In my son’s first wrestling tournament, he was dominant. His preparation and good coaching were evident, as he pinned every opponent and won every match — that is, with one exception: a forfeiture.

The brackets were established by dividing the wrestlers on the basis of weight and age, with even some consideration given to experience. But one criterion considered inconsequential or nonexistent was that of biological sex. So, when my son was assigned to wrestle a girl, he forfeited the match. My wife and I had determined this course of action before the occasion arose. Even though, in the moment, my heart was inclined just to let him wrestle her, I gently explained to my young and highly competitive son why the nobler course of action was forfeiture.

Since that time, I have been burdened to explain my rationale to other brothers and sisters who might be facing some of the same pressures. In a world that is very confused regarding gender, sex, athletics, and fairness, I want to share the reasons I gave my son for why boys don’t wrestle against girls. Ultimately, it’s not because we think less of girls or their ability — it’s because we are committed to a way of life that honors women and seeks to develop reflexes of protection rather than dominance.

Because Boys and Girls Are Different

Though controversial these days, the truth that boys and girls are different is on the very first pages of Genesis, and that assumption runs throughout the Bible. Yes, boys and girls are equally made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27) and equally in need of salvation in Jesus Christ (Romans 3:23–25; Galatians 3:28). That equality, however, does not erase the fundamental created distinctions between boys and girls.

I don’t think most parents who allow their girls to wrestle boys have erased the idea of sexual differences in their minds. They know that girls are different from boys. But some parents seem to have subtly bought into and thus propagated the modern lie that “you can be anything that you want to be.” Against this claim, we assert, “In the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27).

Because Boys Should Relate Differently to Girls

Scripture and biology make the physical differences between boys and girls obvious. Less obvious — and sometimes less convenient — are the distinct ways we should relate to one another as a consequence of our sex. Some Christians acknowledge the seemingly undeniable differences between boys and girls, but then they hesitate to extend those distinctions into actions and relationships. While it might raise the ire of many, I am teaching my son (and my daughters) that God created them to relate differently to the opposite sex.

At the wrestling meet, another father shared the advice he gave to his son in preparation for wrestling a girl: “Son, you can’t treat her like a girl. You’ve got to think of her like a boy, and go out there and be aggressive.” I don’t think this father was operating from ill will or a deliberate attempt to deny distinctions of sex, but his advice illustrates the problem of confusing those distinctions. He counseled his son to act contrary to reality, as if the girl were someone she is not. He counseled his son to unthink his right understanding of sex distinctions.

As Christians, we know that male and female are more than just a box checked on a birth certificate or marriage license. In God’s wisdom, he created differences of sex to be relational in nature, helping us to interact with one another rightly. But what are some of those distinctions in relationships?

Because Boys Should Honor and Protect Girls

A commonly implied and often explicit command in Scripture is for men to honor and protect women in their spheres, beginning with the family (Ephesians 5:25–33) and extending to the nation (Joshua 1:14). Abraham’s cowardice is on display when he exploits his wife rather than protecting her. To some degree, his sin of deception pales in comparison to his abandonment of protection. Shockingly, Isaac repeats this abandonment a generation later. In contrast, the men of Israel march off to war to protect their nation and families. It would have been unthinkable for them to send their wives, sisters, and daughters into battle.

“When we deny the distinctions between boys and girls, we exploit rather than protect women.”

The disposition to protect is both ingrained and nurtured in our sons’ minds and actions. They need our help to cultivate the mature manhood that calls them to prize and honor the women they encounter. When we deny the distinctions between boys and girls, we exploit rather than protect women.

Many people today wave the yellow flag that acknowledging any difference between boys and girls will lead to girls being mistreated and oppressed. The assumption is that acknowledging differences undermines equality. On the contrary, I am teaching my son that a boy’s physical strength is not for dominating a girl, but rather for protecting her. In fact, this emphasis seems truly countercultural in an environment rampant with abuse: one’s strength is for elevating, not suppressing, others.

Wrestling with Objections

When I went to the scorer’s table to report that my son would be forfeiting the match, I anticipated some anger and frustration. What surprised me was the surprise. Those at the table were puzzled, as if they thought, Haven’t we moved beyond that? Then the objections started flowing.

But they are prepubescent kids.

My argument is not primarily about sexual arousal, although that would strengthen my position as kids mature. My argument is about a fundamental created distinction and a biblical call to treat women with dignity and honor. The need to instill appropriate patterns of relationship does not begin at puberty, although it does become more obvious at that stage.

What about other sports?

The position I’m describing does have implications for other sports, but perhaps we could recognize a few clear distinctions. There is a difference between the physical dominance expressed in wrestling and racing someone to the finish line in track. The expression of physical dominance and the danger to the other contestant are not present in track. So I might not object as strongly to some co-ed athletics.

