Complementarian is a strange word. I never heard my parents or my pastor use it as I was growing up. I can’t recall the first time I heard it — though it was likely sometime in the early 2000s, as a young married woman, sitting under the teaching of John Piper.

However, long before I heard the strange word, I had seen the concept. I saw it when my dad’s heart to be generous and hospitable was taken up by my mom and transposed into a welcoming home that operated like a bed-and-breakfast for family, friends, and strangers. I saw it when my dad would take the initiative to warm the car and pull it up to the curb, always hopping out to open the door for my mom — my fearless mom, who wielded chainsaws and rode young green horses, yet gladly welcomed this kindness from her husband. I saw it when my mom helped shoulder my dad’s call to be a physician, making the best of a constantly changing schedule. I saw it in my dad’s hard work and provision for us and in my mom’s labor in the home to turn that provision into something truly wonderful. And I saw it when my dad led us in prayer and gratitude to God for everything, especially God’s Son.

Woven Through All of God’s Word

Yet there was another place I’d seen complementarity: the Scriptures. From the opening pages — the genesis of Adam and Eve — to the final chapters revealing the marriage supper of the Lamb, this concept of part and counterpart; of the distinctiveness of man and woman (in Hebrew, ish and ishah); of the design and order of husband and wife, lord and lady, bridegroom and bride, was everywhere. From Sarah’s willingness to obey Abraham to Boaz’s noble protection of Ruth, the stories of Scripture show us both the beauty of complementarity and the consequences of rejecting God’s design for men and women — as when Adam submitted to Eve rather than to God in the garden.

“The husband is head, and the wife is glory — just as Christ is head, and the church is body.”

Even the gospel itself is intertwined with this foundational reality of creation: the husband is head, and the wife is glory — just as Christ is head, and the church is body (1 Corinthians 11:3; Ephesians 5:22–33). The husband loves his wife, and the wife respects her husband — just as Christ lovingly sacrifices, and the church gladly submits and receives (Ephesians 5:22–33; Colossians 3:18–19). I had observed, too, how the Epistles reiterate the distinctions between men and women as they give separate and particular instructions for older women, younger women, older men, younger men, wives, husbands, and widows (Titus 2:1–6; 1 Timothy 2:8–15; 1 Peter 3:1–7).

By the time the strange word complementarian became part of my vocabulary, with its accompanying pushback against the idea that men and women are interchangeable, I didn’t need to be convinced it was true or scriptural. I’d seen it — both in print and in life.

Speed Bumps Along the Way

Of course, seeing a reality and living a reality are two different experiences. I could see the reality of complementarity. I could see the beauty of God’s intent for men and women. But stepping into that reality as a young woman and trying it on was more difficult. From the time I was little, the word equality was a good word. Especially as an American, I was proud to consider everyone equal. I’d heard that egalitarianism was simply that: equality between men and women. Who could be opposed to equality?

Thankfully, a complementarian position was able to account for both the equalities and the inequalities of men and women. To embrace the Bible’s teaching on men and women is to acknowledge an equality of value alongside physical and positional differences.

“What a gift to be a woman! What a gift to be endowed with a woman’s body and to have a woman’s mind and instincts!”

I found over time that, rather than bristling at this reality, there was great relief in stating the obvious. I came to acknowledge that treating men and women as the same was actually an affront to God — and at the same time, I became free to acknowledge that how he designed men and women was truly good and beautiful. Many women are indoctrinated by the world to believe that we will lose something essential in ourselves if we admit that we are physically weaker or inherently different than men. When we acknowledge that we don’t choose what we are but are created to be what we are — man or woman — the world teaches us to shudder and rebel, but God teaches us to say thank you for his good gift. What a gift to be a woman! What a gift to be endowed with a woman’s body and to have a woman’s mind and instincts!

Two Precious Tutors

Two books were especially helpful to me as I began to really practice the complementarity I saw in Scripture, both in my marriage and in how I conceived of myself as a Christian woman in the world. The first was Matthew Henry’s The Quest for Meekness and Quietness of Spirit, and the second was Jim Wilson’s How to Be Free from Bitterness. Neither book mentions complementarianism, neither is about the differences between men and women, and neither is written particularly for women. But both books helped me gain a frame of mind and heart and soul that served my submission to God and his ways — and helped me flourish as a result.

