A Heart Pure from Flirtatious, Empy Relationships

“My Daddy will never walk me down the aisle” was one of the most distressing realizations I had the day he died. The thought brought its own outpour of bitter tears. How I had always dreamed of the happy day I would be married! To date, Daddy had always been first in my heart; I had always resolved to never marry someone without his most fervent blessing and his utmost approval. I would think, “Above all things, he MUST get along with my father; my father must like him, respect him, and trust him; or he has no hope of ever winning my affection or regard.”

I remember with a tear or two expressing this to Brent. He laughed, saying, “You don’t need anyone to walk you down the aisle; your five brothers will carry you!” The tears had no room after that, for how could I not laugh at the ridiculous picture his words brought to mind! Brothers can be SO sweet sometimes.

But my thoughts of marriage continued, growing stronger as the days went on and there was no Daddy coming home in the evenings; only Brent and Stephen, and though sweet as they are, they’re still brothers. The enemy does use such times when we’re vulnerable to play with our mind, and I battled as never before with foolish fancies that seemed to appear from nowhere and want to take up residence. I hated them; I refused them; shutting them out again and again, disallowing them to reign in my heart and in my mind. 

We live in a sensual, perverted culture that screams at youth, dictating that they stagger through dozens of different relationships, beginning at age thirteen and on up, until they find The One. And by the way, don’t dare find him (or her) until you’re at least in your twenties! Also, don’t forget, you want to graduate college first and get that high-paying job! With this mentality, who knows how many boyfriends a girl will go through in ten or twelve years? How many hours, days, years wasted on someone who will later be only a scar on her heart? What folly! How pointless, trifling, and vain!

I am not exempt from this culture and its pull. I desire to be married. At times, I covet it. I would love to marry a man who fears God more than man and who loves Him more than pleasures; but, and this I say loudly, I’d rather be attending the Lord without distraction (I Corinthians 7:35) then absorbed in a vain relationship. I’d rather be content with serving my family, unmarried, than discontent with a worldly husband and 2.3 bratty kids demanding children. You see, more than I anything else, I desire to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Oh, how I do not want to be as the horse and mule which must be controlled by bit and bridle! May I follow the leading of the Lord, willingly, submissively, gladly; and even when I do not understand the bend in the road, may I lean on His understanding, trusting Him to direct me in the path where I can most effectively encourage others in our pilgrim journey!

How can I rejoice in the path before me, and yet still covet marriage so earnestly? It’s a double standard. “Purify your hearts, ye double-minded” (James 4:8) Which I find I must do daily, praying that I not be deceived nor allow my heart to be stolen prematurely. “Guard my heart, O Lord. Change it, renew it, to desire what You desire and to hate what You hate.”

The Book of Revelation speaks of the bride, “who hath made herself ready,” and the bride, “adorned for her husband.” Because I do not yet know what my future husband may need, my focus must be delicately dependent on the Lord’s work in me. He knows all things and knows exactly how to prepare me for what is so unknown and unseen, that I may do him good even now and all the days of my life, doubling his joys, and dividing his sorrows. May God work in me, that I may be strong to conquer all the challenges that await me in my life with him, as his helpmeet. I pray God is even now birthing in him a great mission, great not necessarily in size, but in depth, eternal weight in glory, in everlasting significance.

I do not have an unrealistic, legalist standard, but a Biblical, kingdom-minded one. All preconceived notions and personal preferences aside, my first questions are, “Would this union bring glory to Christ? Would it result in more souls birthed into the Kingdom? Would it be a picture of Christ’s love for His Church? Could I submit to him as the Church is subject to Christ? Would this man’s love for our children be such that their minds may easily draw a parallel between their earthly and heavenly Fathers, and thus be filled with awe of how God the Father must love them?”

For now, my family needs me, and until a godly man needs my help more than my family does, I will continue to joyfully serve the beautiful family the Lord has given me.  

The Love of a Father

Every once in a while, a kind elder brother in the Lord will do or say something that recalls to me, ever so vividly, the beauty of that unique feeling of having an earthly, visible father, that feeling that used to be so constant, that feeling that I sometimes miss with longing.

What security, what confidence, a devoted father provides for a daughter! His very presence equals rest, peace, and assurance. He is protective, shielding her from evil; directive, guiding her daily choices; and instructive, bringing her up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Brought up by such a father, I rarely experienced worry, fear, or stress; but after his death I suddenly had to learn to juggle many new responsibilities, which of themselves were challenging, but without a father’s guidance, weighty and burdensome. I felt lost and confused. I could not trust myself; I know my fleshly nature too well, my selfishness and pride, my laziness and self-indolence. I am so weak, ready to believe all I hear, easily deceived, lacking discernment… Need I go on?

I have been uniquely blessed to have many wise counselors in my life and to them I am very thankful; but I could not single any one out to take my Daddy’s place. I sought for weeks, ever so aimlessly, for someone to fill the gigantic void, someone on whom I could depend to lead me. How painful to realize that not one of the older men I most respected or even all combined could fill the aching void, though I prayed and searched and hoped!

Surely my motive was right. Surely God saw that the desire of my heart was to please Him above all. As I turned in desperation to Him, He opened the eyes of my understanding, shedding light on the darkness of my deception.

“Then opened He their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45).

Did not HE call Himself the Father to the fatherless? What need had I to rely on fallible man when God had left me such an amazing promise! Finally, completely, I ceased my fruitless search and surrendered to Him my yearning needs that could only be fully satisfied by Himself. I had been needy, foolishly so, like a child refusing to eat the wholesome food placed before him and instead demanding to return to the breast to be nursed again! 

