Are you the person the person you’re looking for is looking for? - Andy Stanley
Let those words sink in for a moment, truly hear them. And then ask yourself, are you?
Most of us whether male or female spend a lot of our time wondering about our future's, and one of the main things we wonder about is the person we're gonna end up marrying. Everyone has done it, and for all the people out there who seem to be eternally single, I know you find yourself lamenting 'when am I ever going to find the one?!' 'Will I be single forever?!' 'How come nobody loves me?!'
As girls, I believe we think about this probably more than guys. It's just in our nature to dream and fantasize about the perfect wedding, the perfect marriage, the perfect man, the perfect family and all the cute little Pinterest ideas were gonna put in our perfect house when we find "the one." Pretty much every girl I know, including myself in some ways, knows exactly what kind of ring she wants, the dress she wants, the ideal location for her wedding, what color she wants the wedding party to wear, and also a list of names she wants to give her future children. All this with or without a guy we're planning on marrying. It is a little crazy, but it's just what we do.
It's not wrong to do these things, in fact, it's pretty fun and kind of sweet. As long as you don't get too crazy with it... (Bridezillas are a real thing. I have seen the show.) But - I often wonder if we are spending so much time thinking about the material and physical things concerning our preparedness for our future relationships that we're missing the actual important stuff that will prepare us for marriage.
Maybe instead of spending all our time wondering about the other person, and everything we want from our future spouse it's time to look inside and figure out what kind of spouse someone is looking for in you.
Are you ready to love someone like 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 "4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." I know I'm not nearly ready to love someone that selflessly.
In Ephesians 5:22-23 it says: "22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior." Now I know this is one I need to prepare myself for because I'm not too good at laying my will down for someone else's. Further down in verses 25 and 28 it tells us how a husband should love his wife: "25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." And "28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. " I don't know about you but I'd have to say that Christ loved the church (which is us) a lot. He was willing to be crucified so that we would be saved. And now we're seeing husbands are supposed to love their wives like that? That's tough.
Relationships are really hard, and in a modern world, marriage is even harder. We live in a world where it's all about what we want when we want it. It's all about gifts and feelings and cute pictures. But those are all surface level things, and I think it's because of the selfishness and lack of true selfless love inside ourselves that the divorce rate is up to 50% in American marriages. Marriage is supposed to be a picture of how Jesus loves the church (us). And since no one but Him is the literal son of God, and since every one of us besides him has sinned and fallen short on a daily basis this is no easy task. The fact is, it was never meant to be easy. It's about sacrifice. Do you think anyone really wants to submit themselves to their husband? Do you think it's easy to love someone more than yourself? It's not. But if you will let yourself trust and do as God has lead us to then you'll find that submitting and loving creates two people into one that can accomplish more in this world together than they ever could apart.
True love is selflessness, which is the hardest thing we could ever try to do. There's no way to imagine a moment without yourself in it, so this kind of love is something that you'll have to work at every single day.
It's so much more than all the ideas we have in our heads and the movies we've seen. It's so much deeper than that. And to succeed the way that we all hope and desire to we have to put our trust in God. And we have to pray and work at being the person that the person we're looking for is looking for.
So, my challenge for you is to forget about all the things you want and need in a spouse, stop obsessing over if you'll ever find love or if that person you saw at Chickfila who kinda smiled at you could be "the one", and to instead work hard at becoming the kind of person God has called you to be. The kind of spouse who can love like 1 Corinthians 13, the kind of wife who can submit herself or husband who can love like he loves himself like it says in Ephesians 5. This is no easy challenge, but I promise you, you will be better off because of it. And if one day you do find that great love of your life, you will be able to love and care for them the way that you have been called to.