The books gave me a window into the inner workings of a heart that truly trusts and obeys God. And it just so happens that the kind of heart that trusts and obeys God is the same kind of heart that does not rebel against God-ordained relationships of authority and submission. Whether submitting to the elders of my church or the authorities who make our traffic laws or my own husband as he leads us on a new adventure, my frame of heart and mind must be wholly trusting God. I need a stability of soul born of meekness and a faith-filled heart that is free from bitterness.

Henry and Wilson fanned the flames of my happiness in day-to-day life as they helped me turn from sins of grasping, bitterness, and inward strife and replace them with simple gratitude, peace, and joy in Christ. I commend them to you. My happiness in complementarity was directly tied to my own sanctification and my willingness to bow my knee in submission to King Jesus, no matter what the world or anyone else thought.

To agree with God’s word that a wife ought to submit to her husband (Ephesians 5:22), or that woman is the glory of man and man is the glory of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:3), or that God himself ordains who is a man and who is a woman — these positions won’t earn you accolades or applause in many circles. But agreeing with God — even more, loving what God has said and done — will bring you peace and hope and joy, both now and in the age to come. Complementarian is a strange word, but that’s alright. Christians have often been strange to the world.

One of the more controversial issues in missions today is speed. How quickly do we expect the lost to be saved? How soon will new churches plant new churches? How fast should a new believer move into a leadership role? How long should cross-cultural missionaries work on learning a language?

In our times, we will do well to carefully interrogate our assumptions about speed and pace. Our internal speedometers are being conditioned to the quickening pace of modern life with its rapid flow of technological innovations. So, in our “age of accelerations,” pressing questions relate to speed — not only for effective Christian mission but simply for healthy Christian lives. Will we be driven by the hurried pace of our world? Or, with the help of God’s word and his Spirit and his church, will we find a more timeless (and human) pace for life and mission — a pace that has produced health and fruit across the ages?

In his book Missions: How the Local Church Goes Global, Andy Johnson says this: “The work of missions is urgent, but it’s not frantic” (67). That’s good, and the same is true of the Christian life and of the health and growth of our own souls.

Unhurried Habits of Jesus

So, let’s sit together at the feet of Jesus, and consider the pace and patterns of his life and ministry. He was not idle. Nor was he frenzied. From all we can tell from the Gospels, Jesus’s days were full. I think it would be fair to say he was busy, but he was not frantic. He lived to the full, and yet he did not seem to be in a hurry.

In Jesus, we observe a human life with holy habits and patterns: rhythms of retreating from society and then reentering to do the work of ministry. Even as God himself in human flesh, Jesus prioritized time away with his Father. He chose again and again, in his perfect wisdom and love, to give his first and best moments to seeking his Father’s face. And if Jesus, even Jesus, carved out such space in the demands and pressures of his human life, what might we learn from him, and how might we do likewise?

Now, we have only glimpses of Jesus’s habits and personal spiritual practices, but what we do have is by no accident, and it is not scant. We know exactly what God means for us to know, in just the right detail — and we have far more about Jesus’s personal spiritual rhythms than we do about anyone else’s in Scripture.

And the picture we have of Christ’s habits is not one that is foreign to our world and lives and experience. Rather, we find timeless and transcultural postures that can be imitated and applied by any follower of Jesus, anywhere in the world, at any time in history.

So, what might those be? Let’s look at three.

1. Jesus retreated and reentered.

Jesus made a habit of withdrawing from the world (and the engagements of fruitful ministry), and then reentering later to do more good.

So too, the healthy Christian life is neither solely solitary nor constantly communal. We learn to withdraw, like Jesus, “to a desolate place” to commune with God (Mark 1:35), and then we return to the bustle of daily tasks and seek to meet the needs of others. We carve out a season for spiritual respite — in some momentarily sacred space — to feed our souls, enjoying God there in the stillness. Then refilled, we enter back in to be light and bread to a hungry, harassed, and helpless world (Matthew 9:36).

For Christ, “the wilderness” or “desolate place” often became his momentarily sacred space. He got away from people. He regularly escaped the noise and frenzy of society to be alone with his Father, where he could give him his full attention and undivided heart.

There is, of course, that especially memorable instance in Mark 1. After “his fame spread everywhere” (Mark 1:28) the day before, and “the whole city was gathered together at the door” (Mark 1:33), Jesus took a remarkable step the next morning. He was up before the sun and slipped away from town to restore his soul in secret communion with his Father. “Rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed” (Mark 1:35).

Given the fruitfulness of the previous day, some of us might scratch our heads. What a ministry opportunity Jesus seemed to leave behind when he left town! Surely some of us would have skipped or shortened our private spiritual habits to rush to the demands of the swelling masses. How many of us, in such a situation, would have the presence of mind and heart to discern and prioritize prayer as Jesus did?

