For Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. (Genesis 2:20)

Helper. Many women in our day have chafed at this word, at this characterization of our calling from God. A helper is clearly not in charge. A helper is not usually center stage. A helper may feel (and rightly!) that she has gifts and talents that enable her to do the work better. A helper rarely gets as much recognition for her work. A helper may feel like a second-class citizen. And we could go on.

Some of these assumptions may be true, some are outright lies, but all of them miss the point. Each of the above statements comes from the perspective of fallen creatures, socialized in the modern world; none seriously attempts to consider what the Creator himself had in mind when he designed and assigned callings to men and women.

“When God created male and female, he did not mean to glorify men and demean women.”

When God created male and female, he did not mean to glorify men and demean women, as if helper somehow meant lesser. God created humans — men and women together — as the pinnacle of all creation, crafting both in his very image (Genesis 1:27). He created them with distinct and complementary attributes, inclinations, and gifts that make them indispensable to one another and to his plan for filling the earth with his glory.

Helper with Equal Honor

Now, God did make man first, and he gave man the primary responsibility (and accountability) for the outworking of his plan (Genesis 2:7, 15–17; 1 Timothy 2:13) to extend his glory (Ephesians 1:10). But by giving man primary responsibility and accountability, did God intend for Adam to be a mini-god on earth, decisively higher than his wife, who was also made in God’s image?

No. Before God made Eve from Adam, he humbled Adam by permitting him to discover how impossible his task would be without help — God’s help and human help. God had already indicated that it was not good for man to be alone (Genesis 2:18), but then he set Adam to naming all the animals, building to the discovery that “there was not found a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:19–20). Then, at the creation of Eve, Adam’s “at last” shows the relief and delight he felt (Genesis 2:23). He knew he needed a helper for this mission.

Woman, then, was not created as a subjugated slave, but as a means of mutual blessing for them both. She was, and is, an essential partner and helper in the grand work of subduing the creation and filling the earth with God’s imagers, giving glory upon glory to the eternally worthy God.

The twisted lie that Adam is more important, that Adam’s call means power and privilege, and Eve’s subjugation, springs out of the pride that human hearts have harbored since the fall. Men too often have been puffed up to lead with domineering power, and women too often have been puffed up with righteous indignation, asserting that they have just as much of a right to power and privilege as men do.

“Self-centered, bullying leadership was never God’s plan. Neither was self-centered resentment when called to help.”

Of course, Adam could not assume responsibility (and accountability) without the associated ability (and burden) to make critical decisions. But all throughout the Bible, and especially in the life of Jesus, we see that every earthly power is subject to the righteous and holy God. A holy exercise of any ability may not please everyone, but it is never to be self-serving or oppressive, and is always to be characterized by humility and self-sacrifice. Self-centered, bullying leadership was never God’s call. Neither was self-centered resentment when called to be helper.

Pride on Both Sides

At this point, I expect some women today want to say, “But men’s leadership throughout the ages has rarely reflected humility and self-sacrifice. Men have abused power and oppressed women (and others) in every generation!” Yes, they surely have. And I’m not excusing that in any way. To the contrary, we long and pray for justice in this earthly life, and my soul trembles when I see men misuse their authority. If you believe for a moment that a righteous and holy God will not hold men accountable for such sinful behavior, you are not familiar with the God of the Bible. Judgment is real, and it is coming.

At the same time, we can’t condemn men without acknowledging that women, too, have been guilty of being more concerned about our own image, advancement, power, and perhaps even “rights” than about honoring our God by being the kind of people he made us to be. God’s people were made to humbly, sacrificially, and joyfully welcome the privilege of their God-given callings and delight to reflect God’s own beauty and righteousness in those callings. Oh, how men and women should both fall on our faces in repentance — and thanksgiving — as we acknowledge our failures and lean on God’s loving grace through Jesus.

