Glen - Are You Really Waiting?

Are You Really Waiting?

By Glen Cuthbert

I’ve been struggling with trying to find something to write about, so I decided to look at my own life and write about something that I have been having a problem with. Right now, the problem I’m having is not having crushes because I’m waiting on God. I know I’m not alone with this problem. So, I’m writing this month’s post on just that. Just so you know, this post is written as much to me as it is to you. I think it will help all of us.

Trusting God one-hundred percent is always going to be a struggle. Yes, we can all say that we are trusting God for our future mate, but if we just say it, are we really trusting Him? God has that perfect person all picked out, and He doesn’t need our help. No matter how amazing that certain someone that you are interested in may be, the question still remains: Do you completely trust God?

Having a crush while waiting on God is like having a backup plan. Most people have backup plans when they are scared that something will go wrong with their original plan. God doesn’t make mistakes. His way is perfect. Because of this, we don’t need a “plan B” in case something goes wrong. You’re probably wondering, “This person is SO AWESOME, how could they not be ‘the one’?” My question to you is: How can they be?

Going back to the first post that I ever wrote for this blog, I wrote about how “the right person at the wrong time is still the wrong person.” Seriously, we’re all still young. The time is not yet right, so the person is also not right. No matter how “right” they may seem.

Also, crushes come at a price. I’ve written in the past about giving your heart away. There is still pain, there is still heartbreak. I’ve never had a girlfriend, but I’ve been hurt just from “innocent crushes.” There is no thing as an “innocent crush.” People still get hurt.

God made us with a natural sense of attraction. That’s just part of being human. But the real question is: “Will you trust God and control those attractions?” View guys or girls that you are attracted to as prospective good friends, and work on those friendships. Someday, if you go about it right, you should marry one of your closest friends. So, start now, and you may increase your chances with that person more than you would have with a crush. Or, you might just find out things about them that you wouldn’t have seen if you were still interested in them. Just make sure that your motives for friendship are right. Trust God, build your friendships, and He will take care of the rest.

Do you completely trust God, or do you have a backup plan?

Psalm 27:14- “Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.”

Can't Think Of A Good Title...

I've done a lot of thinking lately about this whole single and waiting on God thing. I've had some conversations about dating that have really had me asking myself why. Why don't I date? Why do I want to save my first kiss for my wedding day? Why am I staying single when there are plenty of guys that I could date? Why do I sit and watch my friends date guy after guy while I've never dated anyone? Why do I keep myself emotionally and psychically pure for one guy?

It makes me wonder...what is your reason for waiting? Is it just because your parents don't want you to date? Are you just trying to save yourself from the hurt that comes with dating and heartbreak? Or is it because you want to honor your future spouse and glorify God? It is good to obey your parents, and its even a wise choice to save yourself from the pain of dating and heartbreak...but the number one reason should be because its what God wants and it honors your future spouse.

This staying single and waiting for one person isn't considered normal or good in the world. In fact, if you've never dated or now choose not to, then people think there is something wrong with you. The "normal" 19 year old girl is either obsessing over the guy shes currently 'in like' with or crying over the last guy that broke her heart. I mean, you are just plain weird if you make it to almost 20 years old and have never even been on a date or kissed a guy. lol

I think that is hard for me sometimes. Loneliness is a hard part of waiting, but hearing what people say about you is also really hard. It's only by the grace of God that Christian young people are about to remain pure and wait for the one God made for them. And you should all be proud of yourselves and of God working through you. Your future spouses will be so proud of you for waiting for them.

I'm so very thankful that God has given me the strength to remain pure and wait for Him to bring my husband to me. And thank about it...what a gift that will be for our future spouses!!

Okay, so I'm not sure what the point of this post is. I just had all these little thoughts in my head and figured I should get them out of there. LOL! Hope it wasn't to confusing for ya! :)

"When Dreams Come True"

Title:

"When Dreams Come True"

By:

Eric & Leslie Ludy

About This Book:

(taken from the back cover)

"This daringly real, intensely moving love story gives vision and hope to everyone in search of a love worth waiting for. In their bestseller When God Writes Your Love Story, Eric and Leslie Ludy described the breathtaking perfection of God's plans for each young person and offered fresh guidelines for being Christlike in relationships with the opposite sex. When Dreams Come True shares the Ludys' personal story, illustrating how they lived out the principles of the first book in their own romance and marriage."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

You know, I have read many stories of people who have had godly relationships...but I'd have to say that the Ludy's story might just beat all. This book starts out when they are both children and goes all the way until they are married. This book was a great blessing to me. You know how you often wonder if anyone else out there feels the way you do about relationships and the whole waiting on God thing? Well, I'll tell you this...you know while reading this book that Eric and Leslie completely understand how you feel and where you're coming from. They were already there...and God led them thru it. You can see the hand of God on their relationship from the start...it is an amazing love story that only God could have written! This was one of the few books that I have read in the last week...and God has taught me a lot thru them. I would strongly encourage y'all to get ahold of some of the Ludy's books and read them...and while reading them, ask God to open your heart and show you what you need.