The Gospel of Luke also makes it unmistakable that this pattern of retreat and reentry was part of the ongoing dynamic of Christ’s human life. Luke 4:42 tells us that Jesus “departed and went into a desolate place” — not just once but regularly. Luke 5:16: “He would withdraw [as a pattern] to desolate places and pray.”

So also Matthew 14:13. After the death of John the Baptist, Jesus “withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself.” But even then, the crowds pursued him. And he didn’t despise them, but here he puts his desire to retreat on hold and has compassion on them and heals their sick (Matthew 14:14). Then after feeding them, five thousand strong, he withdraws again to a quiet place. “After he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray” (Matthew 14:23).

This leads to a second principle — and not just that he withdrew but why. What did Jesus do when he withdrew?

2. Jesus withdrew to commune with his Father.

He got away from the distractions and demands of daily life to focus on, and hear from, and pray to his Father. At times, he went away by himself to be alone (Matthew 14:23; Mark 6:46–47; John 6:15). His disciples would see him leave to pray and later return. He went by himself.

But he also drew others into his life of prayer. The disciples had seen him model prayer at his baptism (Luke 3:21), as he laid his hands on the children (Matthew 19:13), and when he drove out demons (Mark 9:29). And Jesus brought his men into his communion with his Father. Even when he prayed alone, his men might be nearby. “Now it happened that as he was praying alone, the disciples were with him” (Luke 9:18; also Luke 11:1).

3. Jesus taught his disciples to do the same.

Jesus didn’t only retreat to be alone with God. He also taught his disciples to bring this dynamic of retreat and return, communion and compassion, into their own lives (Mark 3:7; Luke 9:10).

In Mark 6:31–32, Jesus invites his men to join him, saying, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” Mark explains, “For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves.”

So too, in the Gospel of John, as his fame spreads, Jesus retreats from more populated settings to invest in his men in more desolate, less distracting places (John 11:54). And in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches all his hearers, including us today, not only to give without show (Matthew 6:3–4) and fast without publicity (Matthew 6:17–18), but also to find our private place to seek our Father’s face: “When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matthew 6:6). The reward is not material stuff later but the joy of communion with God there, in that moment, in the secret place.

Your Pace and Patterns

Jesus made a habit of retreating from the demands and pressures of everyday life and ministry, and he did so to commune with his Father, to hear his voice, and respond in prayer. And then Jesus reentered society to bless and teach and show compassion and love and do good. And he also invited his disciples into this pattern and taught them to do the same.

So, let’s close by asking about your pace and your patterns. First about pace, ask yourself, How deeply do the world’s assumptions and expectations about speed and productivity affect my life and ministry? How hurried is my life?

And your patterns. How about rhythms of retreat and reentry? Do you get away daily to commune with God in his word and prayer, in an unhurried, even leisurely way — resting, restoring your joy, feeding your soul in the grace of his presence? And what are your patterns or rhythms of life for retreating from the noise of the world to focus on and hear from the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent, and then come back to meet the needs of others?

Are you happy? Are you satisfied?

You tour the zoo with your daughter and peer into the glass with the gorilla. You stare at the gorilla; he stares back. Are your lives all that different? He lives one outdoor-time to the next, one feeding to the next — what is a jungle? You live one entertainment to the next, one bite of sin to the next — what is true happiness? It’s as though you live outside of your joy’s natural habitat.

Yet you are a man and not an ape; you can consider your cage, the prison of your own choices. But when you stop to think about life, you sink — is this really it? Perhaps life was brighter when you were younger. Perhaps you and the future-you were once best friends, but now you talk with less and less pleasure. He doesn’t know what you’re searching for either, and you both are running out of guesses.

Are you happy? Are you satisfied? No? Then why continue to search in vain?

Why?

This is not my question but God’s:

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,      and your labor for that which does not satisfy? (Isaiah 55:2)

God translates your sighs: You are spending money for what is not bread, laboring for what does not satisfy. You chew on gravel; you reap the wind. So much energy, so much time, so much dedication to what isn’t working. You are making bad purchases, eating the undigestible. The God of heaven and earth asks you: Why?

Why do you insist on digging the desert for water? Why enter into the cave for light? Why the mindless living, the endless scrolling, the watching until your eyes hurt — have these ever flooded your soul with happiness? What are you getting from this life you’ve chosen for yourself?

