Tonight was the last night of the series of Songs of Solomon at The Well in Fresno. Tonight, Brad Bell talked about the importance of keeping the old as well as the new in a relationship or marriage and how important it is to desire your love. Now, while Brad was talking, God was giving me a sermon of His own, and that is where all of these ideas were born out of.
It all starts with faith and hope. Hope was what caused Abraham to set out on his journey to find the dwelling place of whose builder and maker was God. Faith sustained that hope because in his heart of hearts, Abraham knew that his heavenly Fathers words were true. He believed that God had the power to do what He promised him. So, with hope and faith, Abraham set out to seek his promise.
In the same way as Abraham was hopeful of the promise of God, so should we in light of our future spouse. However, our focus should not be on our future spouse alone, but, instead, our focus should be set on the Kingdom of Heaven and the hope of the glory of God. While pursuing those things, we are assured in the sermon on the mount that “all things will be added” to us (if) we seek those things first. When our focus is on our Master, He blesses us.
That is not to say that we should not focus on bettering ourselves for our God and our future spouse, nor should that imply that we ought not to pray for our future bride/groom. We should fervently pray for them and ourselves that we be prepared for the relationship and that we focus our attention on the author and keeper of our faith. With that, we can then prepare ourselves for our future relationship and have a good start to it. It would be the equivalent of studying for a test or training for any sporting event.
Another point this brought up was the passion I have, already, for my future spouse. I’m absolutely stoked to meet her and I know that God will provide for me an amazing bride. He will bring her to me and I will be hers and she will be mine. Not only that, but it will be divinely appointed. I always heard the words “God will bring you, your wife”. Which I always thought was “God will drag a girl out of nowhere and plop her right in front of you with no effort on your part”. I never agreed with that until God pointed out to me that it is not what those words mean. God told me to treat women like sisters in Christ. I should love them, respect them, and treat them as sisters in Christ; this is to make sure I am respectful and maintain integrity. It is so easy to meet girls and to attempt to put the “potential wife” label on them and treat them as such; however, it is far harder for us as men of God to assume the position of the respectful brother in Christ and to treat them as such. This causes us to suppress our male urges (hopefully) and cause us to better treat the women in our lives. When this happens, we aren’t worried about the women we meet being our future wives, we’re more interested in being a great man of God, holy and pleasing, and with that, meaningful friendships and relationships can be developed. Then, when God is working in us and He decides it is time for Him to reveal to us whom He has chosen for us, we can have that established relationship already and build upon that.
The divine interaction is most likely not a “we met in a bar across a crowded room” situation, but, more likely to be a “we met and grew as friends in the love of our Lord and felt led into a relationship”. This isn’t for sure, but I feel this is more likely than the former.
God has given me a passion for my bride now that has ALSO caused me to be mindful of how I act with women. I don’t want to spoil myself for her. I want to present myself pure to her. I want her to know that I have kept myself for her and her alone. I want eternalize my actions and to be completely conscious of all of my dealings with others. It sounds odd, but I feel like I am preparing myself for my wife who is and is to come and I don’t want to make her jealous. Lord knows I’m already jealous for her.
All of this was born out of tonight and I hope this impacts someone. One last bit of wisdom before I leave is this: normally, people let their past determine where they are going in life and how they will act in the present and future. Instead, may I propose this?
Let your eternity dictate what you do in the present.
What is done is done, but what is to come is going to be eternal, and if we are driven by our eternity, we will be taking active steps of hastening the Lords coming. I hope this blessed some of you. I love you all, very deeply. Please, feel free to message me and see me anytime. I have way too much free time on my hands.
Love,
-Josh
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