Links:

Eric & Leslie Ludy's Website

Their Online Store

Their Books On Amazon.com

Guest Post 4 - Kelly & Katy: A Courtship In Progress

Ok, so I think this is going to be my last guest post for now. I hope to have a few more within the next few weeks, but we will see. : ) This one was written by my dear friend Katy and I am sooooo excited for y'all to read it!! Please be sure to go over and check out Katy's blog when you're done reading, I'm sure you'll love it as much as I do. : ) You can also go over and check out Kelly's blog, I'm sure he'd love to have some visitors as well. : )

Kelly & Katy:

A Courtship In Progress

"It all started on April 18, 2008 with a simple "random" comment on my blog. Kelly had been surfing blogs and had listed as one of his favorite movies "Last Flight Out" and I guess when you click on the link it will take you to other blogs that have that listed as and out of the 88 blogs of however many thousands there are on blogspot he clicked on my blog and commented on a post I had done about John Piper and honoring parents. The God thing was that I had not put "Last Flight Out" as my favorite movie Abby had (she had a blog on the same profile accidentally and changed it) and I had just a few days before considered changing my profile but then decided against it. So that was kind of a God thing :) So we started commenting back and forth which turned into long IM conversations, which lasted hours.


In October 2008 Kelly told me that we needed to not talk for awhile and broke off almost all contact for about 10 months due to some things that he needed to prove to his parents. When we started talking again in May 2009 I was not really ready to trust him at all. I had been hurt once before and I just wasn't ready to take that chance again. I was relived to know that his parents knew about me and we started talking on the phone. I did not have any feelings for him at this time (or at least I told myself that...truth to be told I kind of buried them away and tried to forget them). While he always had been spiritually mature in some ways he had not become a man yet and I was definitely not the woman I needed to be either.

So we talked on the phone a few times in the spring and then I headed off to camp and he headed of to 3 1/2 months in Papua New Guinea leading a team of all older guys in building a ministry center for To Every Tribe Ministries (the mission board we as a family were planning on going to the mission field with).
As I said before, I had had feelings for him before but I did not really have any feelings for him beside friendship for him during this time. Although I did pray that the Lord would take him from boyhood into manhood during his time in PNG I didn't really give him much thought the entire summer. I guess he did a lot of thinking about me though :) When he came back he called me and within the first two minutes of our conversation I realized that I was not talking to the boy that I had been before but instead to a GOD CENTERED man that had just...emerged. It was really amazing!

We started talking again and I started to really struggle with feelings that I had thought were non-existent except now things were definitely God centered it was really hard. So I started just surrendering him to the Lord and my desires to the Lord. Then, all the sudden Jen had been talking to him about his part in the American Gospel Tour and she said that there was no way she was going to invite him on it unless we had met him in person. The next thing I know he and his brother were coming out to visit us on November 10th to meet and discuss the Gospel Tour. Now truly he was coming out to discuss the gospel tour.

So three weeks before I was going to meet him in person I was a wreck. Then I realized that I HAD BEEN surrendering my singleness to the Lord BUT with lots of strings attached. So I came before the Lord one day and told Him that I was not only surrendering my singleness for the present but for the rest of my life EVEN IF it meant that I was going to be single for the rest of my life. In fact, I chose to expect it. Once I made that decision my whole attitude changed and I began jealously guard my heart. Once I started that every time I would start to think if only or stuff like that I would instantly give it to the Lord and try to get re-focused on Him.

So the 1st two days that Kelly and his brother Mike were at our house were horrible for me! Not because of them at all in fact Kelly was everything I had ever dreamed that he would be and more but I just was really quiet and not crazy outgoing and I just felt like I had disappointed him. Plus Danny and Abby are crazy outgoing so I just really felt bad (and a little bit jealous lol). The ironic part is that God completely confirmed to him that he should go ahead and ask my parents if he could pursue a courtship relationship (dating with a purpose of...marriage) during the first two days! I actually asked him about it and was like "How on earth did you know I didn't even talk?" and he told me that I didn't have to talk because he just observed and knew that the Lord wanted him to move forward.
In the meanwhile, I have absolutely NO CLUE and as the week progressed I was working overtime to keep my feelings for him (because yeah...I had a lot!) surrendered to the Lord.