But your son is the one who loses, not you.

“My goal is to train my son to stand with conviction, even when it’s costly.”

It is true and regrettable that my son is the one who has the loss on his record, and his peers might look at him differently. But my goal is to train my son to stand with conviction, even when it’s costly. While he’s still in our home, I can gently shepherd, comfort, and train him for the larger sacrifices that will inevitably come his way.

Prizing Honor Over Victory

I do not intend to come across as judgmental toward parents who would allow their girls to wrestle boys or their boys to wrestle girls. I simply want to call us all to live in light of Scripture. As Christian parents, we cannot affirm the erosion of distinctions between boys and girls. We must not teach our daughters that it is normal to be subdued by a boy, nor teach our boys that it is normal to subdue a girl.

Rather, we should affirm God’s good purposes by teaching that he created humans in his image, either male or female, and his design has implications for how we relate to one another. I think most parents who register their girls to wrestle boys are acting with a genuine desire for their girls’ good, but they have a flawed and misguided sense of good. In that sense, their actions and consciences need to be recalibrated in line with biblical authority.

So, what might we say to our sons for why boys don’t wrestle girls? “We don’t wrestle girls because God calls men to honor and protect women, and I am raising you to be a man. Yes, it will cost you to act with conviction. And I am so thankful that I get to walk alongside you as you grow into manhood.”

Christian introspection can feel a little like walking into a broad and intricate maze. Entering the maze is easy enough, but so is getting lost within it. Your sense of direction slips. Promising paths of thought take unexpected and distressing turns. Dead ends abound.

If we want to live safely in this world, then we will need at least some of the self-knowledge that comes from introspection (we might also call it self-examination). “Pay attention to yourselves,” our Lord Jesus told his disciples (Luke 17:3). “Keep a close watch on yourself,” Paul wrote to Timothy (1 Timothy 4:16). “Keep your heart with all vigilance,” the wise man counsels (Proverbs 4:23). So we enter the maze of self for good reason.

Yet anyone who has seriously embarked upon this path of self-knowledge knows how many holes and pits, how many crossroads and mistaken turns, how many briars and thorns line the way. And some Christians, inward and scrupulous by nature, know what it’s like to get lost in that maze for long stretches of time.

Our Lord calls us to look within. Yet alongside healthy introspection are a dozen dangers and dead ends — paths that will yield not more self-knowledge but rather more anxiety, insecurity, distraction, and fear. As we consider the maze before us, then, we would do well to remember some common ways introspection goes wrong.

Dead End 1: Endless Introspection

For some Christians, introspection is less a spiritual practice and more a spiritual atmosphere. They don’t so much visit the maze as live there. These believers often live with split attention — one part of them talking, working, resting, worshiping, the other part standing back and assessing their talking, working, resting, worshiping.

We might find ourselves engaging in endless introspection for several reasons. Maybe we imagine that we really can know ourselves comprehensively if we just look long enough. So, we assess and reassess, guess and second-guess, analyze and scrutinize as if just a little more looking might unmask our inner selves. We may leave little room for Paul’s modest self-awareness (1 Corinthians 4:3–4) or prayers like David’s in Psalm 19:12: “Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults.”

“‘Love God’ and ‘love neighbor’ are our most crucial callings — and continual self-scrutiny undermines both.”

Probably more often, endless introspection is less intentional. We don’t decide to analyze ourselves so much; we just reflexively find ourselves doing so. The power of this vague, atmospheric self-analysis lies partly in the fact that it can feel productive and obedient. Jesus tells us to watch ourselves; we’re watching. Or so we think. But as with a preoccupied father who feels productive while mentally solving work problems at the dinner table, endless introspection usually distracts us from plainer, more important obedience.

God may command us to look within, but these commands hold a small place among the whole, just a sliver of the pie chart. Far more often, God commands us to look upward and outward — to Christ (Hebrews 12:2), to heaven (Colossians 3:1–4), to the people beside us and the wonders around us and the gifts before us (Matthew 6:26; Philippians 2:3; 4:8). “Love God” and “love neighbor” are our most crucial callings — and continual self-scrutiny undermines both.

So, instead of stumbling around in a maze of thoughts, introspect with intention. Aim to enter this maze with a prayer and a plan, with a clear beginning and end. And even if intrusive thoughts keep tempting you inward, dare to remember that the obedience God expects of you usually lies outward.

Dead End 2: One-Eyed Introspection

Self-examination sometimes gets construed as simply a sin search or idol hunt: we look within to trace our guilt to its buried roots. Granted, Scripture’s calls to introspection often do focus on finding the troublesome parts about ourselves — “any grievous way in me,” as David says (Psalm 139:24). We want to meet our enemies in their infancy so they don’t grow up to slay us. But if we search for only sin within, then we are like a man who keeps one eye closed.