Exceptions and the Rule

We cannot escape the conclusion, then, that God made men to act as the head of our homes and our churches. In a few cases in the Bible, as a desperate measure revealing desperate times, God called women to leadership roles typically assigned to men, but Scripture doesn’t suggest that God altered his original plan. There is no indication, for example, that after Deborah there were a growing number of women judges (Judges 4:1–16), or that Abigail, after quietly taking initiative to protect her community from the poor judgment of her “worthless” husband (1 Samuel 25:14–35), and later married David, took charge in that relationship.

When Jesus enters the picture in the Gospels, we do see women deeply involved in and around his ministry (as in Luke 8:1–3). If anyone would have been justified in lording his power and position over others, it would have been Jesus, but he never led that way (Mark 10:42–45). He clearly loved and welcomed women’s contributions to the ministry. At the same time, however, Jesus did not name women among his Twelve. Paul, too, treats women with a remarkably high regard throughout his ministry, even commending Phoebe as his messenger to the church of Rome (Romans 16:1–2), but he clearly did not ordain women as pastor-elders (1 Timothy 2:12–3:7).

God’s ways often turn ours upside down, but this we know for sure: God does not want us to sin and rebel against him, but to see the all-surpassing wisdom and love behind his design and eagerly dedicate our lives to his call. We bring glory to God when we believe and joyfully obey him.

Are We Helping?

Sisters in Christ, it is wonderful that God has called us to be helpers. We are helpers in God’s very image, and we alone are made to bear God’s image-bearers. What a sacred and holy responsibility! If God has given you a husband, you were made to fit with and help this man whom God has charged with leadership. If you aren’t (yet) married, but would like to be, the word helper is a reminder to be wise and discerning before accepting a husband. Choose a godly man you will gladly help as he leads.

If we humble ourselves before our God, we will have the opportunity to use our faith, creativity, discernment, gifts, and abilities to join with, build up, and encourage husbands, pastors, and other male leaders. If we bring a humble servant-heart and true joy in Jesus to our task, who knows how we might change relational dynamics and contribute far more than we can think or imagine?

Are we helping? Is our spirit filled with discontent and envy at the calling God has given us, or are we delighted to be given such an important opportunity to rule and reign with our men under Christ? Are we judging rather than trying to understand? Are we critical rather than compassionate and encouraging? Are we faithful — trusting that God has placed the male leaders in our lives for his good purposes?

Women, let’s set aside our own distorted views of what it means to help and ask God to show us how he planned this calling to be a blessing to us, to the men in our lives, to our community, and to all creation. We live and serve to please One, and he delighted to make us helpers in his grand plan. Oh, that we may delight in this calling too.

“Not feeling like it.” In the daily pursuit of Christ, I fear no phrase has hindered me more.

A few moments’ reflection reminds me of the silliness of such a feelings-based spirituality. A farmer will find nothing at harvest if he sets aside his plow with a wave of “not feeling like it.” A pianist will end her performances embarrassed if she takes a “not feeling like it” attitude to her practices. A couple will greet their anniversary with an unromantic sigh if they allow “not feeling like it” to govern their marriage.

Yet how often have I sidestepped habits of grace with a subtle, unspoken “not feeling like it” — and have expected to somehow still mature in faith and love and feel the spontaneous joy of the Spirit?

Any number of reasons stand ready to endorse the lazy slouch. “I don’t want to be a hypocrite.” “I have so much to do today anyway.” “I’ll get more from Scripture when I feel like reading it.” And perhaps the most common: “I’ll do it tomorrow.”

Meanwhile, today’s spiritual potential — today’s comfort, joy, power, life — disappears on the winds of whim.

Reclaiming Routine

To some, the word routine carries the stiffness of stale bread and the rot of dead plants, the stuffiness of library books never opened and attics dusty with age. The very thought of routine spirituality — planned, scheduled, disciplined — seems to undermine the ministry of the life-giving, freedom-bestowing Spirit. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17) — and where the spirit of routine is (we may think), there is bondage.

The dichotomy, however, is self-imposed, self-imagined. If routine smells stale to us, the problem lies in our own sniffer. No doubt, routine can be made stale and dead, as any flower can be trampled underfoot or any sky cloaked with smog. But routine itself remains good, the friend of freedom and joy.

