Biblical Womanhood: Defy Pt. 1
This past Friday, the girls started on our Biblical Womanhood message series: "Defy."
We really hope that through this, you guys can get a clear picture of the unrealistic and contradictory expectations the world places on girls in our generation, and that you guys would be emboldened to defy the norms that our culture has told us we need to conform to in order to feel loved and accepted.
Each week, we'll look at different women in the Bible who defied the culture of their times in order to honor God. This week, we talked about 3 amazing women: Moses' mother, Shiprah, and Puah.
We watched a TED talk about how our culture tries to keep girls so distracted about their self-image and how they appear before others--that they have no more mental space to think about other people, global problems, social issues, or anything outside of themselves.
The consequence is that girls in our generation are growing increasingly insecure and self-focused--leading them to become less likely to do/say anything that might run the risk of making them look bad, require costly sacrifice, or demand hard work.
The dilemma: When we try to fight against these powerful pressures, we get looked down on or teased by other people. But when we conform, we become perpetually insecure. So what should we do?
After reading a passage from Exodus, we learned about Shiprah and Puah--two midwives who defied Pharaoh's orders to kill newborn baby boys at the risk of losing their very lives. Although they had very little power, and the situation seemed hopeless, they were able to defy the strongest power of the time out of their fear and reverence for God, recognizing that He was their ultimate judge. Similarly, Moses' mother also disobeyed Pharaoh's law out of her love for her son.
Our willpower alone is not enough to defy the social pressures that we face today. The only thing that can help us to overcome them is 1) greater love for God and 2) greater love for other people.
After the message, the girls started on a special craft--like Moses' mother, students paired up to weave a basket. Each week, they'll put in a new item that represents something they learned from that message, and at the end of the message series, they'll give the completed basket to someone at a local women's shelter, explaining to that person how each item in the basket relates to their hope in God.
I'm thankful that through these talks we can really reveal and discuss how foolish it is to believe in the lies our culture is trying to spoon-feed us each day. It's my prayer that as we study more of the women of faith in the Bible, we ourselves will grow more and more confident in the fact that a life spent honoring God--though it isn't always the smoothest or easiest life--is indeed better than a life spent following the ways of the world. Let's each continue to work hard and encourage one another, so that at the end of the race we can say that we've done our best to please our Lord!
"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."
- Jim Elliot