How many times have we heard women say, "Lord, I'll be so happy when you bless me with Mr. Right?" Better yet, have you ever heard a man say, "These women are a trip and I don't got time for them!" If you're an individual that's in a relationship or have friends who tell you about their experiences in other relationships, then the message I am conveying through these quotes sound distinctly familiar.

What many people fail to realize is the sacrifice associated with being in a relationship or how the relationship should be structured. I often tell women that if they are seeking a man then they need to sit their behind down and worry about getting saved! According to the Bible, a woman needs to be chosen by the man and not go and chose what she thinks she wants. Why you ask? Let us fetch the answer in that good ol' book in the bible called Genesis.

Most of us are familiar with Adam and Eve, so I'm going to go straight to my point. After the fall of man, God says to Eve, "… and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." And shortly after this God speaks to Adam and says, "Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. (Genesis 3:16-17)"

Now I'm going to step back and give some insight on what happened at this point from the perspective of a man. Adam probably thought to himself, "Why did I listen to this B****?" Eve probably said something like, "I know Adam is going to pissed!" Nevertheless, their reaction to being punished seems to be left out. I assume it's for a good reason.

God's punishment was in essence, the act of him assigning roles for both male and female. These roles are the foundation for all relationships. It's quite apparent that men tend to not want to listen to their other half and women often find it meaningless to try to speak to their man. This all comes from the great separation. Again, after the fall of man, men have found it to be quite difficult to "hearken" unto a woman again because of the fear of what may happen if they make the same mistake twice. Mean while, the woman goes on to live in fear that her man, the one she desires, may suddenly not desire her anymore. Even though both the man and woman are together, the thing that unites them is their fears.

This fear that I describe needs to be eradicated from both male and female and the way this can be done is by upholding biblical standards. Instead of upholding these standards, people are trying to medicate the problem rather than rid themselves of it. They are letting the devil deceive them; causing them to error in their ways. Women are fighting hard for legal roles that males should fill and men are now relinquishing their roles to the women. This transition has begun to take its toll on the personal side of life and now the women are trying to be the man in the relationship and the man is becoming the one that is being ruled over.

This same fear has caused some people to become delusional and say, "There is nothing wrong with me and my husband/wife switching leadership roles?" To which I respond by saying "SURE (wink-wink). Let me be the first to expose this erroneous form of living for what it is and let you judge it for yourself. You see the problem that lies within this ideology is that a man will be a man and a woman will be a woman. There is a limit that exists between a man and woman, as a result of this, there will always be a conflict of interest in which someone has to be the victor. Yeah, a woman can try her best to rule over her man, but if this is the case the woman tends to have little or no respect for her man. And sadly to say, I agree with her having no respect for him. After all it's difficult for a woman to look up to her man for direction and guidance, when he himself is in no position to lead and guide. His lack of performance in his role as a man is a problem and he has unwisely subjected himself to her authority, when it should be the other way around. It's important to know that just because a man rules over a woman, it doesn't necessarily have to be interpreted as being a bad thing.

On the flip side, you have men who are truly seeking to be the leaders in the relationship and are continuously at battle with their leadership roll because the woman they are with is trying to unwisely fill the role of a man. I like to refer to these types of women as contentious and if the man is the type that allows a woman to rule over him, I him as weak-minded or a coward. The fear of being in a relationship is ever so present in this situation and it lies in the heart of the contentious woman. For some reason or another, she is afraid to let herself be lead and directed by the man. In these types of situations, I strongly recommend more time spent on defining the proper roles rather than trying to overlook the issue and assume that it will eventually work itself out. Failure to do will result in degradation and may compromise the valuable friendship entrapped in the relationship. The Bible tells it clearly, "Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife. (Proverbs 25:24)

Nevertheless, these paradigm shifts often results in the man or woman, being subjected to each others disrespect and this is how the fear of being in a relationship develops.

I hope you come away with something after reading this article. I hope you take a real good look at yourself and ask yourself; what can I bring to a relationship? If the answer is nothing, then you need to sit your stingy self down because you only want to be in a relationship because of your fears. These fears could be, living on you own, lack of company, income based, religious beliefs, your mamma or whatever. The whole point is that when you do establish a fear based relationship, then chances are you'll be miserable and it won't be enjoyable.

This is The General Speaking That Fire!

Regards. TG