We might call any number of witnesses to testify on behalf of routine: Daniel, who “got down on his knees” and prayed “three times a day” (Daniel 6:10), whether lions waited or not; Peter and John, who went to the temple “at the hour of prayer” even after Pentecost brought the Spirit (Acts 3:1); or our Lord Jesus himself, who spontaneously defeated the devil’s lies, after fasting for forty days, because he had routinely memorized Deuteronomy (Matthew 4:1–10).

But perhaps the most striking ode to routine appears in Psalm 119.

Routines Like Riverbeds

None who read Psalm 119 would diagnose its author as dry; none who take up his psalm can sing it in hushed tones. The man sounds as alive as a spring sparrow, as exuberant as the exclamations in so many of his sentences. He isn’t always joyful, but oh, how he feels, freely and spontaneously. The whole psalm is a living pulse.

“Blessed are you, O Lord!” he shouts (verse 12). His soul, like his song, “is consumed with longing for your rules at all times” (verse 20). Both midnight and early morning may find him awake (verses 62, 147), too ecstatic to sleep, for “your testimonies are my delight” (verse 24). His hates and his loves burn too bright to be hidden (verses 104, 119).

“Under God, routines carve riverbeds in the soul where the streams of spontaneous love run deep.”

We might imagine such spontaneous affection lives beyond our reach, the possession of a super-spiritual personality. Pay attention to the psalm, however, and you may notice something that rivals the intensity of his feelings: the consistency of his routine. Scripture poured out of the man’s heart only because he had previously, even fastidiously, “stored” it there (verse 11). “I set your rules before me” was the watchword of his life, no matter the day (verse 30). With a devotion that might make us uncomfortable, he declares, “Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous rules” (verse 164).

Disciplined memorization, daily meditation, planned prayer and praise — under God, such routines carve riverbeds in the soul where the streams of spontaneous love run deep. They raise windmills in the heart to catch the breezes of the Spirit. Routines cannot give life of themselves, but they do invite life with all the readiness of a field furrowed, planted, and waiting for the rain.

String and Tune

Psalm 119 (and the rest of God’s word) gives us a robust category for spontaneous spirituality, for prayer and praise that fill the nets of ordinary moments and threaten to sink us for joy. But we have little hope of experiencing spontaneous devotion apart from the unspectacular business of routine. Daily we let down our nets; daily we take them up again; daily we wait for Jesus to bring the catch.

As we consider what routines might serve spontaneity best, we might helpfully think in two broad patterns: morning devotions and midday retreats. If morning devotions string our guitars, midday retreats retune them. If morning devotions inflate our hearts toward heaven, midday retreats give the bump that keeps us skyward. If morning devotions plant a flag for Christ on the hill of dawn, midday retreats beat off the afternoon foes ascending the slopes.

Morning Devotions

In all likelihood, we learned morning devotions as part of Discipleship 101. Repent, believe, and read your Bible every morning. But for that very reason, we can forget just how powerful and formative this pattern of seeking God can be.

There is a reason the psalmists prayed “in the morning” (Psalm 5:3), and sought deep satisfaction “in the morning” (Psalm 90:14), and declared God’s steadfast love “in the morning” (Psalm 92:2). There is a reason, too, we read of Jesus “rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark,” to commune with his Father (Mark 1:35). The morning’s first thoughts and words may not set an iron trajectory for the rest of the day, but a trajectory they do indeed set.

“We have little hope of experiencing spontaneous devotion apart from the unspectacular business of routine.”

Though we have new hearts in Christ, we do not always awake ready to live new. Our old man awakes with us, clinging close; Vanity Fair opens early; the devil waits, winking. Apart from some kind of Godward morning routine, then, we are likely to express throughout the day not spontaneous praise, but spontaneous pride; not spontaneous gratitude, but spontaneous grumbling. And so, in the morning, the wise want the first voice they hear to be God’s. They want the first words they speak to be prayer.

