us the freedom to avoid our need to work out our salvation together as male and female. He calls us to wrestle with our need, and our fear, of the other. This is where we must exit our prayer closets and engage in real-life relating.

Some of us may be tempted by the illusion that we can avoid the conflict. Many broken ones shut down in relation to the opposite gender, spiritualizing their needs and identities in union with Jesus alone. That is understandable, since Jesus is perfect, while people are painfully fallible.

For some of us, the opposite gender has long represented a threat to our well-being. When that is the case, our offering to the other is muted by fear or becomes angry and defensive. We remain hostile, passively or aggressively. The sword, not the cross, marks our posture toward the other. Yet we must take seriously Paul’s words to us. Having been reconciled by the cross to our true selves-that is, the new creation