I began writing almost daily, and I’m not talking Facebook status updates. I’m talking me, my Bible, my God, and pencil and paper. Instead of rambling to my Daddy each day, I wrote pages of personal reflections of my hopes and disappointments, of my struggles and victories, of the happenings of each day, and of my questions and doubts. It was almost like a way of communicating to my Heavenly Father. How oft, in my effort to express myself clearly, did the Spirit reveal to me the correlations between what seemed to be random, disconnected incidents, but were providentially ordained by God.

Through my daily writing I perceived that, within the very week of my surrender, God poured His love out to me through a man whom I had never consciously met, but of whom my father had spoken highly. This man and his wife embraced my family with a love that could not be explained nor rationalized, apart from the Lord Jesus.

“By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35).

Being released from my feelings of emptiness, I could rejoice and delight in this unsought loving care shown so generously to me, smiling and happy, and praising God, and yet continue to be content in its absence. I was free to enjoy, but not depend upon, the attention of others. It was like icing on the cake.

I am blessed to count no less than a dozen wise, older men, dear friends God has placed in my life, who show me love in various little ways that I am so quick to notice. Often they wistfully remind me of the blessings of a father. Perhaps the reminder is in the form of words of praise and affirmation, or of gentle correction, or some teasing comment that makes me smile. Perhaps it is a warm embrace, a hearty smile, loving concern for my happiness and welfare, or any one of the millions of ways a father shows love to a daughter. But these no longer sadden me. I rejoice in them as they illuminate to me so beautifully life-size pictures of what the fatherly love of God is like. They are powerful, memorable lessons of Who is on my side:

“A Father of the fatherless, and a Judge of the widows, is God in His holy habitation” (Psalm 68:5).

"The Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward: He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow" (Deuteronomy 10:17-18).

To be sacrificially loved by one esteemed as wise and strong, equals security, rest, peace, assurance, confidence. The feelings that kind of love stirs up in me speaks, ever so loudly, of He who loved me before I was lovable and sacrificed all to have fellowship with me; who protects and cherishes me as a daughter and blesses me indescribably.

God has been so faithful. I’m His girl. What have I to fear? My Father owns the world and controls the very beating of every heart. May I be obedient to Him, fully resting in His care, bold, courageous, and strong, unafraid of man, unafraid of suffering, unafraid of the devil’s schemes.

One day I’d like to marry a God-fearing, upright man who will be such a father to our children that their minds may easily draw a parallel between their earthly and heavenly Fathers, and thus be filled with awe of how God the Father must love them.

Delighting in the Paths of Righteousness

A story of centuries ago tells of two children whose daily walk to school is bordered on one side by a gigantic hedge of thorns. Immediately above the hedge rises the generous branches of a prolific apple tree, amidst the glorious expanse of the western sky.

Desiring the forbidden fruit and deploring the hindering thorns, the wayward brother daily expresses his dissatisfaction with the path before him, eventually resolving to break through the hedge into freedom. His credulous little sister listens in wonder.

And so he begins his struggle to cut through. His arms scratch and bleed, yet he remains undeterred.

“Now, sister, try to get through the Hedge first, for you are the least, and I will follow.”

The sister crawls a short space before she cries out fearfully against the darkness and thorns. In a fit of passion and disgust at her timidity, he thrusts her further, but her cries grow louder, “My brother, my brother! The thorns, the thorns!” Hastily dragging her out, he finds to his horror a face pierced and bleeding!

Poor, ignorant children! The very object of their discontentment, the restrictive hedge, has barely rescued the little girl from a violent death, for it sits next to a deep ravine where it was planted decades earlier to prevent young children from falling.

Oh, blessed thorns that keep the wayward soul from sin and destruction! Blessed thorns that keep us on the path of righteousness!

God in His providence has provided “hedges” to deter His followers from straying from the path of eternal life. These restrictions are not to harm us, stifle us, or enslave us, but actually to check our tendency to choose the destructive path of sin.

Those who rebel against the hedge and struggle against the thorns will be pierced with pain, sorrow, and eventually death; but the thorns are seldom felt by those who patiently walk in the paths appointed them, without attempting to break from them, either to the right or to the left.

“Thorns and snares are in the way of the froward: he that doth keep his soul shall be far from them” (Proverbs 22:5).

The very things we chafe under, that seem to stifle our freedom, are sometimes actually a means God is using to restrain us from sin and make clear to us the direction He wants us to follow. These “hedges” can be so many things: the strictness of parents, the expectations of elders, sickness, handicap, poverty, death of family or friends, unreasonable in-laws, a wayward child, ailing parents, etc.

When I struggle with discontentment, I like to picture myself as one of these children. The way was so plain before their eyes, so uncomplicated, so protected. Why must they draw aside to injure themselves with the thorns? Why must I grab after what is beyond my reach – Ouch! Let me thrust the thorns out of my way – Ouch! I will fight more fiercely; I will conquer them – Ouch, ouch, ouch!

Oh, God forbid! May I have the faith to say yes to Him, in total surrender, and so never feel the wounding thorns! Let this ever be the thought of my heart:

“I delight to do Thy will, O my God; yea, Thy law in within my heart” (Psalm 40:8).

Delight. What thrill this word stirs in me! Does aught other word express a joy so rich and lasting, so satisfactory?

Webster defines:

DELIGHT: “To affect with great pleasure; to please highly; to give or afford high satisfaction or joy; as, a beautiful landscape delights the eye; harmony delights the ear; the good conduct of children, and especially their piety, delights their parents. ‘I will delight myself in thy statutes.’ Psalm 119.”

Yes, I delight in His will! I will rejoice in the way He has chosen for me. I am journeying on the narrow path to everlasting glory. “Thou wilt show me the path of life: in Thy presence is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Psalm 16:11).