The test most men fail
And why it reveals their view of women.
The idea of receiving a flower from a girl makes many men uneasy. It feels effeminate.
Until 4 girls I know did exactly that.
Then I understood that in rare and specific circumstances, a girl might share a little flower she found in the grass. She’ll do it not to pursue him, not to reverse roles, but as an invitation to approach her garden rightly.
So what do flowers have to do with it?
In our culture, beauty is dangled as a fish bait for lust. But a flower teaches the opposite. It inspires the proper attitude toward beauty.
Flowers are beautiful but delicate. They awaken wonder but require gentle protection.
Take the rose, for example. It has thorns. Grab it carelessly, and you’ll be pricked; wounded. It is meant to be received as a gift, not seized as an object. That is why the flower is a fitting image for a woman’s dignity.
When a man takes a woman for his self-gratification, he reduces her to a tool of utility. He twists love for use. Instead of offering himself up for her good, he sacrifices her for his own pleasure. This is lust.
Learning how to handle beauty rightly requires something difficult:
detachment.
It requires trusting that God will fulfill me.
I do not have to grab at the gift of beauty, it will be given to me when it please (Song of Solomon 8:4).
But the attitude of sin says the opposite: “God will not satisfy my desires. I cannot wait for Him so I must take what I want, now.”
This is the logic of the Book of Genesis. The forbidden fruit represents my deepest desires, hanging on a tree. It is calling for me to pick it, and I choose the fruit over trusting God; indulging myself with something that cannot truly fill me fully.
The original sin of Eve was rebellion against God, fearing He would not provide for her, cherish her, protect her. In that moment, Eve, who is the apex of beauty in all creation, acted against the very logic of her beauty: instead of receiving, she grasped.
She became, in that moment, an image of death rather than what she was created to be: a bearer of life.
So the deeper pattern is this:
Beauty is meant to be received
Love (antithetical to use) is the proper response to beauty
Grasping destroys both
Hence, the flower: a potent reminder of the proper attitude towards beauty. A flower is a small thing. But it reveals everything about how you love.
So to the men being put to the test:
Will you receive beauty rightly?
