Tuesday 30 August 2011
Saturday 9 July 2011
God's pursuit
Most girls, myself included, have this built-in desire to be loved. To be romanced & captivated by someone who will in turn be captivated by us.
This is not a bad thing to yearn for, however I think that this desire is often entirely focused on men and not on the One who put this desire on our hearts in the first place: God.
Rather than spending your life dreaming for your ‘prince’ to come, realise that your Prince HAS come. He lived for you, sacrificed his life for you, and is desperately pursuing you and will continue to do so until he has your full attention and all of your heart.
In the book ‘Captivating’, by John & Stasi Eldridge, they talk about how God wants to romance us & how He is relentless in his desire to captivate our hearts & our full attention.
This blows my mind every time I think about it. There is already someone out there who is not only amazing but who is entirely PERFECT, and He is completely head-over-heels, UNCONDITIONALLY in love with us. Nothing we can do can change that. Nothing we do can ever be so awful and wrong that He will stop loving us, nothing will make Him turn away from us. When we aren’t paying attention to Him, He is still constantly there, desperate for any moment we might spend with Him, however brief.
And yet, we push this to one side and spend hours dreaming about someone who will never be able to measure up to this. Why?
Why do we try so hard to find the attention, love & affection that, actually, we already have?!
Is it because we can’t physically see God? Is it because, in order to reach a level of intimacy with God where we can hear His voice clearly & sense His presence easily, we are required to put some effort into it? Whereas day-dreaming about ‘Mr Perfect’ is so easy with no effort required whatsoever. (by the way, we also need to realise that although marriage is great & God-given is IS hard work!)
Why not start going deeper with God, get to know Him more, develop this relationship with Him? Ask Him to romance us, to delight in us and us in Him? Surely, to have such an intimate relationship with GOD - would be the most incredible relationship anyone could ever experience!
I mean, this is GOD we’re talking about! This incredible, indescribable God wants to have a relationship with us! wants to love us! wants to share everything with us! wants to make us happy etc..!
I love talking to God while I’m walking places. I try to be really subtle about it, so I don’t look like a crazy person, walking along talking to myself - occasionally I do get caught out having a massive verbal explosion by passers-by. But oh well!
However, I’m cottoning on to the fact that just talking to God isn’t enough, it’s great, but it’s not enough. I want to get to a point where I am so in tune with Him & familiar with his voice & ways of speaking that I’ll be able to listen to Him & hear Him better.
So I’ve got me some great literature, written by amazing church leaders (Drawing Near, by John Bevere is latest book I’ve read and it’s brilliant!) as I think they are great tools for learning more about God & getting closer to Him (this isn't like bible replacement though!).
There are so many leaders who have had amazing experiences & learnt vital lessons & the opportunity to learn from them is something I’m gonna GRAB! There are so many amazing resources you can download, watch on youtube, buy online etc. Go for it, be teachable, be challenged! It has changed my spiritual life so much!
So that’s my challenge, I guess, to you. Make time to read (it took me a while to get out of the habit of just turning on my laptop & watching movies & tv series instead of reading. I still do that, but a bit less), make time to pray, make time to listen. And rather than worrying about guys, press in to God & ask him to reveal to you your potential & His plans for your life. Then start living them!
I have spoken to christian girls who are very much fixated on having a relationship. Something I point out to them is that they have still so much to discover about themselves, they have so much unreached potential & are going to grow & change so much. I am 25years old and I am STILL growing & changing so much! They still have so much to learn about themselves, how can they expect someone to marry them when they don't even know who they are in God yet?
I know everyone reaches that stage at different times in their lives, and I feel that this year I am only just touching on becoming the badass woman of God, that God has intended me to be. So make that your mission. Let your purpose be seeking God, seeking who YOU ARE in God, what his plans are for you, what passions & visions He's put on your heart & just surrender everything else that you worry about to Him. Trust Him that He's got your back & wants the best for your life.
