As I'm reading this book this time around I'm beginning to pick up on how much the feminine heart is mentioned. Right now I'm a year and a half into marriage, and am still learning to be a husband. I'm discovering more and more of what a Man of God looks like as a husband. And in the final pages of chapter two I'm reminded of something crucial. My primary relationship is to God.
As a man my desire is for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue. And God uses these desires to help me relate to Him, and draw closer to Him. God wants to be loved by me and be my priority. He says in Scripture that He will be found by me when I seek Him with all my heart (Jeremiah 29.13). Not when I have heartily decide to maybe pray, but when my prayer is fervently crying out to Him. I think back to when my wife and I just started dating, I pursued her. I would send texts and call. I would ask her on dates, and I would write notes. She was the only one I focused on as I fought to win her heart. God wants the same thing from us. God wants us to fight for Him, He wants us to focus our desire for battle on Him.
God also wants to share this adventure with us. God created people to have fellowship with Him. He created us to exist in a relationship with Him. He wants to be part of our lives. He has invited us to pray and communicate with Him, and has given us the honor of being able to worship Him. He didn't need us, He holds the universe in His hand and calls the stars by name, compared to that does our worship seem that significant? But He did make us, and He greatly desires to be part of our lives, to share the adventure that He has given us to live.
God has tremendous beauty to unveil. Spring is almost here, take a minute and simply take it all in. The new life, the bright colors, the fantastic scents. During the summer take some time to admire the stars. Get somewhere that you can really see them, and just take in the fact that the ones you can see are just some of the ones in the galaxy you live in that are visible to you, and that there are hundreds of billions of other galaxies out there each with hundreds of millions of stars. In the fall God shows off again as the treas show their true colors, new scents fill the air. And even in winter have you ever noticed how snow sparkles? How you ever taken in how clean and refreshing a fresh blanket of snow is? Have you seen the moon on a clear winter night? All of this pales in comparison to the beauty of the one who not only created it, but thought it all up. These are simply the glimpses God has given us of what is to come. And His beauty goes beyond what is seen. His love and His holiness, I'm not going to try to put words to.
God speaks to us, He relates to us in ways that speak to us and make our hearts come alive. He made us that way. To men He invites us to fight for Him, adventure with Him, and take in the beauty He reveals to us.
To women, who long to be fought for, invited to share in the adventure, and unveil their beauty, God is a warrior who fights for your heart. He longs to rescue you, to be your prince, your knight in shining armor. He invites you to live an adventure with Him as you discover His calling on your life. And above all He invites you to unveil your beauty, the beauty He created you to be, as His beloved.
As I relate to God as a man, I become a better husband. As I learn to fight for God's heart I learn how to fight for the heart of my wife. It isn't enough that I got her to marry me, I must continue to fight for her daily, to show her that I still love her heart and will do whatever is needed to keep it. As I live this adventure with God I am swept up in a journey that God has given me a wife to share in. And as I am captivated by God, I see more of His beauty in my wife, the finishing touch of creation. Plain and simple, the closer I get to God the better of a husband I will be. Because the way that I relate to God is how I am to relate to my wife.
To God alone be the Glory!
Strength and Honor
great message bill- the number one thing that God wants from us is a relationship. Sometimes I can get so focused on my relationship with my wife and pleasing her that I forget that i was created to please GOD first!! There is a balance there- like one of my marriage counseling books said it needs to be 3 equal parts of a triangle. God, my wife, and me. Thanks for the reminder to continue to seek after God's heart first.
ReplyDeleteConvicting stuff. I am challenged to evaluate how hard I actually pursue God and if I desire Him more than anything else.
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