therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken.
So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim, and the flaming sword which turned every direction, to guard the way to the tree of life (Genesis 3:22-24).
This is the tragedy of disobedience. Man was created for fellowship with God, and that fellowship was broken. The Garden was created for man, and was to be his perfect home, but after the fall he could no longer stay. When discord entered into our relationship to God, we were also cast into discord with the rest of His creation. Man now dwells in a place of continual strife. As we are redeemed, and our relationships to God is restored, we are also restored to a place of harmony with His creation. This is a part of the gospel, and it is part of the message we have been given to carry. As He said in Mark 16:15, "And He said to them, 'Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.'" Paradise will be restored as we see in Romans 8:19-22:
For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope
that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.
Even so, there is relatively little said about the restoration of the creation in Scripture, because that is obviously for the age to come. Before we can be used to accomplish the restoration, we must have our relationships to God fully restored, and then our relationships to our fellow men. This restoration of fellowship between men actually begins with the restoration of the intended relationship between men and women.
As we review the curses that came upon the man and the woman because of the Fall, we see that the struggle of the woman would be in bringing forth her family. The struggle of the man would be with his work. In general, the great gifts that women have been given are relational. In general, the primary gifts men have been given are in regard to their work. Women tend to be people-oriented, and men tend to be task-oriented. This needs to be understood so we can relate to one another, and become the teams that we were created to be.
These are generalizations about men and women, and generalizations are seldom always true. Almost all men are to some degree relational, and people-oriented, and some may be even more so than some women. Almost all women are also to some degree task-oriented, and some are even more so than many men. Even so, generally, women are more relational, and men are more task-oriented because God made us this way. Therefore, it takes a marriage of both gifts for the ultimate accomplishments in life.
Without this marriage, we will tend to have many great things built or accomplished that no one needs or wants. Or we can have great relationships that do not accomplish anything. For this reason, many of the great ministries and churches that are raised up strictly by the leadership of men may be huge and expansive, but fail to really build the family of God. The church is called to be a family first, not an organization. When we cease to be a family to just become an organization, we have ceased to be the church. However, if we go to the other extreme, we can have a great big family that does not accomplish anything for the kingdom.
The whole tenor of Scripture reveals that God is a family man, and building His family is fundamental to what He is doing in the earth. He is repeatedly referred to as our Father, and we are His children. However, there can be no Father, or children, without a mother. Paul lamented in I Corinthians 4:15: "For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers."
A father is not just someone who leads, but someone who reproduces. There are many great teachers and preachers in the church today, but not many are reproducing themselves and releasing other ministries. For someone to be a father, a woman must be present, and this will continue until women are given their proper place in the building and leadership of the church. If they are not given this, we will continue to be project oriented rather than becoming the family that we are called to be. However, if the relational side of our makeup tends to dominate the leadership of a church or ministry without the proper balance of the task-oriented part, we will tend to have a big, happy place, but not accomplish much. We need both.