We will not always leave our morning devotions deeply moved. But if done prayerfully and earnestly, consistently and expectantly, then our devotions will set a tone for the hours ahead. We will walk into our day with guitar stringed, more ready to play a song of praise.

Midday Retreats

As valuable as morning devotions can be, however, souls like ours often need more to maintain a lively, spontaneous communion with God throughout the day. As the hours pass by, our strings lose their tune; our hearts drop altitude; our flags wave opposed. So, God gives us another pattern to live by:

These words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:6–9)

We are too weak, too forgetful, to live by morning devotions alone. As we walk through the day, we need promises wrapped round our wrists like watches. We need to wear truth like eyeglasses. We need a world adorned with the words of God.

Signs, frontlets, doorposts — such words sanction our creativity. They invite us, for example, to sanctify space, writing God’s words on mirrors and walls, car dashboards and desks. Some might replace their phone’s screen saver with a promise from the morning’s reading; others might write down a verse and slip it in their pocket. A friend in college, taking Deuteronomy 6:8 literally, sometimes drew the armor of God on his hands, a vivid reminder of the day’s spiritual warfare.

These words also invite us to sanctify time. Many would find help from retreating once or twice a day, even for a few minutes, to find a silent spot, hear again God’s words, and cast the day’s accumulated burdens on him. We might also benefit from simply pausing briefly before meetings or new tasks to settle our souls in Christ.

Finally, these words invite us to sanctify conversation. “You . . . shall talk of them,” God says — and not just in some places occasionally, but everywhere often. God means for his words to infiltrate our small talk and passing comments, our summaries of the day and our pillow-time reflections. Such conversations might start with a simple “What did you read today?” to spouse or roommate or friend.

However they come, midday retreats offer a pause and parenthesis in the day’s chaos, an oasis in the wilderness of tasks and temptations, a small Sabbath in the middle of packed afternoons, retuning our hearts to the morning’s song.

Revived and Rejoicing

The next time “not feeling like it” threatens to derail a good routine, we might confront our feelings with the words of David:

The law of the Lord is perfect,     reviving the soul; . . .the precepts of the Lord are right,     rejoicing the heart. (Psalm 19:7–8)

God’s word revives the soul and rejoices the heart — which suggests we will sometimes come to God’s word with souls asleep and hearts unfeeling. We will sit before an open Bible not wanting to read or pray, perhaps wanting to do anything else instead. And right there, in the midst of a difficult routine, God may revive our drooping feelings with a word.

When we allow “not feeling like it” to keep us from routine, we are like a man who avoids medicine because he doesn’t feel healthy, or who avoids fire because he doesn’t feel warm, or who avoids food because he doesn’t feel full. But when we engage in routine anyway — prayerfully and expectantly — we may walk away revived and rejoicing, our souls alive with spontaneous praise, “not feeling like it” nowhere to be found.

If you lived in his neighborhood, it would be hard not to be at least a little jealous. He has everything any ordinary man on the street would want — a large property with a beautiful home, a successful business and lots of employees, every earthly comfort and luxury a man could want.

He was born into a wealthy family, and so has never really known need. He was rich before he could talk. And if the inheritance weren’t enough, the family business is still thriving. He’s achieved a level of prosperity many men sweat and grind their whole lives to have, but never taste. If you could see inside his garage, he’d probably have cars worth the price of a small house.

On top of all that, he married an amazing woman — wise, beautiful, delightful, rare. The more you’re around her, the more you want to be around her. She knows what to say (and what not to say). She leaves people wondering how any man snared a diamond like her. Their life is the kind of life millions would want to stream on Netflix. Many would see him from afar and assume he’s the picture of a blessed husband.

But when God looks at that same man, he calls him worthless.

