Am I the person who the person I am looking for is looking for? This seems like a very confusing question until you really start to look at the question, think about the question, and understand the context of the question. The context of the question has to do with the sermon from yesterday at Oasis, where I have been able to attend church for the last couple of weeks. The pastor was talking about how we, in our western culture, are so concerned with ‘finding the perfect person for us to marry’.
The pastor asked us to think about whether or not we are the person we should be so the person we are looking to marry would want to marry us as well. He told this story to better illustrate this point (it may be paraphrased a little bit).
A 20-something woman who grew up in a Christian home and had a faith in Christ while growing up went off to college and strayed from that faith and her relationship and has decided to live out her life differently. Sometime after beginning college and living this new life of living out her desires rather than her faith she is at a gathering of sorts and she meets a young man. This young man is successful, he has a good job and he is living out his faith in a way that does not leave a doubt in anyone’s mind that he is a follower of Christ who wants to follow His desires for the young man’s life. The young woman goes home and gushes to her mother about the man that she meant and tells her mom that this man is the type of man she wants to marry. He mother looks at her daughter and says ‘you are not the type of woman that this man will want to marry’. The young woman collapsed to the ground and wept as she realized that her mother is completely right.
The pastor than asked us to think about how we would fit into this same kind of story. If we found the person who we wanted to marry, would they also want to marry us?
It is this question that has captured my thoughts for the last couple of days as I have wrestled with the idea. I know that I need to be secure in my faith and comfortable being ‘alone’ before I can be in a relationship with someone and this is something that I am always working on. I am single, however, sometimes I am not okay with being alone and I want more, and instead of seeking God in these times I sometimes (sometimes I do as I know I should and seek God to fill the void I feel) look to find affection and approval from other people. I also know that I need to be a woman of faith; a woman of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22-23) and someone who not only claims these attributes but also someone who lives them out. This is who God has designed me to be and this is what I need to strive for in my life. It will be in this that God will show me who it is that He has brought in to my life to become my husband and it will be in this that I will be ready to become a wife and a person who can live in relationship with another and still hold on to who I am as an individual but also as one of a pair.
No comments:
Post a Comment