It has been a very long time since I published here. I am sorry, but I don't know who too.  When you go this long without publishing you probably have no readers.  

So, with that in mind I will not ask you to read. I am insted posting a video of a message I gave at South Side Church of the Nazarene. It talks about the way we allow the Devil to divide us (like we need help).  How as long as we do that he will win. And how Jesus offered a different plan.

http://youtu.be/YwKIR5PX9cc

Hope you will take a few minutes and share your thoughts about what I have to say.

Todd

Genesis 2:25 "Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame."

I am sure that it is no surprise to women that men want to see you naked.

I have a secret for you men as well, the women want to see you naked. No really… Pay attention till the end and I will tell you how to reveal this secret.

Getting Naked...  Seems like a simple concept doesn’t it.  Any 2 year old boy can explain it to you.  Just leave him alone long enough and he will demonstrate the concept.

But when I say that how many of you think about how little boys love to take off their clothes and run around? Well… Big boys do to, but we have just been taught to know better. It doesn't scare us or make us feel bad. In fact if it embarrasses you then for us that is a bonus.

Why is it that these little ones are so willing to be naked? They haven’t learned that it is wrong. They haven’t been taught that they can be hurt by being naked. There is a very basic lesson that we learn early in our lives.  Being naked leaves us vulnerable to being hurt.  We are exposed.  All of our tender parts are hung out there to be bruised or broken.

Have you ever met that little girl who is always ready to talk.  She will tell you her name, her Mom and Dad’s name, all about her brothers and sisters, where she lives, what her Daddy does that embarrasses her mommy, her address, what she likes to play with…. On and on and on… And that is in a 5 minute conversation at the airport with her Mommy and Daddy standing there. 

She is getting naked too isn’t she.   She is completely unafraid to tell you everything. It doesn't scare her or make her feel bad. In fact if it embarrasses you then that is a bonus. She too has left herself vulnerable to being hurt.  Exposed…  All of her tender parts are hung out there to be bruised or broken.  But she hasn’t learned that yet has she?

Funny thing is that we consider these children to be wrong… We laugh, because we consider them so silly. They’ll learn… they’ll grow out of it…

Jesus told us ...unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:3)

You see God's original design is more like these children than who we are after the world changes us.  But somewhere between birth and the adulthood we have learned to cover ourselves in a million ways. I use little boys and little girls to demonstrate something that is so obvious that we miss it.

Men and women are different even in the ways that we get naked.

A Pastor whose work I enjoy reading explains it this way.

Men are stronger physically and are less afraid of being exposed physically.

Women are stronger emotionally and less afraid of being exposed emotionally.

This goes all the way back to how children behave

Boys wrestle and fight, tug and pull, the get dirty.  They are not only unashamed, but they are proud of physical pain and scaring. They are proud of their nakedness.

Funny thing you might notice if you watch boys. They can play for hours like this and not say more than ten words to each other about how they feel. They may talk, but generally it is to setup some game or the way they will hurt each other. 

Boys feel their deepest connection with other boys when they have shared physical adventure, particularly a friend who was in physical danger with them.  Injury is even better.

Girls will get together and immediately they start building little societies and connections to each other.   They talk about their hopes and dreams, they long to be some ones best friend, and they count their successes by the number of other girls they are close to. 

A big part of girl friendships is the secrets that a BFF shares.  They long to have some deep secret exposed to them and feel their closest connection with those girls whose secrets they know.  If one of them was emotionally harmed by someone and that hurting is shared, the friendship grows even deeper.

So far you may have been reading and wonder when the Mr. Obvious show will end and when we are going to talk about “getting naked” or Sex

Here the thing… We have been all along.

See here is the thing. As hard as this may be to believe… Both men and women feel most comfortable when their partner gets naked.

God created us to be naked with each other and with Him. 

Genesis 2:25 "Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame."

He understands our broken desire to be covered. In fact he provided us with clothes of animal skin to cover ourselves so we again could stand to be in His presence through our embarrassment. (Genesis 3:21)

Men here is that secret I promised you earlier. If you want to your wife to get naked for you,   the best way is to expose yourself to her.  But not in the way you think.

If you were listening a bit ago you would have heard how.

