At the very beginning of history God said, ” ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’ … So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:26-27).
It was in God’s plan to make men and women different from each other from the moment He imagined us. The original plan was to use these differences as a starting point for building intimate, fulfilling relationships. But in our sin-filled world, what started out as an advantage has become a frequent source of frustration.
Despite the frustration, the vast majority of us have an undeniable desire to have great relationships with the opposite sex. We want both male and female friends, we want successful business relationships with both men and women, and we want marriages that are happy and harmonious. That is why so many of our decisions are affected by how the opposite sex will respond.
It is possible to make too much out of the differences between men and women, but it is also possible to make the opposite mistake. If you want to have relationships that add to your life rather than make you exhausted, it seems to us that the place to start is with an understanding of the uniqueness each gender brings to the relationship.
So, how are you to understand the differences between men and women? We like to think of them this way: Men are like waffles; women are like spaghetti. At first this may seem silly, even juvenile, but stay with us. It is a picture that works and men “get it” (because it involves food).
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