Choosing Between God
& A Guy
Most of you have experienced that one guy who captured your breath along with your heart; the fireworks when you first kissed; and the lingering on the phone waiting for the other to say "good bye" first. When I was a couple years younger, I met a guy. Man, did he rock my world. I had dated one or two guys before meeting him, but none of them made me feel the way he made me feel. But, here was the glitch: he wasn't a believer in Christ, and he had verbally abusive tendencies. I, with my weak faith and low self esteem at the time, just didn't care.
Skipping over the sappy details to the painful lessons--after saying abusive things to me, yet again, I ended it. I was done. But, then seven months later, he tried to come back into my life by telling me he was sorry, and that he changed. Blah, blah, blah. At this time in my life, I was growing much deeper in my faith, but I was still rickety. My eyes were not fully focused on Jesus, so I let him in, knowing that he really hadn't changed. Unfortunately, I didn't think I was worthy of a Godly man at the time.
I continued to be careful and very leery of this guy. But right when I was letting him back into my heart, he ripped and abused it even more than before. I cried for hours. I felt beaten and worn out. The Heavenly Father, as sweet and adorable as He is, picked me up and carried me to safer ground. I grew leaps and bounds in my faith, and fell madly in love with my Creator. My mind and soul became focused on the only true love I'll ever have: Jesus. For almost two years, I hadn't heard from my former freshman flame. However, one day he started calling me on the phone, time after time. I never answered. When the phone rang and it was him, I prayed for strength from Abba.
One day, while I was praying by a happily nestled stream, I knew that if I was the woman of God I wanted to be, I needed to show mercy.
show mercy. I needed to show my former flame grace and mercy the way my Savior did to me. Now, before you freak out and say, "She got back with him?!" Please know that I didn't. That was never my intention. Showing grace and mercy isn't always forgetting and blindly trying to go back to the way things used to be. No, grace and mercy is showing the person that they are forgiven, not only by you, but by God and then moving forward with your life. Closure is grace and mercy. No one deserves the cold shoulder and silence. If that's how our Savior worked, then we all would be in a heap of trouble.
After armoring myself with the Word and clothing myself with the strength of Jesus, I responded. We talked on the phone--well he mostly talked--and I could tell he really had changed. He said things that would melt even the coldest of hearts. I'll be honest, for a second there, I started to waver. I told him I needed to pray (which was bizarre to him since he wasn't a Christian). I cried out to God asking why this was so hard. Now that I started to hear my former flame's voice and the things I always wanted him to say, my old self started to come back up to the surface. Since this guy, I hadn't dated anyone. I prayed that God would send me the man I was going to marry so it would be easier to say no. Silly, I know, and not the right reason to ask God to deliver your future husband to your door step. I wasn't thinking clearly and wanted the easy way out. But, there's no easy way with showing mercy and forgiveness. If there was, then Jesus wouldn't have died on the cross.
I had a choice to make, my former flame or God. The guy who once held my feelings in his palm who crushed me like a grape vs. the Man who gave His love and His life so that my soul could be with Him for eternity. Let it be said, beloved, that choosing God isn't always as clear as the statement above, especially when under the hazy cloud of Satan's lies.
I made a vow to love my Savior forever. I rid myself of the "old" me, and with that, I had to forget my old ways. Jesus Christ is so much more than any pretty things that a boy tells you. He isn't an ornament to your life to put on and off when you want. He IS your life. Shortly after I prayed to God, I called my former flame up and told him, "No." I said, "You have my forgiveness, but God has someone else for me." I told him I hoped he would know Christ one day and the true joy He brings.
I'm so glad I listened to the small voice, down by that lovely little stream. Even though God didn't make it easier by sending me the man I'm going to marry, nor did he speak to me and say, "You must choose Me." God was actually silent during my struggle to make a decision. I think it was because He wanted me to make the choice on my own. He wasn't pushy or demanding that I choose Him over my non-believing guy. He gently guided me to show another mercy and forgiveness. Because decisions like this are never about only us and God. That would be unhealthy. He sends us out knowing He might lose us, just as I could have been lost in the sugar-coated words of this guy. He sends us out trusting
us to return, but giving us a free will to reject Him. But, when we do reject Him, He forgives and nurses us back to health. Now, that's true love, my friend. I don't think any human has that kind of forgiveness in them.
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