Waiting

I just got off of Skype with one of my friends. I was talking to her about how, if I were honest, even though I have no desire to date and I am not ready for/do not want marriage right now, if I were to meet a godly young man that I was attracted to I would want to date him. Now, this may not sound so bad in and of itself, but you have yet to hear two important details: 1) I know God has called me to wait for my future husband when it comes to dating, and 2) I would date this guy just to screw my future husband over.

Further explanation: You know how you may get the sense from God to pray for your future spouse. I've heard and read many accounts of things like that happening; girls saying they sensed their future man was going through a hard time, guys getting the nudge to lift their future woman up to God in the middle of the night. Well, I have a hunch that my future husband is not waiting around for me to date, and that ticks me off. I don't see how it's fair that he gets to do whatever with whomever while I am bound by a promise to God to wait for him! Of course this sounds stupid and horrible, if only in light of the fact that I don't want to date right now (or ever, if I'm honest; I can't explain why, but I really just don't want to date). But when I think of who my future man might be with I am tempted to selfishly think, "Screw him; I'm going to have some fun myself."

When I look at my future husband from where I am right now, I see no reason to be selfless and honor God or him. When I look at my future husband from the point of view of meeting, being engaged to, and marrying him, I feel my ruffled emotions calm down a bit. When I think about God and how He has the best plans in mind for me and how He has called me His beloved Daughter and only wants the best for me…  I find myself on my knees praying that He changes my heart and gives me the desire to love my future husband NOW by the choices I make and even the thoughts I think.

Another view of this that struck me just ten minutes ago and is in fact the reason why I wanted to write this blog: Jesus died for me before I thought of entering into a relationship with Him. He knew how unfaithful I would be to Him not just before I accepted Him as my Savior and asked Him to forgive me for my sins, but also while He and I were in a relationship! He came on earth, suffered, and died that I may have life that was meant to be lived to the fullest for His glory and to my own good. And so, if my Faithful Friend so selflessly did such a thing for me, who I am to do less?

I know some may see this as extreme; how do I know what my husband's doing right now? Why should I make a big deal about waiting to date, especially when I don’t know who the guy could be? The whole purpose of this is to explain something I have been learning: the art of Love, of commitment, of patience. The beauty, struggle, and worth in dedicating ourselves to someone we have not even encountered, of giving our lives in service to a faithful God who knows what's ahead and knows what it will take to prepare our hearts and minds for it. I don't have an all-pleasing answer as to why I know I should surrender those ugly, selfish thoughts to God and walk this path He has laid out before me. I just know that I love Him too much to screw Him over and not go with His perfect plans for me. And I know I am learning to love him who is included in said perfect plans. That's all.

Commitment

Commitment to people has never been my strong point. Sometime over the course of my life I had acquired the fear of loved ones leaving me, whether that was through death, an unforeseen and uncontrollable circumstance, or simply by choice. I think of how a young man I once had a crush on the first few weeks of fourth grade moved away. I can still recall the hurt I felt that day he told me he was leaving.

When I came face-to-face with my "commitment issues" this past semester, I figured it would be years before the problem was resolved. I mean, no one who has spent their life so easily non-committed to people just wakes up one morning and decides, "When I'm in a relationship with someone, whether that be with a friend or with a family member, I'm going to stick to it!" No; such things take time.

In a previous post I talked about how God had been teaching me about Love. I was in no way hinting that I understand Love in all its vastness, but I have come to learn more about it and appreciate it. What I did not realize was that while I was learning this lesson, I was learning many more, one of them being a lesson in commitment.

In my way of thinking, we are stuck with our family. Like, no matter what, family is still family. However, concerning friendships, few people have ran through my mind with the label "commitment worthy" on them. Not that I am a heartless person; I just never believed in throwing around the promise, "We'll be friends forever." When I said that to someone, I meant it. When I didn't, I meant it. Rarely have I been in a relationship with someone outside of my family that I would consider worth the effort, time, and pain that commitment demands of us.