When women expose themselves to each other it is emotionally.  From the time they are little girls the people they have been closest to have been those who have shared their deepest darkest secrets with. These are the women who your wife feels safe with. They are the ones who your wife feels deep connection with and they probably know more about you than you care to know.

These women get emotionally naked with each other and that is the bond they share and cherish.

What is happening here is that these women are becoming secure with each other by sharing intimate knowledge of each other. They are building the trust necessary for them to be able to get more naked and then become even closer.

Men, if you want your wife to be able to be comfortable getting naked with you, then you have got to learn to participate in this type of nakedness.

Ladies... Understand this.  Men have been raised their whole lives to cover themselves emotionally. Just like you have been raised to be modest with your physical body.

Big Boys don't cry. Wimp. Want some cheese with that whine?

For a man to look at you and tell you some deep emotional thing is as unnatural for him as for you to take off your clothes at a family reunion. So here is what I am asking you to do. Help him.  Give him space. Praise him lavishly when he opens up. And never laugh at or belittle him for the way he feels or thinks.  A good tool to use here is to imagine what it would feel like to have him treat your physical nakedness the same way.  He could forget ever seeing it again... Right?

Ladies, did you catch the men's version of this same concept earlier?

Men connect through physical and visual experiences. Words for them are really about gaining access to these physical and visual experiences.

When men expose themselves to each other it is through physical experiences or adventures together. From the time they very little they find toys to share together. As soon as they are able to move around their world independently they start right off going on adventures together. They hike as far away as they can. They build forts. They sleep in tents in the wilderness (the back yard). They build exclusive and special physical or visual experiences together.

"Heman woman haters club"

But not in the video game age you might say.  Oh I disagree. The video game industry is all about these boy sharing a battle, or flying a space ship, or winning a game together. Even when they play alone it is about bragging who went the farthest and who conquered more. They love to share the secrets and the experiences of the game.

The men your husband shares his conquests with and experiences with are the ones he feels the closest too. He is learning to trust and feel secure with them. He would likely die for the ones who have been in the most danger with him or for him. Ladies, your man is a physical and visual creature.  You may not understand how he could possibly be so oddly wired, but he is.

Men connect to you emotionally through physical and visual experience. If you want your man to get naked with you emotionally then you are going to have to get naked with him physically.  The more you address his need physically the more he will feel connected with you.

This includes sharing experiences with him like going on a hike in a new place, fishing (could be iffy), looking at cars, going camping, playing video games...  Share an adventure.

But let's get to the subject of this series right? Men connect emotionally to their wives better through no other thing more than sex.

You heard it said:

women need emotion to connect sexually

men need sex to connect emotionally 

Funny that we can all tell that our side of that is right, but we hate to have to live with the fact that the other side is right as well.

Ladies, if you want your husband to be naked with you emotionally then you are going to have to connect with them sexually.  You cannot have one without the other.

Men, if you want your wives to be naked with you physically then you are going to have to connect with them emotionally.  You cannot have one without the other.

Why do you think it is possible for you to gain the kind of intimacy and nakedness in the relationship that you want without giving the other person the kind of intimacy they need? 

What a spoiled childish way of living that is.

If we are truly different then why do we expect to give our partners only what we want and expect them to continue to grow with us.

Silly isn't it.  But that is original sin. We want to give to God what we want instead of what He wants. We have a better idea!

We want to give the world what we want instead of what it wants. Yet we become so unhappy when the world only gives us what it wants to give us.

We ruin our intimacy the same way don't we. We want what we want without having to give the opposite sex what they want. We want to steal someone's nakedness.

Men look at naked pictures or videos of people having sex with no emotional connection.

Women spend hours online emotionally connecting with men they don't have to physically expose themselves to.  

We connect with someone sexually before marriage and then have to live with that comparison the rest of our lives because we gave our intimacy away.

Galatians 6:7 The Message paraphrase says: "No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he'll have to show for his life is weeds!"

This intimacy and sexuality thing is all a part of God's creation. It is powerful stuff. If you insist on using your intimacy in a way God never intended you will reap the consequences. If you are selfish about your intimacy then you will be alone in your brokenness. But if you can learn to sow the seeds of your partners need for nakedness then you will reap the intimacy you need.