Thursday, June 22, 2006

So what are these bread crumbs?

So now that you all know my view on dating and you have hopefully read the post about “trapping a man”, I want to take some time to just be honest. What I do NOT want this to be is a legalistic list…you CAN do this, but you SHOULDN’T do this….so I’m not going to give you some comprehensive list of what bread crumbs we are good at dropping! What I’m praying is that we will each look at how we interact with the guys in our lives, whether they be in youth group, school, neighborhood or just friends in general and ask God to show us any bread crumbs we may be letting fall!

So…what do I mean by bread crumbs? It’s a story that is as old as ME….yes..that old!! We start off being just friends with a guy. We start to notice certain things that we admire about him. We then let that admiration grow into true feelings, but we tell ourselves that we are JUST still friends. Our actions betray us tho…we leave “bread crumbs” trying to attract this boy into noticing us. These “bread crumbs” are just little ways to hopefully make these boys sit up and think, “wow..she is special…I think I may want to get to know her better”. NOW REMEMBER—we SHOULD be back in the vault (if your confused read yesterday’s blog about the vault!). We don’t want to be the cheaper jewelry left out on the counter to be admired and worn by all. It is still beautiful jewelry but it is NOT the most precious of jewels. But many times we fall into the trap of thinking the counter is really the best place to be, and we stray from God’s PERFECT plan for us!

Why do we do this? There may be multiple answers—maybe we have watched other girls do this and it has been “successful”, or maybe we think that this boy will never develop feelings for us if we don’t let him know we already have feelings or even do special things to show him how wonderful we are, or maybe things are just moving too slowly and we think we need to “jump start it”. The main root problem with all of this—is that we are not truly living our lives demonstrating our faith in a sovereign God! He is totally in control of our lives and does NOT need our help! Jeremiah says, “For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Why would we take it out of God’s PERFECT hands?

I think many times it seems harmless. We say that we know God is in control, but it won’t hurt to just make ourselves available to this boy—sort of advertise our Godly qualities. And for many of us—it has become a habit! We don’t even realize we are doing it. Now is the time ladies…if you are looking to be a Godly woman, and live your life 100% for God and therefore wait on Him to bring a Godly man to CHASE you, then lets get real honest about what we should NOT be doing! Carolyn Mahaney used to tell her daughters that they needed to view each and every guy as SOMEONE ELSE’S husband. Doesn’t that make you think about it a little differently. Until that man is ready to come and redeem you from the vault, he is NOT your husband—he is someone else’s. That surely was an eye-opener for me!

Lest we make this totally about us, and as BH will say we know that it is “NOT ABOUT ME”, lets also stop to think a moment what you are doing to these guys in your life. Maybe they are not in the place that they need to be spiritually, and so they enter into a relationship with you, b/c you’ve made it irresistible, but in the end they were NOT the Godly man they needed to be. Now you’ve caused them to stumble, and maybe even gotten yourself into some trouble. Or maybe they are obliviously going along(yes ladies, sometimes guys just are that oblivious) and so you spend months reading into signals, creating situations to be with them, emailing them, texting them and low and behold they ask out one of your friends. Now you’re upset and have a hard time being friends with this guy, much less the strain it puts onto your friendship. Or what if they are NOT clueless, and are fully aware of your feelings, and then are trying to figure out desperately how to let you know they have no feelings for you without hurting you. The scenarios are endless ladies—the truth remains the same. If we follow God’s plan and remain in the vault until someone who is ready and able to redeem us comes, we not only guard our own hearts, but the hearts of the young men around us.

Proverbs 31:12 says, “She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.” It’s interesting that it says ALL of the days of her life…indicating even the days BEFORE she met him. Are you harming your future husband by being foolish and impatient now?

So will you do this with me? Will you carefully pray over each of your relationships and ask God to show you if there is anything that you should change? How will you know…go back to the truth: Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. Ephesians 5:1-4

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