However, one of the lessons I realized I had been learning this past semester is that when we love someone, I mean real love, whether that be for a family member, a friend, or a significant other, we are committed to them. Now, this does not mean that the relationship won't take work. This does not mean that commitment will always be something cherished and appreciated, But I do believe that it means when times get tough and it’s easier to say, "This is over, we can’t do this anymore" we'll remember that we love them; and love does not give up so easily.

I'm not sure why I am typing this. I have been slightly emotionally out of it all day. I have been realizing so much in such a short period of time I am expecting… I don't even know. I pray that this blog post blesses someone. I'm going to drink some water now :)

Response to a Question: A Lesson Still in Its "Newborn" Stage ;)

I am currently reading through Praying for Your Future Husband by Robin Jones Gunn and Tricia Goyer. At the end of the second chapter, “Pray for His Heart”, one of the questions they asked is “How has your idea of what love is changed?” to which I (to my surprise) responded:

I have learned that Love is NOT a feeling, but it can be felt. It is beyond measure, cannot be contained, and has a mind of its own. It is not evil and it is not pain, but it hates evil and endures pain. Love is, at its core, selfless, and seeks to express itself in whatever way it can show that it is alive and well. It does not force itself on those it longs to reach out to, but it still reaches out, even if it is not wanted. Did I mention Love is selfless? It calls us, challenges us to do crazy things like pray for others even when we don’t see any good coming out of it. It causes us to think positively towards those who have hurt us. It causes us to live selflessly toward those we are sure will never take notice. It causes us to hope for the most out-there things and actually believe them to be attainable dreams.

Love is Who God is and what He has called us to be, toward Him, toward others.

As I read over all of this the day I wrote it, I saw that the pieces of Scripture that I had repeatedly read  this past semester of school had come to life for me, and I rejoiced in the power of God’s Word.

Today after re-reading my answer, I saw something else, something that touches me deeper than I could have hoped for: I saw that these past four month, during which I now see God was teaching me this lesson-- as painful, lonely, and crazy as they were-- were worth it.

And so my challenge to you, reader friend, is to love Christ and love others every day. It is worth it because He is worth it :D

A Positive Word

Believing is not seeing. I am not here to give the definitions for belief, faith, hope, and trust. All I know about all of these wonderful words is that they have a lot to do with not seeing. With being blind. With possibly looking stupid and being misunderstood or left to trust God despite how alone we may feel in the process. They require not being in control. They require us to keep going, maybe not even in the area that we are hoping, believing, having faith, or trusting God to move in. At times they require a lot of prayer and other times they require a lot of tears just for us to release whatever emotions we have been keeping in for too long. Everyday they require the Grace of God, lest we slip and fall into hopelessness, distrust, faithlessness, and disbelief. Moments of this are normal, but to fall into their darkened pit is not to be preferred.

I know that it is always worth it. It is always worth the risk of being hurt and it is always worth not feeling like things will turn out. We will not always understand; I think most of the time we won't. But God is a faithful Father, and He delights in giving us good and perfect gift.

So maybe I do not see or understand or even like how things are now; but there is always belief, faith, hope, and trust. And also, there's Love-- the kind that never disappoints, the kind that never fails.

I think I'm covered. I think we all are ;)

Different Worshippers and their Common Perk in Life

I have heard of intellectual worshippers before. I am pretty sure I initially assumed that the term was a nice way of saying, “You’re a scardy-cat.” Now I think very differently.

If an emotional worshipper ( and I assume that it what I would be coined) is someone who feeds off of feeling God’s Presence and having an emotional encounter with Him, then I assume an intellectual worshipper is one who feeds off of having new levels of understanding about God and having intellectual encounters with him. Hmm.

At least that’s what I thought. There are down sides to both: With an emotional worshipper, they may struggle whenever they don’t feel God. Also, they must learn how to go through life without feeling like everything is good and feeling like God will come through. On the other hand, an intellectual worshipper might struggle when they do not understand God. Along these same lines, they must learn how to of through life without understanding everything and understanding that although God will come through, it is on His terms, not ours.

