The first time I remember feeling my heart’s longing for a romantic relationship was through watching Prince Eric kill Ursula to save Ariel and take her to be his wife. This story ignited a tiny fire inside of me that, over time, was thrown more and more fuel from the world around me. Needless to say, I bought into the idea that I needed some type of boy-girl relationship in my life. When I was a teenager, I felt discontent and insecure most of the time when I was single and all of my happiness dwelt around the idea of this mystical relationship. This began the idolatry of relationships in my life. Here’s the funny thing about idols… they never fully satisfy; boyfriend after boyfriend… I was never completely happy. When I was single, I thought I was seeking the Lord, but regretfully, I admit that I wasted a ton of time wistfully wondering when God would bring “him” into my life, and too often did I doubt God and wonder why He would withhold this desired thing from me.
It wasn’t until I was in the most broken state of my adult life that God opened my eyes to His truths and promises about my heart, my love, and my life. In my mind, I was a “good” girl who simply wanted to love and be loved, just like every other girl in the world. However, I was desperately and ineffectively trying to control my relationships and looking to them to fulfill me. At this God-given revelation, I very painfully and tearfully released my grip on this idol and clung to Christ. When in His arms, I was able to view my sin in a whole new way and soon became disgusted at the way I had become enslaved to something so simple and ordinary. After being broken and began to be healed, I resolved to be single until God distinctly called me into an earthly relationship. I resolved to rest in God’s arms, falling in love with Him and treating Him like the Husband that He is to me, abandoning the desire for an earthly romance for a season.
After about a year of constantly pouring my heart out to God and having Him pursue me, pull me away from the world, and romance me, I no longer desired an earthly relationship the way I previously had. When I truly experienced God’s divine romance, I realized that no earthly romance could ever begin to match it. Earthly kisses from mere men left me empty and hungry for something more, but just one breath from my heavenly Lover’s lips is enough to satisfy the deepest longings of my soul for eternity. Just a little over a year ago, I shamefully admit that I thought that a relationship with God would be a nice complement to a relationship with a man. I “fell in love” when attraction was strong and the feelings were “right.” Now, my greatest desire is to fall more in love with my King and I only want an earthly relationship with a man when and if it will complement my relationship with God.
(Please note that I don’t tell you all of this to pat my own back… this is completely Christ working in me and is no result of anything that I have done. I tell you this to say “Look what I have… I want you to have it, too!!)
Don’t get me wrong… marriages are a beautiful thing created by God; they were made to reflect Him. We were created to share all of our love, dreams, bodies, minds, and hearts with our earthly spouses. However, as a society, we’ve jumped the gun in sharing these things with people who are not our spouses. The truth of the matter is that when we fall into this sin, God is actually being merciful to us by keeping us single and allowing us to have time to identify and then make war on it before we meet our spouses. After all, who wants to marry an insecure, discontent person who is counting on them to satisfy every desire and need? That’s an impossibly heavy weight to carry!
God is a jealous God.
This means that He wants ALL of our heart, soul, and might (Dueteronomy 6:5, KJV). He was meant to be our first love (Revelation 2:4, KJV). It is only when you surrender every part of yourself to Christ, trusting and loving Him, will you be able to experience the fullness of all that God designed love to be.
In 2 Corinthians 11:2, God says, “For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.”
When we hear the word “jealous,” we usually bear this word with a negative connotation to it, but only God has the right to be jealous over us because He is God. He created us for Himself. This means that we are His and He wants us to act like it in every possible way. The second part of this verse holds many truths: First of all, God espoused us, which literally means that He has “joined,” “wooed,” and “betrothed” us (if you want to know more about this “wooage,” scroll down and check out the blog “Divine Romance”) to Christ, a Husband who is perfect, holy, and completely satisfying. Secondly, He will present us as a “chaste,” or clean, innocent, modest, perfect, and pure virgin to Christ. In this text, the word “virgin” means “unknown” or “an unmarried daughter.” The question that comes to mind after soaking all of this in is: How can I be pursuing Christ in this way if I constantly try to throw my heart into the hands of a man? Christ deserves to be our first love; our first Husband. We should strive to be ‘modest’ with our hearts and ‘innocent and pure’ in our intentions. It is my meek belief that when this becomes true in our lives as we run towards Christ, earthly romance will slip in somewhere along the way in His perfect timing.
Why settle for the world’s distorted version of love when you can have ALL that it offers from a Spouse who smiles at every breath you take and rejoices over you with singing, fulfilling and satisfying you in a way that no man ever could? …just a thought.
