overdue allegiance to Him

I have spoken much about relationships, perhaps not so much recently, but enough to communicate the theoretical framework for the word God has placed on my heart. The subject I have never approached is the theoretical possibility that this “ideal” may elude me in life.

We develop convictions for a reason -- some Godly and some not. I may be a man with more convictions than most, but like the man of lesser conviction, I must toss them in the fire to discover what is verified, purified, or outright discarded. I feel like I spent a better part of ten years having a number of difficult convictions verified; this past year has brought a great deal of discarding. Through this process, God has begun to purge my personal preferences from His ultimate desires. My well-intended (but ill-conceived) habit of placing particular women on a pedestal has evaporated like a paper plate in a campfire.

However, it is the purifying of my convictions that disables me from evaluating women with a mental checklist. “A+B+C = the perfect wife” may sound methodically prudent in my head, but it didn’t require the knowledge of good and evil for Adam to discover that Eve was a blessing. (See what I did there?)

Another phrase has been thrown around in Christian circles: “Do not settle for the one you could live with; marry the one that you could not live without.” In hindsight, I believe this is an excellent way to evaluate the health of a relationship, but I also remember feeling that I could not live without a couple women while with them, only to reflect and recognize this clearly was not the case (unmistakably, since I am still with y‘all).

No friends, I must utilize a different criteria in the present -- one most certain to leave me single. If every other conviction or value is to be purged by the flame of God, this one will not. I must build my convictions for a relationship around every other work He has already set before me. She must follow.

“Well, duh!” you may say, as this is the natural order of things. But to truly allow this conviction to supercede all else, two things must occur that are quite contrary to the tent in which we reside:

1) I must be worth following. I’m not proposing a need for perfection on my behalf, but I also cannot ignore how essential this is to the other point I am about to make. Imagine if Christ had asked his disciples to follow and had led them to deception or an eternal death. Does he gain another opportunity to regain their trust? Their lives would have been in vain. We can talk a big game, but if she cannot trust that I am leading her as I am being led by Christ, the rest is a wash. The scary part for us men is that we don’t get to evaluate whether we’re worthy of being followed. That brand of leadership works for the world, but it falls short in Godly marriage.

2) She gets the whole package. This is where the wheels fall off in a hurry. God has asked me to move nine hours with no friends, quit my job, work for minimum wage, speak ill of respected establishments, move again, condemn accepted American practices, leave the uncommitted behind, move again, buy a house -- these are only the requests in which I’ve been obedient. There’s nothing noble about doing what our Father asks of us, but our Father asks a lot of me, and this takes precedent. Sometimes it leaves me weary, disheartened, and burdened without warning. She gets that too, and I‘ve compromised this too often.

That’s really it, my only convictions that remain. Now, squeeze that into the question of “the one I cannot live without,” and we’re talking about a miracle of God proportions. Because I’ve gone about living without her for 32 years, and all this remains, I can only presume that the one thing I lack is grace, and grace is a gift that cannot be conceived in advance. She is the gift that God provides to comfort the pieces of me that I‘ve never known needed comforted. She is the truth that breaks my wall of lawfulness. And I am the same for her.

I felt it was important to type this tonight, even if it is to understand that I cannot sit around waiting for her when He’s already told me what to do. If the stream of her life crosses paths with mine, we will certainly know when that transpires, because a woman like this holds convictions just as deep. Until then, take heart my love, and you will only be spoken of in my prayers.