This is not a bad thing to yearn for, however I think that this desire is often entirely focused on men and not on the One who put this desire on our hearts in the first place: God.
Rather than spending your life dreaming for your ‘prince’ to come, realise that your Prince HAS come. He lived for you, sacrificed his life for you, and is desperately pursuing you and will continue to do so until he has your full attention and all of your heart.
In the book ‘Captivating’, by John & Stasi Eldridge, they talk about how God wants to romance us & how He is relentless in his desire to captivate our hearts & our full attention.
This blows my mind every time I think about it. There is already someone out there who is not only amazing but who is entirely PERFECT, and He is completely head-over-heels, UNCONDITIONALLY in love with us. Nothing we can do can change that. Nothing we do can ever be so awful and wrong that He will stop loving us, nothing will make Him turn away from us. When we aren’t paying attention to Him, He is still constantly there, desperate for any moment we might spend with Him, however brief.
And yet, we push this to one side and spend hours dreaming about someone who will never be able to measure up to this. Why?
Why do we try so hard to find the attention, love & affection that, actually, we already have?!
Is it because we can’t physically see God? Is it because, in order to reach a level of intimacy with God where we can hear His voice clearly & sense His presence easily, we are required to put some effort into it? Whereas day-dreaming about ‘Mr Perfect’ is so easy with no effort required whatsoever. (by the way, we also need to realise that although marriage is great & God-given is IS hard work!)
Why not start going deeper with God, get to know Him more, develop this relationship with Him? Ask Him to romance us, to delight in us and us in Him? Surely, to have such an intimate relationship with GOD - would be the most incredible relationship anyone could ever experience!
I mean, this is GOD we’re talking about! This incredible, indescribable God wants to have a relationship with us! wants to love us! wants to share everything with us! wants to make us happy etc..!
I love talking to God while I’m walking places. I try to be really subtle about it, so I don’t look like a crazy person, walking along talking to myself - occasionally I do get caught out having a massive verbal explosion by passers-by. But oh well!
However, I’m cottoning on to the fact that just talking to God isn’t enough, it’s great, but it’s not enough. I want to get to a point where I am so in tune with Him & familiar with his voice & ways of speaking that I’ll be able to listen to Him & hear Him better.
So I’ve got me some great literature, written by amazing church leaders (Drawing Near, by John Bevere is latest book I’ve read and it’s brilliant!) as I think they are great tools for learning more about God & getting closer to Him (this isn't like bible replacement though!).
There are so many leaders who have had amazing experiences & learnt vital lessons & the opportunity to learn from them is something I’m gonna GRAB! There are so many amazing resources you can download, watch on youtube, buy online etc. Go for it, be teachable, be challenged! It has changed my spiritual life so much!
So that’s my challenge, I guess, to you. Make time to read (it took me a while to get out of the habit of just turning on my laptop & watching movies & tv series instead of reading. I still do that, but a bit less), make time to pray, make time to listen. And rather than worrying about guys, press in to God & ask him to reveal to you your potential & His plans for your life. Then start living them!
I have spoken to christian girls who are very much fixated on having a relationship. Something I point out to them is that they have still so much to discover about themselves, they have so much unreached potential & are going to grow & change so much. I am 25years old and I am STILL growing & changing so much! They still have so much to learn about themselves, how can they expect someone to marry them when they don't even know who they are in God yet?
I know everyone reaches that stage at different times in their lives, and I feel that this year I am only just touching on becoming the badass woman of God, that God has intended me to be. So make that your mission. Let your purpose be seeking God, seeking who YOU ARE in God, what his plans are for you, what passions & visions He's put on your heart & just surrender everything else that you worry about to Him. Trust Him that He's got your back & wants the best for your life.
Sunday 3 October 2010
Intro!
I have seen too many single girls moping around, whining about their impending eternal doom as a spinster.