“We must have two eyes,” Richard Sibbes writes, “one to see imperfections in ourselves, the other to see what is good” (The Bruised Reed, 35). And if Jesus is your Lord, Savior, and Treasure, then no matter how embattled you feel, you have something good to see. Your soul may have weeds, but it also has fruit planted and growing by the Spirit of God (Galatians 5:22–23).

The apostle John writes, “By this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments” (1 John 2:3). We can know that we are in Christ, John says. And one of the ways we know is by noticing the grace he has given us to obey him — to delight in his word, love his people, rely on his strength, trust his promises. We are not who we once were, and God wants us to know it.

Confession and repentance are marks of Christian maturity, but endless self-accusation is not. As Octavius Winslow writes,

It is not true humility to doubt, and underrate, until it becomes easy to deny altogether the work of the Holy Ghost within us — it is true humility and lowliness to confess his work, bear testimony to his operation, and ascribe to him all the power, praise, and glory. (Personal Declension, 151)

Do not pinch your nose as you walk past the fruit of the Spirit in your life. Do not speak of your soul as if the good work God has begun is actually a bad work, one without progress or beauty (Philippians 1:6). Rather, open both your eyes when you look within, and praise him for whatever good you find.

Dead End 3: Untethered Introspection

In John Calvin’s discussion of the knowledge of God, he uses a vivid image that we might also apply to the knowledge of self. “The divine countenance,” he writes, “is for us like an inexplicable labyrinth unless we are conducted into it by the thread of the Word” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.6.3).

Those who try to know God apart from Scripture are like men dropped in the middle of an infinite maze. Our own souls, while not as unsearchable as God’s nature, are likewise “inexplicable” to us apart from God’s word. We need a thread to lead us through the labyrinth of self to the places we need to see (and then to guide us back out).

David models this approach to self-knowledge in Psalm 19. Even as he acknowledges the persistent hiddenness of some sins (Psalm 19:12), he celebrates the searching and illuminating character of God’s word. “The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. . . . Moreover, by [it] is your servant warned” (Psalm 19:8, 11). God’s word is a sun upon the soul — warming us, warning us, revealing us, and leading us back to our rock and redeemer (Psalm 19:14).

Imagine, then, that a particular sin has been pestering you. You want to see it more clearly so you can confess it more sincerely and kill it more effectively. You might simply pray and think about why this sin holds such power over you — and that could be fruitful. You might also bring this sin before another believer — and that could be even more fruitful. But you might also consider how to hold more tightly to “the thread of the word.”

“Understanding ourselves holds almost no value if we remain preoccupied with ourselves.”

If you want to see your envy more clearly, you might hold onto the story of Saul’s jealousy (1 Samuel 8:6–16) or James’s words about “the wisdom from above” (James 3:13–18). If you want to understand and address some recurring fear more decisively, you might get into the boat with the disciples (Mark 4:35–41) or allow Paul to lovingly question you at the end of Romans 8 (verses 31–39). If you want to turn from shallow entertainment and earthly-mindedness, you might let John lead you into his vision of the new Jerusalem (Revelation 21:4).

As we linger in passages like these — pondering, meditating, and allowing them to search our souls — we may find them leading us to motives we never imagined, temptations we never named, and ways of escape we never saw.

Dead End 4: Christless Introspection

In the end, self-examination, like all means of God’s grace, is just that: a means. Understanding ourselves holds almost no value if we remain preoccupied with ourselves. But if we allow what we see of ourselves to lead us somewhere else, to preoccupy us with Christ, then introspection will become one more servant of our joy in him.

We do not pore over our souls simply to see our illnesses, but so we might show the Great Physician where we need him to lay his healing hands and bestow his benediction of peace. And what a physician he is! Throngs came to him on earth, their needs as varied as their humanity, yet “he healed them all” (Matthew 12:15). And so he still does by his Spirit from heaven.

If bitterness consumes you like leprosy, he can cleanse you and send you home whole. If laziness or self-indulgence has paralyzed your love, he can raise you up again. If twisted words have made your praises go mute, he can unloose and retrain your tongue. If lofty thoughts of self have blinded you to his worth, he can once again say to your eyes, “Be opened.”

Whatever we discover within is already known by him. We may find ourselves surprised; he is not. And in this Jesus — his person, his work — is all the healing we could ever need. So, look within, but don’t live there. Let every inward look lead you to the Lord outside yourself. Live in him.

During our family’s first time through Andrew Peterson’s four-book series The Wingfeather Saga, I found myself carefully paying attention to one person more than any other: Nia Wingfeather. By the time we were rereading the series for the third and fourth times, I had to resist the urge to take notes on this courageous and queenly (albeit imperfect) mother. Her womanly valor, her fearless sacrifices, and her ability to bring out the best in men have spurred me on in my own callings as wife and mother.

