The New Eve by Robert Lewis Read Free Book Online

of her own kids', she helped establish a mentoring program that today reaches into thirty-one area schools with one thousand volunteers and touches more than six thousand students.
    These are only two examples of what I believe God had in mind for women when He said to subdue and rule. Women hold a unique power to make life better, and in the beginning God named this as a core calling for all women—including you.
Leave and Cleave
    A third core calling is companionship—a deep, lasting intimacy with someone of the opposite sex. With rare exceptions God has designed you for a man, whether he's arrived in your life yet or not. You see this goal in Genesis 2:24, when God said, “For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.” Here God created a superbond called marriage. No other human relationship can compare to it in either intimacy or durability. As I said, most women have been created for this experience. According to statistics, more than 95 percent of you will find a mate. 2 If you're not married yet, this should give you great hope during your present waiting period.
    It is true, however, that some will never marry. Others will marry but then find themselves alone again because of death or divorce, in some cases never to marry again. How does the calling to leave and cleave apply to them? In a word, it doesn't. Either because of a particular life circumstance that has no remedy or by some special calling of God, this Genesis directive is set aside. In such cases your responsibility is to narrow your focus to the remaining core callings God has for you—to the goals of multiplying God's glory in your children (if you have them) and/or inmaking a Kingdom impact with your gifts in the lives of people you touch in the part of society in which God has placed you. These core callings do not change, regardless of your marital state. In addition, the apostle Paul pointed out in 1 Corinthians 7 that a life of singleness or a season of singleness can actually be a special time of Kingdom opportunity for women. He wrote that the woman who is no longer married, as well as the virgin who has never married, can leverage her singleness to give “undistracted devotion to the Lord” (vv. 34–35).
    In Genesis, God set forth three specific directives that, with rare exceptions, apply to every woman's life. We could paraphrase these three feminine core callings as follows:
Leave and Cleave
You are to seek deep, lasting companionship with a man.
Be Fruitful and Multiply
You are to raise up and launch healthy, godly children into the world.
Subdue and Rule
You are to advance God's kingdom on earth in ways specific to your gifting.
    This is what God had in mind when He made you and all other women in His image. These core callings are to be at the center of your life. Any woman who embraces these core callings and pursues them as top priorities orders and manages her life in a way that is meaningful, satisfying, and, most important, eternally connected. Here a woman submits to her Creator's wishes for her life. And from here, from these roots, He richly blesses her.
Core Callings in Perspective
    It's important to note that these core callings represent only a part of your life—a crucial part, to be sure, but only a part. Please hear that. Much more than these callings makes you who you are. The relationship between your core callings and the other elements forming your unique identity can be diagrammed as follows:

    Notice as you move outward from the core, you come first to gifts and abilities. This is where your life expands beyond the sameness that Genesis says covers all women. Here you encounter those first aspects of identity that make you unique. You may be an artist, an athlete, musical, extroverted, a high-capacity achiever, a leader, administrative, numbers oriented, people oriented, an encourager who relates to people deeply, a helper, or an