I have always been an emotional worshipper, so life is basically over when I do not feel like everything is going dandily. Up until yesterday, that is. For the past few months I have had to keep going with the public face that everything is okay. Sometimes I felt the need to do this with my friends because it seemed idiotic to me to be down all the time. I was constantly urged to not meditate on the negative. “You can’t do that, you have to trust God. You have to think on all the good that has come out of this and know that good will come out of it.” To which I mentally responded, “Because every time something good came out of the pain and frustration, more bad trailed behind it. Yeah, so that makes perfect sense… Focus on the positive while life and God screw you over. Yeah… what an idea.” These things should not be uttered out loud, just to warn all of you. You will either cause them to draw back in surprise and hurt OR you will light their fire and they’ll repeat what they said in hopes that by hearing their lecture three more times you’ll get it through your skull. Both of these types of people love me dearly and I am blessed to have them in my life.

I needed to hear their words of encouragement and spurring on—even in lecture (a.k.a. emotional torture) form. I also needed to be left to hurt at some points, like yesterday. Yesterday I came home from church and driving around with some family members, and I had to stew in my room. I looked back over the day and realized that nothing had gone bad, nothing big. I also realized that I was livid. My heart had been broken (something I had to let happen for my own good) and I wanted to know what God expected me to do and to have the desire to do it. I was not happy with just getting by; what reassurance did I have that the next time He would be there to help me by again (like say, in the next five minutes??)?

I can say that two things have kept me going, kept me seeking Him, two reasons why I have not done a lick of homework, two reasons why I am joyful despite the frown you may see on my face right now: Obedience and taking an honest look at God’s Word. So if God told me to pray about something and I did not know what to pray or was afraid to pray (for fear that He’d answer… another story), I would ask Him to do as He willed to do in that area, life, situation. And when He nudged me to read His Word, I did so with brutal honesty… and was very much changed with the encounter. I believe that is when I began to appreciate intellectual worship. Because while my heart was a bloody mess of an organ, my mind was being renewed by Truth. It did not matter that bad things would continue to happen, it did not matter that my friends were so much more intelligent and hopeful than I, and it didn’t matter that my future husband was someone I was not too keen on praying for.  All that mattered was that God was who He said He was, and if He wanted to grow me up during this breaking season and tell me to trust and obey, well then by His Grace I was going to do just that.

There is hope for us emotionally and intellectually-based worshippers alike. His name is Jesus; head-bang into His Grace and find hope and life J

Romans 8:18-25 MSG (Pregnancy)

"That’s why I don’t think there’s any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens. All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy."

Perfect?

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.” James 1:17 NKJV

I have wondered for years how this could be true. Take, for example, a dream job (notice my very obvious attempt to stay away from the subject of… well, you know). No matter how much one has longed for, prayed for, or worked for that dream job, and even when God blesses one with it, is that job really perfect? Are there not rude and selfish people one must encounter? Are there not aspects of said job that leave one drained and wondering if it worth it. Sure, in the end one may come to realize it is indeed worth it; still I would wonder, why the struggle if this good and perfect gift is from God.

Finally after wondering for so long, the Holy Spirit revealed to me, “The gift is perfect because it comes from God, not because it is in and of itself without flaw. God gives it its worth just like He gives you your worth.” Well, that made a lot more sense! I’m sorry fro the revisiting of this subject, but take, for example, a spouse. God can bless one’s love story and if you and your significant other follow His intended plan, both husband and wife can come to realize that their spouse is in fact a good and perfect gift from God. This is not, however, because the person you are marrying is without a flaw, without their nuances and pet peeves. However, it does mean that because they are someone God has ordained you to be with that, by closely following His lead and trusting His direction, you can have a love story that is worth the pain, disagreements and hardships you will be bound to face.

This goes for every “good and perfect gift from above”. God is very much in the way of giving good and perfect gifts because He Himself is good and perfect. Our job is to rejoice in Him and always remember that it is Him we are serving, Loving, and praising NOT the gift. He deserves our relentless gaze of appreciation. The gift should, without a doubt, be cherished and honored, but it does not deserve our undivided attention. Our Heavenly Father does.

To God be the glory for every good and perfect gift He gives, for Who He is in and of Himself—good and perfect! Hallelujah!