Girls, what if I told you that we can actually initiate? It’s been ingrained in most of us Christian girls that we must wait to find a boyfriend who will eventually be a husband and until then we must guard our hearts, not get our feelings involved and hope that the nice Christian guy that keeps inviting us to hang out actually is pursuing us. The worst part about that is if we ask to “define the relationship” it’ll be the end because as nice Christian girls we were taught to do the “responding” while guy does the “pursuing” or the “leading.” We blindly follow, hoping that our hearts won’t get hurt along the way.

We have always been told that if we initiate a date, a phone call, or even a conversation we’re taking over and overstepping our boundaries and crossing over into headship. This isn’t necessarily true. As courageous Christian girls our job isn’t to wait around and twiddle our thumbs in hopes that the guy sitting across from us is pursuing us.

Look at a few women in the Bible who initiated for good reasons. Ruth, the greatest example of all, didn’t blindly follow Boaz. She saw how Boaz singled her out in his fields and was very kind to her. After that, she didn’t wait and hope that one day Boaz would choose her. Instead she got up one night and went to sleep at his feet and let him make the next move. Guess what? It payed off because Ruth and Boaz got married.

Gosh, it’s no wonder we share all of the dating articles and feel the pressure to find the perfect guy (I mean look at Boaz, he was pretty great). We want them to be confident and mature enough to initiate a date, and yet we guard our hearts at the same time. Trust me, that is a lot of pressure to put on a guy. Even the godliest guy will at some point let us down and hurt our feelings and probably not be very good at asking us on a date. He’s still a fallen human being, and we can’t place all our hope in him. When we constantly thrust our high (often unrealistic) expectations on to good Christian guys, they end up falling short. Let’s not put that kind of pressure on our brothers in Christ.

Ladies, we can initiate dates and conversations. Let’s take some of the pressure off of guys to guard our hearts and instead let’s allow Jesus to guard our hearts and direct our paths. Let’s also pursue friendships with godly guys, and maybe we can even ask the one, who’s too nervous to ask us, on a date. Let’s look for the guy who might not have it all together and have several weaknesses, but is willing to follow Jesus with all his heart, because that guy is gold.