True Confessions of an Originaljoesnake

Note: This is not the report I was required to write for Love Ethics class on “Men and Women”, that will likely come later, rather something I felt compelled to write in addition.

I have been hearing grumblings from everyone who chose to read “Men and Women” Enjoying the Difference”, by Dr. Larry Crabb, for Love Ethics Class. While I agree the book was extremely difficult to read, now that I’m finished I compare my experience reading “Men and Women” with running cross country.

Most would assume I chose to run cross country and track because I enjoyed running, which wasn’t the case. Although I never remember missing a practice or meet, it wasn’t because I didn’t want to. In fact, I’d often spend the majority of my time before a race or a long run thinking about how much I didn’t want to run. I’d secretly wish I was hurt or had an excuse not to participate, but I always managed to push through these thoughts and start putting one foot in front of the other. Running is physically challenging, I believe that it’s actually unnatural for a human body, but more than that, when your mind and body are screaming for you to slow down and stop, running is an intense exercise in mental discipline.

But, I look back on my time as a runner longingly and still enjoy running when I can convince myself to lace up my shoes. After running multiple miles and pushing myself past the point I thought I could, there’s an intense satisfaction in knowing you worked hard, not to mention the calm “runner’s high” that sets in minutes after you’ve crossed the finish line. In the end, the result is worth the effort expended.

Reading Dr. Crabb’s book is like making your way through a thick, swampy Amazon jungle when just in the distance there seems to be a safer, easier short cut that’s already been blazed. Not surprisingly, Dr. Crabb writes like he lectures, having heard him earlier this year, he seems to have difficulty fully articulating his complex spiritual thoughts. Readers have to patently navigate and wade through a murky muck of thoughts and not-yet-ripe-ideas that are tangled and intertwined with valuable nuggets of godly insight. In “Men and Women”, Crabb spends too much time over qualifying and explaining his reasoning than he does actually dolling it out. He spends more effort talking about what’s not instead of what really is- points on the traditional and Egalitarian views of relationships may not be exciting for highly enlightened Xenos readers, but this probably isn’t Dr. Crabb’s intended audience.

All this makes “Men and Women’ frustrating to those looking for a quick read on relationship troubles. Men and women thumbing through the pages for easy answers to difficult marriage problems will become frustrated because Dr. Crabb isn’t a McDonald’s drive-through for marriage building; the problems he aims to uncover are festering infections that readers will need to prayerfully struggle with for days, months, and even years to see results.

I’m not selfish! Just give me the damn answers I need, Crabb!

For the duration of the book, Dr. Crabb emphasizes that selfishness is the cancerous center of our problems and inability to make relationships work. To put it simply, no one likes to read a book on how much they suck. As a Christians, we nod our heads in agreement and impatiently wait for our author to move on. Only, he doesn’t and keeps expending page after page, repetitively urging us to address our core problem with selfishness. Not until the closing pages of the book does he finally address the original questions of difference between male and female he first set out to. Believers, especially Xeniods accustomed to practical application served up on a silver platter, will quickly grow tired of “Men and Women’s” lengthy approach. I thought to myself, “Shouldn’t this have been a 50 page manual instead of 213 pages of confusion?” Reading along, I wanted to yell at the book, “I know I’m selfish- now move on to the part where you give advice that helps ME!”

But, my obvious selfishness, laughable after the fact but indiscernible to me at the time, illustrates Crabb’s point perfectly. After trudging through the book begrudgingly, Crabb’s points began to eat away at the selfish ways in which I interact with my wife, my family, and my friends. According to Crabb, we wish to brush selfishness off like we’d check taking out the trash off a list of chores to do. I spoke with one person who claimed that they adequately realized they had a deep-seeded problem with selfishness the first time it was mentioned in the book, then attempted to list the ways they wished “Men and Women” was written. While I agree the book wasn’t authored exactly how I would have liked, to disqualify or merely glance over points Dr. Crabb makes because he isn’t making them in the way you’d like is completely absurd! Instead, selfishness is a destructive and terminal problem that we desperately need to realize pervades our ability to have any success in relationships. Dr. Crabb insists that to be able to love each other in a godly and others centered way, we must first deal with the monstrous beast of self that lies inside each of us.

The Imposing Beast Within

At one point in “Men and Women”, Crabb illustrates just how far reaching the evil of selfishness is when he exposes how we often explain away our cruelty and impatience for people by our “bad day”, while we hold others responsible for their actions regardless of their circumstances. This point stuck with me especially on a day like today, when my head is pounding and I feel like people should be respectful and keep their distance. We all expertly and naturally excuse our own selfish thoughts and behavior. Often, I feel bothered and aggravated by my wife after a come home from a hard day or from a night of relating with my high school ministry. I’m appalled that she’d think I could be capable of hearing her concerns and worries too; after all, I’m spent emotionally. Can’t I just watch TV in silence and get a backrub?

Nobody understands me! I’ll show them!

I can’t say for sure, but I’m willing to hypothesize those with a problem with Dr. Crabb’s “Men and Women” haven’t yet begun to realize the extent of their own selfishness. Often, just the tip of selfishness is exposed in our lives and doesn’t seem like much of a problem, but the majority of selfishness lies beneath the surface like an iceberg waiting to rip a marriage to shreds. Selfishness is a life-long disease we live with as fallen beings and can’t be ignored. Heed Crabb’s warnings- deal with it and in prayer turn to God for help. Until we individually are crushed by selfishness, we are either naïve or just haven’t yet established a close personal relationship with someone. To become others centered, the point where we can have supernatural success in relationships, requires nothing less than constant dependence on the Lord with the crushing realization that selfishness dominates your life.

Like running, the experiences most worthwhile in life are those that require struggle and hardship. Then, when you’re able to cross the finish line in the end, you look back on the other side and see it was all worth it. Thankfully, as believers, we don’t have to go through life alone, or remain crushed under the weight of failed relationships. God is waiting to help us through the arguments, sleepless nights, conflicts, and struggles we will undoubtedly incur while pursuing deep, meaningful relationships. Although it could have been a little shorter, I’m thankful for “Men and Women”.