Showing posts with label the church is the bride. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the church is the bride. Show all posts

6.09.2011

Preparing for Prince Charming - "Once Upon a Mistake"


My "What was I thinking?!?!" face
Once upon a mistake, there was a girl named Rachel (AKA me) and a boy who we'll call Nate. Some time ago I discovered that this 'Nate' had a certain liking for me. Being a girl, my normal reaction was a complete spaz attack at that thought that someone actually had interest in someone like me. Without involving the entire story, by the time I discovered this and knew for sure, Nate had seemingly let his feelings die and there was entirely NOTHING between us.

So me, being a person of initiative (which sometimes I regret...), decided to try to pursue a friendship with him (Why do I do things like this...?). Intially, my mindset was that, oh hey you know, I'll just get the ball rolling and if it's meant to be anything, he'll do the rest. Needless to say, after continuing attempts of real life conversation, Facebook conversation, (this is where I hang my head in shame) and me even getting his number , it didn't really work out.

It was a complete fail. (Which I am now glad.. but I'll get to that later!) He was so unresponsive. Nate did not initiate anything himself. It frustrated me. Why did he not even want a friendship? What was the problem anyway? It wasn't even necessarily that I wanted anything beyond a simple friendship, I just wanted to get to know the guy. Yet for some reason, no matter what I did, it just wasn't working.

After a couple weeks, I decided that I was foolish, really dumb and questioned why I ever tried to do anything like it! It was basically a facepalm moment (refer to the picture at the beginning of the post).

Time passed by and slowly I learned more about his character. More and more I realized that it wasn't something I was pleased with, and occasionally found myself highly appalled.

More recently, I discovered an entire new side of this person's character. I was in complete shock. "How could I have ever found any interest in a guy who is like this?"
I was really disappointed; nevertheless, I found reason for thankfulness and praise.

There are times when we really want something. We think it's good, or so it seems. So we pray about it, and pray about it, and pray some more. Yet it just isn't working out, there's something about it just not clicking right. And due to my lacking in ability to see the whole picture which only God can see, I felt confused and kind of disappointed that my original plan of friendship had failed.

Looking back on it all, I am SO thankful that God didn't respond the way I wanted him to. If we knew how many times God saves us from pain or at the very least, the effects of poor decision making, I think we'd be all the more thankful to Him.

So what's the point of this post anyway? Don't pursue a guy. Please, just don't. Do you want to end up like me? Trust me, no. Pursuing is a problem I have as a girl, due to my constant reaction of wanting to take initiative, but let me just tell you! Initiative is NOT good in this area! And for so many reasons.

1. By pursuing a guy, you are stripping away his ability to be the man, be the leader and do what he is supposed to as the male.
2. If you start out being the leader, then chances are, you're going to end up always being the leader, rather than fulfilling the Godly female role of being the pursued! And what girl likes that anyway? Bleh!

Think of it this way: Christ is the bridegroom and we, the church, are His bride. Are we, as the church, the one who first pursued Him? No. Is it us preparing a place for Christ? Far from it! Just as Christ takes care of us, pursues us, leads us, so should the man in relationships.

And one other thing I noticed in my poor decision making. I stopped depending on God and honestly stopped trusting Him that HE would take care of it, that in His own perfect will and timing, would orchestrate all that should happen in order for me to meet my Prince (if God's will is marriage for me).

Now tell me, would you rather settle for your own, most likely, messy and human-like love story... Or would you rather have God, the creator of ALL things, the maker of Heaven and Earth, unravel His own love story for you? If you go with the latter of the two, I promise you won't be disappointed.

You decide.

In the meantime, check out this post by Mary A. Kassian, author of "Girls Gone Wise in a World gone Wild." It talks a little bit more about this issue and if you struggle with it like me.. then it might be helpful! Either way you can check it out by clicking HERE!

This blog post is part of my "Preparing for Prince Charming" series. If you would like to check out some other posts, then I encourage you to look to the right of your screen where you can locate a small section which lists other posts in the series.