Man Against God’s Heart

When we meet Nabal (the name literally means “fool,” which raises some real questions about his upbringing), David has landed in his fields while fleeing from King Saul. David and his men are hungry, and so the anointed leader bows to ask for food. Notice how humbly and respectfully he makes his request:

Peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have. I hear that you have shearers. Now your shepherds have been with us, and we did them no harm, and they missed nothing all the time they were in Carmel. Ask your young men, and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor in your eyes, for we come on a feast day. Please give whatever you have at hand to your servants and to your son David. (1 Samuel 25:6–8)

Nabal’s men later confirm David’s story: “The men were very good to us, and we suffered no harm, and we did not miss anything when we were in the fields, as long as we went with them. They were a wall to us both by night and by day” (1 Samuel 25:15–16). Not only did David’s men not harm Nabal’s shepherds, but they actually shielded and blessed them. His own men think he should feed these guys.

In response, Nabal lives up to his name:

Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants these days who are breaking away from their masters. Shall I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers and give it to men who come from I do not know where? (1 Samuel 25:10–11)

He knows exactly who David is. Why else would he call him “the son of Jesse” (a name Saul spitefully uses again and again, 1 Samuel 20:27, 30–31; 22:13)? While David kneels with empty hands, Nabal spits in his face and sends him away. And if it wasn’t for his remarkable wife, Abigail, it would have cost him his life right then and there (1 Samuel 25:13).

Five Marks of a Foolish Husband

What might Christian husbands learn from Nabal? We learn at least five ways to be a bad man and a foolish husband.

Strength Without Love

Nabal had the kind of strength that might impress and intimidate weaker men. He was a man of the field and worked with his hands, sheering sheep. He used his strength, however, in despicable ways. When Scripture introduces the couple, its writer says, “The woman was discerning and beautiful, but the man was harsh and badly behaved” (1 Samuel 25:3). That one word — harsh — sums up his failures as a man. He used his God-given strength to wound, rather than heal; to threaten, rather than protect. He relied on force to do what love should do. He was cruel.

His strength was not the problem. No, godly husbands are strong men — they must be to do what God calls them to do, bear what God calls them to bear, and confront what God calls them to confront. In Christ, men put off laziness, timidity, and fragility. We put on the armor of God to fight the battles of God in the strength of God. And as we exercise that strength, those in our homes and churches (unlike those closest to Nabal) are cared for and safe. Any discerning wife loves being led by a strong man who loves well.

Courage Without Wisdom

You can’t read a story like this and question Nabal’s nerve. When the Lord’s anointed, armed and dangerous, stood in his front yard and asked for food for his small army of soldiers, the man sends them away. “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse?” He basically drew a flaming arrow and aimed it at a hungry warrior’s chest, spurning caution and inviting violence. He had the backbone to stand his ground, but he’d chosen the wrong place to stand. He planted his flag on foolishness, and risked everything for pride.

Again, courage was not his problem. Godly men are more willing than most to sacrifice themselves for the good of others. They wear promises like Isaiah 41:10, “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” And because God, not self, is the source and aim of their bravery, they don’t pick dumb fights (especially with their wives). They don’t endanger those they’re called to protect for the sake of their ego. They risk themselves wisely and in love. They know when to step in and stand their ground — for their families, for the church, for their God — and when to turn the other cheek.

Wealth Without Generosity

For all the evil Nabal could and did do, God still allowed him to prosper for a time. He had the kind of barns that could comfortably feed a small army. He wasn’t just rich. “The man was very rich,” God tells us. “He had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats” (1 Samuel 25:2). We’re meant to feel the weight of this man’s wealth — and just how badly he handles it. He could feed David and his men, with no significant loss, but he wouldn’t. He could have met a hundred needs, but he chose to spend what he had on what he wanted instead. He was selfish and stingy toward every appetite but his own.

Nabal had built the bigger barns. He embodied the fool’s anthem: “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry” (Luke 12:19). And what does God say to that man? “Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” (v. 20). To which Jesus adds, “So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God” (v. 21). And being rich toward God typically means being generous toward someone else. It means laying up treasure for others, meeting their needs at our (sometimes significant) expense. Godly husbands are givers, like our Father, not keepers or takers.