Your decisions leave behind dry lips, a thirst preparing you for God’s invitation:

Come, everyone who thirsts,     come to the waters;and he who has no money,     come, buy and eat!Come, buy wine and milk     without money and without price. (Isaiah 55:1)

Come, be satisfied. Come, be made happy. Come, God summons you. Simply come.

Wanted

The God of heaven hears your life of little whimpers and responds, Stop filling your mouth with sand; come to the waters. Stop intoxicating your heart with the world; come gladden it with my wine. Why labor for what leaves you hungrier? Will you not have real bread and water, wine and milk for free? Joy, life, substance, purpose — do these not interest you?

“Why will men not be happy?” we can almost hear one angel ask another. Why does the branch run from the tree, the egg from the nest, the fish from the water? You can answer from experience: you did not want this happiness if it is only found in God. Read the terms carefully:

Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,     and delight yourselves in rich food.Incline your ear, and come to me;     hear, that your soul may live. . . .Seek the Lord while he may be found. (Isaiah 55:2–3, 6)

God can be your Uber driver and deliver the meal, but if it requires eating with him, well, you will see what you have in the back of the fridge. Pride speaks, Better king over your own unhappiness than a happy servant of your Creator. You will not “enter into the Master’s joy” because you cannot abide that word — “Master.” You will find another way back to Eden. You leave no cheap pleasure untried, and yet, a heaven stands open before you and you will not enter because the entrance is as low as a bow and as heavy as a cross.

In other words, We are sinners. God’s offer is not simply to the unsatisfied; it’s to the unrighteous.

Seek the Lord while he may be found;     call upon him while he is near;let the wicked forsake his way,     and the unrighteous man his thoughts;let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him,     and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. (Isaiah 55:6–7)

We do not just need better pleasures; we need abundant pardon. Justice, not just your heart, needs satisfaction. The gospel addresses not merely your discontent in happiness apart from God, but your disobedience in seeking happiness apart from God. The Lord Jesus does not just extend forever ecstasies; he stays final executions. We are creatures not just wanting but wanted.

Genius

What does your past (or present) life of fornication, lying, gossip, anger, or drunkenness have to do with your search for happiness? Everything. Alone, you have no right to this blessedness. Justice disallows sinners from the inheritance of the righteous. Should you who have sown hell reap heaven? Should God be mocked? How can God make you happy? His mercy, not his wrath, begs for explanation in the next verses.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,     neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.For as the heavens are higher than the earth,     so are my ways higher than your ways     and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8–9)

Your thoughts of grace and mercy inch upon the forest floor; God’s thoughts of grace dwell far above the heads of the seraphim. His gospel ways of pity and pardon hang above us from crossbeams of rugged wood upon a hill. In other words, the gospel is not man’s genius but God’s. We had no clue how justice and mercy could kiss. Man couldn’t fathom a way for his own forgiveness; he couldn’t dream how to be adopted into God’s family. The happiness in God we never sought was given to us through a plan we couldn’t have imagined.

Joy

God’s plan features God’s Son. He would send his only Son to take on human flesh, live the perfect life you didn’t, die your death, and rise from your grave. He suffered the wrath you deserved so you could have the heaven Christ deserved.

God welcomed back a banished people through covenant, foretelling, “I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David” (Isaiah 55:3). And amid the promise, he turns to another and says,

Behold, you shall call a nation that you do not know,     and a nation that did not know you shall run to you,because of the Lord your God, and of the Holy One of Israel,     for he has glorified you. (Isaiah 55:5)

Hundreds of years later, one man rises to his feet to reissue God’s invitation to the thirsty:

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” (John 7:37–38)

Jesus invites all who will to come to him. He is the Lamb who was slain for the sins of the world. He is the man who, when lifted up by his Father, draws sinners to himself.

Whether you accept Christ’s happy terms of surrender, the promised bliss for God’s people will arrive. His word will not return to him empty (Isaiah 55:11). The consummation of this everlasting covenant will spill over creation. Mountains and hills shall sing for his saints; the forest and the trees applaud us. The curse of thorn and thistle shall be overturned, displaced by the fertile green of blessing (Isaiah 55:12). And the happiness of his people in a new heaven and a new earth will “make a name for the Lord” as an “everlasting sign that shall not be cut off” (Isaiah 55:13).

Do you thirst? Come to the waters. He promises to forgive you, satisfy you, adopt you as his own treasured possession. Leave behind the pornography, the living for your own name, your unsatisfying affair with the world, and let the Lord usher you into fullness of pleasures forevermore in his presence. Your joy, to his glory, forever.