Different isn't bad

In life we all want others to be just like us, we want them to like the things we like, to eat what we eat, to support the team we support, to like the color we like, to speak the language we speak and to like the people we like. When someone doesn't like what we like and doesn't talk the way we talk we resist them. How we wish everyone would be just like us but what we don't understand is that God made all of us unique. Not even identical twins are exactly alike. The world would be a very boring place if all of us were the same.

One of the golden rules of life, one of those important lessons of life that you were never taught in school is this, "before marriage opposites attract, but after marriage opposites repel". I have come to discover most recently that the number one cause of conflict in marriage is this, our differences. We enter marriage as two unique individuals with different backgrounds, different personalities different likes and dislikes, different perspectives and of course different genders. Now that is what I call mission impossible. But with God all things are possible. What we often times think is bad (our differences), is in fact the greatest thing we have going for us in marriage.

Marriage is one of the greatest team sports. If everyone in the team is the same, that team cannot go far. The strength of the team is based on the different talents they each bring into the team. Unity or oneness isn't uniformity, it is the capacity of harnessing our individual uniqueness together for the common good. And that is what marriage is all about, that's how God wants it to be and that's why He saw that it was not good for man to be alone, so He made him a helper suitable for him (Genesis 2:18). And notice that God didn't give Adam another man to be his helper, he gave him a woman, someone different.

So dear man, you don't need another man in your life, what you need is a woman. My wife often times reminds me of this fact, she reminds me that she's not a man, she is a woman and so I need to treat her like a lady. God knew what He was doing when He made Adam and Eve and not Adam and Steve.And this is where the challenge comes, because in marriage He made them male and female, and it is this lack of understanding of our differences as male and female that causes all the turmoil in marriage. So for the next couple of weeks we will be delving more into this topic and I pray that I will be able to help us realize our differences so that we can revel in them as we continue in the process of becoming one. Different isn't bad, it's just that, different. Welcome on board.