One thing that the Lord had been laying on my heart the last six months before Kelly even was at all back in the picture was that I was supposed to go and serve the Lord in the foreign mission field. I had accepted that that probably meant I was supposed to be single so I was just moving towards that goal already. The whole week Kelly had been asking me questions about missions and how I felt about surrendering all to the Lord and being willing to serve Him in a hostile and/or persecuted area. I had absolutely no qualms about that and told him what the Lord had laid on my heart concerning missions. Little did I know that he was checking off qualities (because he is going to be a missionary to PNG).

So the last day rolls around and it was just not a good day for me. I felt like there was so much left unsaid. 10 minutes before I had to leave for work I really felt like I needed to let him know that my #1 fear about going to the mission field was that people would think that I was going just because he was going WHICH WAS NOT THE CASE AT ALL but I was afraid that people would think it would be. So I blurted it out to him like 10 minutes before I left and all he said was "It took you all week to tell me that?" To which I replied "Well, I kinda just got the courage up." And then that was it! OMW, I was a WRECK at work that day. I was almost in tears the whole time so finally at one point I just went into the kitchen, physically raised my hands to the Lord and surrendered the whole situation to Him.
So then on Wednesday night Kelly called and we talked for about 2 hours and I walked away from that conversation accepting the fact that while I had feelings for him I needed to just wait and we both needed to guard our hearts and be really really careful to honor the Lord in everything.

SO on Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 1:04pm (I know how sad is that lol) Kelly called me. I was on the way home from babysitting and Abby was driving. So I was just rambling on COMPLETELY oblivious when all the sudden he goes "So I have been thinking a lot about our conversation last night." I started worrying. I was sure I had said something that I shouldn't have so I am thinking up this amazing apology in my mind when all the sudden he goes into telling me that he knew he was really buddy buddy with Abby and Jen but that it was just because he was trying to be careful so he is saying all this stuff and I am SO OBLIVIOUS STILL so all the sudden the phone cuts out and then it comes back in and by this time we are home and Abby and Danny had gotten out of the car. So all the sudden he says "I have a question to ask you." And I said (COMPLETELY oblivious) "Yeah?" And he goes, "I have already talked to your parents and they have given me their blessing to ask you if you would be willing to enter into a courtship relationship with me?" All the sudden I was having a hard time breathing. The first words to come out of my mouth were NOT "Yes I would love to enter into a courtship relationship with you." NOPE, not me! Instead they were "Are you serious?" I was so shocked I seriously thought I was dreaming! When he assured me that he was indeed incredibly serious I got really quiet (again still working on the whole breathing thing). He very nicely said, "Well you don't have to give me an answer now." And I am thinking: I would really like to give you an answer now but I just can't seem to get all the things I want to say from my brain to my mouth! I think I said something about how I had been praying for months about this THEN I asked "Can I give you your answer now?" To which he replied "Yes" (and he sounded a bit relived I wonder why? lol). So when I could breathe again I said "Yes, I would love to enter into a courtship relationship with you." I think that next thing I said was "So, does this mean you are my boyfriend now?" :) And I am so glad he is!

So that is my story...the shortened version. God is just so good and it has been absolutely amazing how much I have grown in the Lord in the short time we have been in a relationship! I have realized that more now then ever I have to jealously guard my relationship with Jesus. Keeping Christ first and my relationship with Kelly second. It has definitely been a transition but I am so excited to see what the Lord has for us next! The neat thing too is having the blessing of all four parents :) He definitely went about it in the right way!

So right now we are moving forward trusting the Lord and taking things day by day. Our hearts desire is to bring honor and glory to the Lord through our relationship because when it comes down to it, our lives should be about Him and not about us."

"The Princess Adelina"

Well, I just read this book today and it was very good! So I thought we could do a bit of a book discussion on here. :-) Now, I know you guys probably haven't read this, so I figured y'all can give your thoughts on whatever us ladies decide to say about it. :-) So first I'm just gonna tell y'all what I liked best about it.

