This is more of a reflection blog than anything else. The past 4 weeks at NewHope we have talked about making marriage last a lifetime. Although I am not married yet, I plan on getting married one day and I was so excited to dive right into this series. When I thought of getting married, I dreamed of marrying the wonderful Christian man who lead me and my family in the prayer of God in our home. But this series is so much more that that and I wanted to wait until the end of the series to share my reflections and thoughts.
So in the first week Pastor Benji talked about finding that number one. So your first thought is finding the right guy or gal, right? Of course, everyone wants to find that fantastic one that will make your heart melt. But what he meant was finding God as your number one.
Matthew 22:37-39 37
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself."
"To love someone like God loves them, we have to love God like he commands us to. Until then, we cannot be fully content with the relationship."
Loving God the way he intended us to love Him will teach us how to love others and most importantly will you teach you how to love the person you spend the rest of your life with.
Jesus is the one.
Only He can meet certain needs
Don't rely on your spouse to fulfill those needs.
Your spouse is your number two.
When God is number one in your life everything will start to fall into place the way he has planned.
Exodus 34:14
"Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God."
I like this version better
"You must worship no other gods, for the Lord, whose very name is Jealous, is a God who is jealous about his relationship with you."
God is passionate about having a relationship with me and my prayer is that I grow more and more passionate about my relationship with him.
So sometimes I find it super difficult to keep my relationship with God number one in my life. It's not always as easy as having a person sitting right there with you to touch and look in the eye. But sometimes I find myself focusing on other things so much more than I focus on God. I focus on work, other relationships, family, and by the end of the day I'm exhausted and fall asleep without even realizing did I speak to my number one relationship of all time today? But when I start focusing on God first those other relationships will start growing. And the best relationship is one that is shared in the love of Christ. Specifically the one I have with Tyler. The closer I am to God, and the closer he is to God, the closer we become as a couple.
In my high school Bible class we studied this triangle diagram. The Model of love.
And since I am not married, my triangle say Kelsey and Tyler in the place of husband and wife, as Girlfriend and Boyfriend.
So the closer we both grow to God the closer we both start growing together, and let me tell you how much I love this diagram, the closer I grow to God the more I grow closer to Tyler, and the more we start understanding each other better and better yet each others relationship with the Lord.
So the next week we talked about finding the number two in your life. Your souse.
3 things I learned about how you know when you've met that person
1. You have Jesus in common more than anything else.
2. Being attracted to that person.
3. You can serve God better with that person that you could alone.
There is nothing more beautiful to me than a godly man.
Be wise by God's standards.
don't be easy on these things
1. Who I'll date.
2 Corinthians 6:14-15 - "Don't be yoked with an unbeliever..."
You cannot change him/her.
2 What I'll do.
It matters how I act and live as a Christian
1 Peter 1:14-15- "... be holy in all you do"
Holiness still matters, and purity still matters.
3. What I'll expect.
Don't expect less than what you have desired. Expect more out of who you chose to spend your life with.
Ephesians 3:20- "Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely
more than what we might ask or think."
I desire a godly marriage, and I'm not going to stop desiring that for someone who doesn't want that.
One thing that really sunk into my chest was that I need to make sure I'm not making myself number one in Tyler's life. I need to help him be accountable (and him make me accountable) to making God his number one.
(skipping the third week)
The fourth week was probably one of my favorites. We had a guest speaker, Michael Thompson come in and speak about the Role of the Masculine Heart in a marriage. And yes again I'm not a male, nor am I married. But he spoke exactly how my heart feels about how I want my husband to be.
He talked about the responsibility of a mans heart for his wife:
1. To provide
2. To protect
3. To redeem
4. To restore
Then he showed us a video by Jon McLaughlin - Beautiful Disaster
(here's the link, I have no idea how to put the video on here sorry!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eWDZqc7lCc
The number one thing that I want is for my future husband to pursue God before pursuing me.
Ephesians 5-25-26
"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word."
The love should be based on giving, not getting.
3 things that Jesus knew
1. He knew who he was
2. He knew where he was
3. He knew the good that God was up to in his life
These things are things that most of us are trying to master.
A woman's heart has been on a journey, and a man needs to know where her heart has been, before he was a part of the picture.
3 things a woman asks a man
1. Do you see me?
2. Do you like what you see?
3. Will you fight for me?
A little girl (or big girl) doesn't just act like a princess, she is a princess.
Core desires of a woman's heart
1. To be romanced
2. To have an irreplaceable role in a great adventure
3. To offer her beauty
The number 1 fear of a woman's heart
1. Being abandoned.
Okay, so this is all that Michael Thompson spoke out (in a nutshell).
The reason this was one of my favorite series is because I found out more of what I was focusing on and more of what I need to focus on.
The second reason is because now I know I used to change my expectations because I didn't want to feel abandoned.
I guess I really wanted to reflect this by blogging, because I used to be the person that changed my expectations and desires in fear I would lose something that I thought was going to last. But when I decided to step back and let God control the things that will last I found out so much more about myself, and realized how much I was missing before. God took control of my life, all aspects of it, and has blessed me with a godly man who loves God more than me, and with a family who taught him to be godly. God blessed me with parents who instilled the same values. I guess before I was scared of being abandoned. And now I know God is going to take care of me. I cannot wait to see what God has in store for my life with Tyler. But trusting Him is the first part. Trusting that God is teaching me and Tyler to love each other they way He has intended it to be is so exciting because you start seeing the fabulous results.
This was one of my longer blogs, and more of my notes from the series, if you wanted to see the series they are all online at www.newhopenc.org
And I guess it's a way of telling my story and how God changed my life and put people in my life that love me the way God intended love to be.
Zephaniah 3:17