Yes, I do want to fall in love. I want to meet a man who I will want to spend the rest of my life with, share everything with, have a family with. Of course I want all that. But you know what? It’s not the be all and end all of everything. I also need to accept that if God does decide to bless me with this amazing man, I might be in for a wait. And I say ‘amazing man’ because, believe me, I am not going to sign up to spending my life with any Tom, Dick or Harry. If he’s going to be leaving his pubes in the shower and skid marks on the toilet seat, constantly being there, talking to me, making decisions with me, being the person I sacrifice my own wants and needs for, then he is going to have to be pretty darn special. I am not being unrealistic, I know that no one is perfect and each person will have their own annoying or gross habits, but I have met guys who, without meaning to sound harsh, I would much rather stay single than live with them for the rest of my life.
But this blog is not about finding Mr Right, and it’s not about moaning about being single. I refuse to be one of these girls who spend their time dreaming about some non-existent man, moping about and wasting their lives on someone who, if he eventually DID turn up on their doorstep, would take one look at their sorry faces and run a mile.
This is about breaking free from the mindset we’ve been brought up on. The mindset that every single Disney movie -and most other movies- have put us in from day 1. That until we meet our Prince, life is on standby. That nothing can begin until this happens is RUBBISH!
As is the belief that once we DO meet our Prince, everything else will fall into place and we’ll live happily ever after.
One of my best friends once said to me; “I enjoy staring and dreaming of dreamy men […]!!! Without that where would sleeping beauty be?”
But shouldn't we be doing more than just dreaming our lives away?
Yes, I do want to fall in love. I want to meet a man who I will want to spend the rest of my life with, share everything with, have a family with. Of course I want all that. But you know what? It’s not the be all and end all of everything. I also need to accept that if God does decide to bless me with this amazing man, I might be in for a wait. And I say ‘amazing man’ because, believe me, I am not going to sign up to spending my life with any Tom, Dick or Harry. If he’s going to be leaving his pubes in the shower and skid marks on the toilet seat, constantly being there, talking to me, making decisions with me, being the person I sacrifice my own wants and needs for, then he is going to have to be pretty darn special. I am not being unrealistic, I know that no one is perfect and each person will have their own annoying or gross habits, but I have met guys who, without meaning to sound harsh, I would much rather stay single than live with them for the rest of my life.
But this blog is not about finding Mr Right, and it’s not about moaning about being single. I refuse to be one of these girls who spend their time dreaming about some non-existent man, moping about and wasting their lives on someone who, if he eventually DID turn up on their doorstep, would take one look at their sorry faces and run a mile.
This is about breaking free from the mindset we’ve been brought up on. The mindset that every single Disney movie -and most other movies- have put us in from day 1. That until we meet our Prince, life is on standby. That nothing can begin until this happens is RUBBISH!
As is the belief that once we DO meet our Prince, everything else will fall into place and we’ll live happily ever after.
One of my best friends once said to me; “I enjoy staring and dreaming of dreamy men […]!!! Without that where would sleeping beauty be?”
But shouldn't we be doing more than just dreaming our lives away?
What if we woke up & realised that, yes, love is great and we all want it to happen to us, but it should not be our ultimate goal. We’ve got to grab life by the balls and live it to the full (John 10:10).
What if we took all this energy we’re so often spending on dreaming up our dream man, imagining scenarios where he sweeps us off our feet, praying and praying that ‘someday soon our prince will come‘, and channelled it into something a lot more worthy of our time and effort?
I’m not saying I have it sussed. I’m definitely not saying that I do not do any of the above. But I’m sick of falling into this trap. I know that for example, pursuing God and being desperate about learning his character, developing a much deeper and more significant relationship with him, are things that are not only are more worthy of my time but are also things that are greatly important in my life. If I spent half as much time with God as I have done staring out the window planning how my wedding to this perfect man will be, I would have a seriously good thing going on!
So -whether you’re single or not- if you’re up for becoming an independent woman who can throw her hands up at me (or Beyoncé), then do join me as I embark on this truthful journey of discovery. Where I’ll be kicking the female gender up the backside and challenging you to switch off standby mode...
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