Success Without Gratitude

Nabal was running a booming company. His stock was rising. His board was well-pleased with the profits. By all accounts, this man’s career was a wild success. That is, by all accounts but one. God looked at all Nabal had achieved and earned, and he saw failure. He saw bankruptcy. He called the whole enterprise worthless. How many men, even in our churches, are killing it in the office and yet losing everywhere else? How many are esteemed by their colleagues and competitors and yet barely tolerated at home? How many of us have endless ambition outside our family and church, but little leftover to give where it matters most?

Godly men work hard, whatever work they do, as for their Lord and not for men (Colossians 3:23). Christian men do their work with unusual excellence — and unusual gratitude. Notice how Nabal talks: “Shall I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers and give it to men who come from I do not know where?” God gave him everything, and got credit for nothing. And then, when God guarded his servants and sheep, he returned that kindness with evil (1 Samuel 25:21). Good husbands are relentlessly humble and grateful, even in the little gains and successes. And because they’re faithful in the little, God often gives them more (Luke 19:17, 24–26).

Hunger Without Self-Control

Lastly, Nabal was a man mastered by his cravings. The passions of his flesh waged war on his soul, and his soul all too quickly waved the white flag. When Abigail came to find him, “he was holding a feast in his house, like the feast of a king. And Nabal’s heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk” (1 Samuel 25:36). Even with men of war waiting outside, he reached for the bottle and poured himself another drink. When the people under his roof needed him to rise and play the man, he instead chose to enjoy some mindless, silly, numbing pleasures. He gratified himself and abandoned everyone else.

Before we despise him too quickly, don’t we sometimes do the same, even if in subtler ways? Do we too easily check out and desert our posts as husbands and fathers? What indulgence in our lives tends to numb our sense of spiritual and relational urgency and responsibility?

When the apostle Paul comes to older men in the church, he charges them, “Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness” (Titus 2:2). When he comes to the younger men a few verses later, he says, simply, “Urge the younger men to be self-controlled” (Titus 2:6). Not joyless. Godly husbands are happy men, but not in cheap, easy, superficial ways.

Men mastered by grace are men who master themselves. We’re not, like many men, relying on football games, smoked meat, video games, or craft cocktails for relief and exhilaration. We’re thrilled to be the chosen sons of God, the blood-bought brothers of Christ, the future kings of the universe. And we enjoy every other earthly gift — food and drink, marriage and sex, football and Netflix — in moderation, to preserve the highest, fullest, strongest pleasure, namely God.

Worth of Worthy Men

Nabal, like a number of other husbands in Scripture, teaches husbands what not to be and do. His failures, however, lay out something of a constructive map for us. They teach us that men will be measured, in large part, by how we treat what (and whom) God has entrusted to us.

We’ll be measured by how we treat our stuff — our sheep and goats and monthly paychecks. Are we selfless and self-controlled, or selfish and indulgent? Do the time, money, and gifts we’ve been given consistently meet real needs around us? For men in the world, what they have is their god, and so they receive and spend it horribly. Those whose God is in heaven, though, don’t demand divinity of their prosperity, and so they hold their possessions loosely and give them away freely. They know that, in God, they have “a better possession and an abiding one” (Hebrews 10:34).

We’ll also be measured by how we treat the people in our lives — the wife beside us, the children behind us, the neighbors next to us, the church family around us, the people who look up to (and maybe even report to) us. Men don’t often die wishing they had put in a lot more hours at the office or made a harder run at that promotion. They very often die wishing they had prioritized the people who were waiting at home or sitting in the next pew. Strive, by the grace of God, to be your most fruitful where it matters most. Don’t be known first and foremost by how you work and what you have, but by how you love and what you give.

Ultimately, though, we’ll be measured by how we treat God’s anointed. Nabal sent the chosen king away hungry, and then added insult to that injury. Since then, God has sent a new and greater David. He’s sent his own Son into our world, into our city, even to our front door. So how will we receive him? And not just on Sunday mornings, but on Monday afternoons and Friday evenings too. Will we give him more attention than Nabal gave David that day? Will we run to him, prioritize him, praise him, and share him?

In the end, then, what separates good husbands from bad ones, the faithful from the unfaithful, is how we treat Jesus.