Before You Were a Husband, God Made You for Himself

Men often enter relationships looking for something deeper. It might be sense of direction or a place where they finally feel settled. Ultimately, they’re looking for someone who can fill what feels empty. But the creation account of man found in Genesis 2 brings clarity to this longing.

If you’d rather listen or watch, you can find this message at LeadBiblically.com/podcast or on the Lead Biblically YouTube channel.

God Settled the Man Before He Sent the Woman

The Hebrew word for used “put” in Genesis 2:15 means settled, given a permanent dwelling. Before Eve arrives, God gives Adam a place to belong, and then He gives him work to do.

God put him in the garden “to work it and keep it.” Genesis 2:15

The Hebrew words used in this text carry a meaning to labour and serve, then to protect and guard. These are priestly terms. We might see Adam as a gardener, but it was a far greater responsibility than that.

He was a cultivator and a caretaker, a man with a sacred charge. And that charge came before the marriage. Before woman was created.

We talk a lot about men stepping up in relationships, but we rarely start where Genesis starts: A man’s identity, purpose, and sense of home were meant to be formed in God before they were ever expressed in a marriage. When we skip that step, we end up looking to a wife to carry something she was never designed to hold.

The Head of Every Man Is Christ

Paul makes this plain in his first Corinthian letter:

“The head of every man is Christ.” 1 Corinthians 11:3

Not his career. or his wife, but his King! A man who is centred on Christ doesn’t come to marriage looking to be a king. He’s already serving one. Moving on to another one of Paul’s letters, we get related clarification:

“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” Ephesians 5:25

The model isn’t dominance, but it’s not passivity either. The call is a man shaped by the one who went first, who sacrifices because he’s already been shaped by sacrifice.

Jumping back to Genesis, in the third chapter we see what happens when a man loses that vertical connection. Adam was standing right there when the serpent spoke. He heard every word. Yet he said nothing.

Then when God asked him directly, he blamed Eve and God in the same breath. Passivity first and deflection second. It’s a pattern most men recognize, even if they’ve never been called on it.

Before the Altar, Come Back to God

The bottom line from the Genesis account is this: Before he was a husband, man was made for God. That sequence is designed on purpose.

Therefore, a man who builds his identity on work, experiences, or a relationship will eventually find those things stripped away. After job loss, an injury, or even retirement, his sense of self is lost.

But a man centred on Jesus brings something durable to a marriage. He brings a formed purpose. He brings the working and the keeping that God designed him for, expressed now as a gift to the people in his care.

If that’s not where you are yet, today is a good day to come back. Ask Jesus to be your King, to reorient your purpose under His authority. Then ask Him to make you into the man He designed you to be before anyone else arrived.

Join the Conversation: Answer This Question

• Where does your sense of purpose typically come from?
• What would it look like to build it on something that doesn’t change?