Preparing to Be a Help Meet: The Priest - Part 1

I like this chapter - especially compared to the Visionary Man chapter and the King chapter.  The Priest/Steady Man seems to be a nice, calm, down-to-earth kind of guy.  
Most of the chapter focuses on explaining additional negatives about being married to a Prophet or King because if you are reading her book you should be preparing for marriage to a lunatic.  You have been warned.

Moral to the Story: The wife of a Priest-type needs to be active helping others as her husband is.  This will bring him honor.

Remember, girls, following God NEVER plays into your life choices.  All honor goes to your husband.

A Caution: A Priest's desire is to please.  Your impatience or unthankfulness can destroy his vision for serving others, as well as destroy your health.

Debi never comes back to how a wife's impatience or unthankfulness can cause a Priestly-man to throw in the towel or how it will destroy the wife's health.  No weird anecdotes.  No tortured Bible quotes. Nothing but this random caution at the beginning of the chapter.  

Hmm.  A healthy, mature man can handle his wife having 'negative' emotions without going crazy.

Bible students recognize that in the Godhead Jesus is the Priest.  His ministry on earth was mostly priestly, and to a lesser degree, prophet.  But one day he will come back to earth as king, thus fulfilling all three roles and manifesting the complete image of God.

*Closes eyes for a few minutes*
The theology in this book is so weird.  I feel like I'm reading a Mad Lib rather than an actual theological idea or framework.

One God.  Three manifestations: God the Father, God the Son and the Holy Spirit.  NO ROLES.  There is no complete image of God because God is beyond all images.

You may marry a man that is priestly in nature.  He will be the most steady and easygoing of the three types, not given to extremes.  The steady nature of the Priest type is reflected in his tendency not to make snap decisions or spend his last dime on a new idea; nor does he try to tell other people what to do.  He avoids controversy. He doesn't invent the light bulb like the Prophet, but he will be the one to build the factory and mange the assembly line that produces the light bulb and the airplane.  He would never lead a revolution against the government or the church.  He will quietly ignore hypocrisy in others.

Debi describes the Priestly-man mainly in his differences from the Prophet (the archetype of severe ADHD?) and the King (Narcissism).  

Allow me to re-write this paragraph in terms of the actual qualities of a Priestly/Steady Man.

• He makes decisions prudently.
• He treats others with respect.
• He doesn't cause problems for the sake of causing problems.
• He can follow through on projects for the long-term time scale.
• He allows others to make mistakes without throwing the mistakes back in their face.

I don't know that a Priestly/Steady Man would always avoid conflict or a revolution.   I'd be more willing to follow a person with Priestly/Steady categories into a fray than a Prophet or a King since the Priestly sort would cause dissension only after exhausting all other options.

Regardless, these are great qualities in a spouse.  LOOK FOR THESE QUALITIES.
  As a general rule, he will be faithful till the day he dies in the same bed he has slept in for the last 40 or 50 years.  This man is content with the wife of his youth.

Did Debi imply that Prophets and Kings will cheat on their wives?   

If you marry one of these steady, Priest-natured men, your new husband will never put undue pressure on you to perform miracles.  He will not expect you to be his servant like a King type would.  You will not have to spend your days putting out emotional fires like you would if you married a Prophet type.  You will rarely feel hurried, pushed, pressured or forced. 

Debi has made being married to a Prophet/King sound even worse than before.  If you are in a relationship that sounds like the paragraph above, please seek professional counseling and get some referrals to good family lawyers.

 The women married to the Prophet look at you in wonder that your husband seems so balanced and stable. 

That's because a Priestly/ Steady Man is balanced and stable.

 The wife of the Kingly Man marvels at the free time you will have.

Not being expected to be a servant does free up a lot of time and energy.

I'm going to stop here for today.  Next time, Debi explains how being an immature woman can make you appreciate a Priestly/Steady man less.

AntiPearl:  Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve.... You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968); Minister, Civil Rights Activist