The whole book is great! But let me explain what I liked best. In the beginning when Adelina first met Gisilhar, they were both attracted to one another. And it gives you the idea that Adelina was often thinking about this free lord and she had dreams of marriage just like any other girl would. But she doesn't end up married to him, and you notice that those thoughts and dreams about Gisilhar in the past caused some trouble in her marriage later. For me, it kind of reminded me once again just how important it is to keep your emotions in check and watch our thoughts about guys/girls. In the book, Hedan (Adelina's husband) was very jealous of what he saw, or thought he saw between Adelina and Gisilhar. And It's not very much farther in the story before Adelina realizes that Gisilhar is not who she thought he was. I guess even the best of us can be blinded by emotions, but just think of how much smoother our marriages would be if we didn't have to deal with all kinds of emotional baggage from our past.

All in all, it was a great book and I loved it! Please comment with any thoughts or questions. If y'all enjoy doing this book discussion, I'll start doing them more often with some other great books on relationships. :-)

Emotional Purity...

I know I already posted on Emotional purity on my other blog about a month or two ago, but I wanted to post about it again for a few reasons. 1) I don't think you will ever stop needing encouragement in this area. 2) I want it to be on this blog as well. 3) God placed it on my heart again this week, so I want to follow his leading and go over it again. So I'm going to start by posting a small part out of "Before you meet Prince Charming" by Sarah Mally, but I am going to change it so that it will fit for both guys and girls. :-)

Emotional Purity is hardly even considered possible in our present society. But think of it this way: How would your future spouse feel if they knew that some other guy/girl had known your deepest thoughts, dreams, fears, and emotions? What would they think if some other person had known you even better than he/she knows you? Or how would you like if some other guy/girl had dozens of long, deep, intimate conversations with your spouse and knew practically everything there was to know about him/her? Save all your "firsts" not just your first "kiss". Some people think casually and think they might be having fun now but how will that affect their marriages later? A list of some meaningful "firsts" that could happen and should be shared with that special someone:

• First expression of interest


• First words of affection or love


• First gift given or received
  


• First romantic look into his eyes


• First trip together


• First special song, place, event, or memory


• First ring


• First dinner date


• First personal letter expressing emotions


• First "I love you"


• First piece of your heart given


• First serious or ongoing correspondence with a young man or woman
  


• First special affectionate nicknames or actions


• First kiss
  
  

That is not a list of rules but a list to make you think. Many young people seem to want to get close to the line as possible and still remain pure. But looking at the big picture of our lives ought to motivate us to have the opposite perspective. The question is how much can I save for him/her, how many little special and meaningful "firsts" will I have to share with him/her? It is not that we are merely trying to avoid the worst, but rather that we desire to archive the best!

I believe that emotional purity is just as important as physical purity, but so much harder to do! The smallest thought that is not pure will continue to grow and in the end that thought will take you so much farther then you ever realized. We need to be so careful of guarding our minds! Have you ever thought about some of the movies and music that parents hand to their teenagers? And then they act so surprised when they find out that their 16 year old daughter is pregnant. Country music is a good example...not only is the music ungodly, but the words are either talking about picking up or breaking up. That is not going to keep your mind pure! Think about the music you listen to, the movies you watch, and the books you read...do they ALL honor and glorify God or are you having to struggle to keep your mind from thinking on the wrong things?

Okay, so I got off on a rabbit trail there, but I hope we as young adults can understand just how important this is. Not only can movies, music, and books ruin our emotional purity...but thinking about a certain guy/girl too much can do the same thing. I don't care if you're already engaged to the person, you still need to keep your thoughts about them pure until your married. And learning how to do that now will help you stay faithful to your spouse later. Just because you have a crush on a guy/girl doesn't mean its okay to have wrong thoughts about them. People often say its normal to have a crush and to leave it alone. Well, yes...it is normal, but that doesn't mean it should be left alone. I don't think it should be encouraged at all, but those young people need to learn to control their thoughts and emotions. Believe me, I know it's a lot easier said then done. Let me just say this again so I'm clear...It is very normal for someone to be attracted to someone and to have a crush. BUT...that is not a reason to let your thoughts run wild! Instead of thinking about him/her all of the time, pray about it. Now, don't go and pray "God, please let me marry him/her! Please!!" but why not try something like this "Lord, please be with him/her and guide and direct both of our lives. Help me to keep a pure heart and mind, and guard and keep my heart until you show me the right person." I realize that there is nothing wrong with praying for things we want, but I think when we pray for God's will, we end up realizing that his will is what we wanted all along.