Do you ever know something in your head but never put it in your heart?
I had a friend recently tell me that I should really find out why I like this guy...What is it about him that I like? Do I just like the idea of him? Really find out what is all about? (My friend didn't say all that but that's how I understood it) Now when this friend told me this I was mad. I didn't need someone else to tell me something that I already knew. I didn't need to be reminded of it. But as I thought about it more last night and this morning I realized that is exactly what I needed. I thought that I had everything under control. I thought I knew what I was doing. I thought I knew how to handle it. Obviously I was wrong. Sometimes for me I know what is right and what I should do but that's it. I never put it to practice. I just let it sit in my head and I think about it all the time. I think about the good stuff and the bad stuff.
See when my friend asked me that I knew the answer already...I just didn't want to accept that that could be true in my life again. I know that the one thing I want is to be completely satisfied with God. And I know that...But again I don't always put in to practice...I described it to myself like this. It's like God is the best candy in the world and its the only thing that fills you up. It always sits there just waiting for you. Occasionally I might grab a piece and sometimes I grab a lot of pieces, but sometimes I don't grab any pieces because I think I have found better candy. Sometimes it will make me full for a moment and sometimes it doesn't make me full at all. And I will eat all that candy until its all gone and then I am craving candy. So what do I do...I go back to eating the best candy in the world. But I don't want to eat it when I am starving I want to always eat it.
See I know that I try to fill that emptiness with boys instead of God. But again sometimes I know. I normally realize that I do it and not do anything about it. But I am sick of that. I am sick of being in this place all the time. If I know why don't I do anything about it? I know that everything I am looking for in men is already in God! So again why can't I just be satisfied with God? If God is the one thing I want why can't I just be with him? Why is that such a hard thing for me to do? How do you even do it? How do I be completely satisfied with God? I want to!!!!!!
I am tired of always coming back to this with God. I am tired of this being the one thing that I always talk to him about. I want God to be the one and only thing that I desire!!!! I am so tired of trying to fill an emptiness that I know where to fill it with. But why is it so hard? Why do I struggle with this all the time? Why do I try to find wholeness in men?
7 comments:
I think that this is a constant struggle for many women, including this one. It is how we are built, particularly after the fall when our perfect relationship with God got all distorted and we looked toward our husbands or would-be husbands for this kind of fulfillment. But, I guess I struggle with the fact that God created marriage and he created our woman's heart. Desiring a partner in life is natural. Desiring someone who will provide what only God can, however, is futile. For me, the question is how do we keep God where he belongs and still keep ourselves open to finding and building a relationship with the man he intended for us? I am still learning about this. One helpful book if you are a reader is Passion and Purity by Elizabeth Elliot.
Do you ever feel like a bad person because you forget that all the time?
We should sit down and have some girl talk because this is the stuff that long conversations are made of (thanks for the provoking thoughts), but I will give a synopsis of my response here...
Sure I fall into feeling bad sometimes, but my experience has been that the feeling bad, the guilt, can put us more into the distorted cycle than the initial longings did in the first place. I think my biggest growth in this area has been to reject the guilt and give it over to God. The guilt is a pathetic attempt on the part of the enemy to keep me from where God is taking me in the process. I have to willfully decide not to be fooled.
Another thing I have been doing lately, and I feel that it has been great for me, is to daily bind my will, emotions, and desires to those of God in prayer. Something spriritual definitely happens as I do this, but it also centers my day on what I most long for - to be thinking, feeling, and doing the things that God wants for me. Nothing from my own soul could be anything better than that.
Last thought - I read something today that really struck me and it might strike you, too. Too much to write here so let's talk.
a friend got married almost a couple of weeks ago (same day as sand volleyball), and they picked 'be Thou my vision' as one of the songs. that particular hymn features a line that says, 'Thou and Thou only first in my heart...' i felt like that hit below the belt. :) what single person struggling with singleness wants to sing a song about surrendering to God at a wedding?! whose idea was that?! :) and to answer your question, yeah, in that particular moment, i did feel badly. i felt like a hypocrite for saying God is the center of things when my thoughts are often elsewhere.
but i don't think it's something i should feel guilty about. God is very much aware of the desires of our hearts. what He does with that knowledge is mysterious at times. but if we want things that aren't necessarily what He's offering us, i don't think He holds it against us. He knows our thoughts before we think them. and He knows better than i do what i need.
the question 'not so strange, not so normal' asked is a very good one... one of the things i struggle with is keeping my focus on the stuff God's called me to in this current season when my heart and hormones and culture all pull my focus toward the one thing God hasn't blessed me with yet. (and yet, like marsha, i want to be open to the possibility of this blessing when it comes. holy crap, that balancing act is stressful!)
i'm learning that sometimes what i need most is to rest, to stop trying to figure it out, and trust that God's handling it. so i'm praying for rest from your stress. :)
(sorry for the novel. :))
It's something that I do understand... but when it comes time to dong it I don't do it. It's like this book i was reading...you know you go on a retreat and you think everything will change when you get home...it's different now...you had this great God experience...but when you get home you just go back to the same old same old... thats what I have been doing just going back to what I have done before...
Thats what sucks the most...even going through it I know what is right. I know that I try to be satisfied with men. but I just can't seem to get away from it...(I don't mean that I am trapped in it..) I just can't seem to make myself stop... do you know what I mean?
Kalla,
Searching for your fulfillment in members of the gender that you're attracted to puts you in the majority. In fact, I'll go out on a limb, and say it puts you in the wide majority. Make that vast majority. You know what...let's just call it "everybody but monks and that celibate guy I met when I went to this weird church in Terra Haute, Indiana."
I think I have a problem finding my complete contentment in God because...and this is gonna be controversial, I suppose...but because we're not supposed to. What I mean is this: I don't think the practices of spirituality as we think of them will ever, in and of themselves, bring us total commitment. I think spirituality goes far beyond prayer, scripture, musical worship and evangelism...I think the true spiritual experience that God created for us is also comprised of things like falling in love, eating really good ice cream, fighting with our spouses, having sex with our spouses when we're done fighting, falling down when skiing, painting a friend's bathroom with him, going to funerals, and watching Fight Club. What I mean is...I think you can find God in all of these things...and I think we're supposed to find contentment in that, too. So...the search for the guy may be part of that process as well. The trick is not searching for total contentment in the guy...that's certainly not what God intended. You want to look for God in the process...for all of its flaws, stumbles and misfires, and then find the way to worship that.
That's just $.02 from a dude...frankly, I think the other girls who posted have a better idea what's up with all this. I'd listen to them.
Peace,
Justin
I don't know, Justin. I think you said a lot of what I was hoping Ms. Kalla and I would talk about when we sit down for some gab. For a dude, that was pretty good :-)
Seriously, I agree with you. God created all these things, and they are good. I believe experiencing these things fully in God's timing is part of experiencing God. But none of them are perfect in and of themselves. Finding that balance, I think, is a big part of how we grow in Christ.
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