Bravery in the Kitchen

For the uninitiated, Peterson’s saga traces the unforgettable Wingfeather family, particularly the three children, as they run from the Fangs of Dang, from the Overseer of the Fork Factory, and worst of all, from Gnag the Nameless.

We get one early glimpse of Nia’s savvy courage when she is faced with the capture of her son by the wicked Fangs of Dang — cursed creatures, men who have willingly been transformed into wretched beasts. In their twisted existence, their appetites are insatiable, but not for good food, only for all that is rotting and putrid. Nia negotiates the release of her son: “I told him I could cook the finest maggotloaf in the four seas and that if he let you go, I’d cook it for him every third day of the week once the meat had plenty of time to fester” (On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, 68).

Her quick thinking reminds me of women like Jael, who lures her enemy in, gives him milk, and covers him with a blanket before crushing him — or Abigail, who brings enough food for an army, accompanied by her own gracious words, to calm David and divert him from violence. Nia, though fictional, shows us a particularly feminine kind of think-on-your-feet bravery. She acts on behalf of her child, but she does not confront danger directly (for she would have surely lost); instead, she comes at the problem creatively. She proceeds to make the aforementioned maggotloaf to satiate the appetite and the anger of the Fangs.

This type of feminine bravery is quite different from the bossy, brash, beat-up-the-boys counterfeit we see in so many movies today. Nia is a brave woman — not a manly woman — and she solves problems accordingly.

Fearless in Sacrifice

Later in the saga, Nia’s second son has undergone the same sort of horrible transformation that the Fangs had. He is a beast, but still a boy. With her husband assumed dead, her life centers on helping her son become the man he should be, despite this irreversible change. When the people of the Hollows wish to cast her son out, she invokes Turalay, the law of pardon in the Green Hollows, and is warned, “You hold your life forfeit for his, and should he break the life laws of the Green Hollows, from this day forward, it is not only his blood that will be shed, but yours” (The Monster in the Hollows, 67–68)

“A mother’s willing release can put steel in the spine of young men.”

On the surface, we may think she is confident simply that her son will somehow overcome his beastly reality, that she knows all will be well. But Nia’s trust is deeper. She trusts her Maker, even if her son were to do the unthinkable and break the life laws of the Hollows. She binds her fate to her son because she trusts her Maker’s purposes and does not fear death. And in tying her life to his, she strengthens his weak frame and plants seeds of hope in his heart.

Multiplying the Courage of Men

If there is one visceral driving force in mothers, it is the desire to nurture and protect. This natural, God-given instinct, however, can give way to fear-soaked overprotection. “Safety first!” can undergird almost every decision mothers make. Nia, however, taps into a rare feminine virtue — the cheerful willingness to forsake safety now for the better hope of raising courageous future men.

As Nia’s oldest son nears his thirteenth birthday, he approaches a rite of passage for boys called the “blindplop.” After being stuffed full of food on his birthday, he is left alone, deep in the woods, in the middle of the night. His guild master leaves him his pack and a letter saying,

No one is watching over you, ready to rescue you as soon as things get difficult. . . . That means you’re on your own. Of course, if you don’t show up at Ban Rona for a week or so, we’ll send out a search party to bring you home, though there probably won’t be much of you left. Your mother grew up here; she knows how it works, and she’s given me her full permission. I expected to have to talk her into the blindplop, but she agreed without hesitation. That should make you feel some pride, boy. (The Warden and the Wolf King, 20)

A mother’s willing release can put steel in the spine of young men. When a mother confidently blesses her son’s launch into the world — whether in small matters, like persevering in hard work, or in large changes, like moving far away, independent of her — her blessing is like a current of wind that pushes his sails farther and faster and straighter than he would have otherwise gone. But when mothers coddle and hover, doing all they can to keep sons from any whiff of danger or failure or pain, they nurture vice rather than virtue.

Strong Men and Their Fearless Wives

Yet it isn’t just sons who are bolstered by the appropriate confidence of their mothers. Husbands, too, can be inspired by the trust and assurance of their wives. Nia’s husband, Esben, is mortally wounded after a heroic effort to stand between the Fangs and his family. Yet even as his blood pools around him, and he begins to sink to the ground, she issues an urgent but steadfast reminder not to give in to death — not yet. “Our children need you, my king” (The Monster in the Hollows, 332). And he rouses himself once more to do what seemed impossible, to do what she could not do — to rescue their children from the enemy at the cost of his life. Her words beckon his courage.

A woman’s respect multiplies the courage of men, not with manipulation or fear, but with loyalty, hope, and abiding trust. To be a woman of valor is to be a woman who is free — free from the chains of fear because her security is fixed in her Maker. And it is free, fearless women who are best equipped to call forth and inspire the masculine strength and courage of Christ in the godly men around them. The world desperately needs such men — and such women.