I love my relationship with the Father because its grown so much. One of the key things I enjoy immensely is how bold He's made me in prayer. There are prayers I never would have prayed a year ago that I pray today.
Last night I prayed a massive prayer.
A "Only God could do this" prayer.
A "I trust you to do this because I can't" prayer.
Yesterday's prayer brought out a desire I didn't even realize I had. Can I tell you the part of my prayer where I surrender....where I say "If it be thy will" broke me wide open? It did because though I have requests I also realize that I have no control. It'll have to be His will for it to come to pass.
There's a level of vulnerability I can show God that I don't show any. Who can you tell you deepest desires to who has the power to actually make that happen? God alone. There's desperation at the throne for me on this one. I'm kind of in awe at how humbled in am by this and how much faith its going to require. Like really God? That's where I am? I didn't even really realize how deep my trust in You had grown.
I also know that nothing that isn't His best for me will be permitted. SN: I was just so humbled in prayer but the reality that He is giving me His absolute best. Consider that a moment. God's best is what He offers those of us who belong to Him. Isn't that phenomenal? I can look back and how it moved me to go from wanting to having a promise. The promise....the reality that this is His will for me, is a game changer. It swept me off my feet and gave me a tenacity I'd never exhibited before. My follow through changed because I want what's best for me and if He's saying that this is it, I'm after it.
I find it refreshing because its a reflection of my faith and the journey me and Him have walked together. You know what else feeds my soul? The peace I have about it. I can't actually even put into words how you can be both sobbing and peaceful but I was. His peace is something I can't explain but having it changes everything about my life. Peace quite literally supports my joy because if you knew....if only you knew what I was believing God for...
I Corinthians 7:5
Do not refuse and deprive and defraud each other [of your due marital rights], except perhaps by mutual consent for a time, so that you may devote yourselves unhindered to prayer. But afterwards resume marital relations, lest Satan tempt you [to sin] through your lack of restraint of sexual desire.
As a celibate person reading this, I'm struct by how much power Paul already know that sexual expression can have over our lives. The idea that simple fasting from one activity could lead to Satan tempting you tells us plainly that sex us powerful. To think our relationship with God and our faithful service to Him can be affected by fasting of a sexual nature tells me two things: 1. God is involved in sex when He's ordained it and 2. sex matters. You know I didn't really ever understand that until I understood my sexuality. I quite simply didn't get it. Now....I can look at a picture of the one I love and I totally get it. It can be all consuming. It can be dangerous. Think about it? Abstaining can leave space for temptation away from sexual gratification ordained by God? That's dangerous.
When I think about the commitment level God requires of me for sexual expression and I read this verse, I get it. God knows what's best for me and for everyone. He knows how powerful sex is. He also knows that once I have it in the way He's intended, there's no going back. Celibacy, for me, is about not knowing. I don't know the full extent of what I'll have other than to say thinking about it brings tears to my eyes because I know having it means its forever. Forever is what He built me for. God knows sex needs to be contained in something stronger than itself. That something is marriage. That something is abiding commitment. The way He says it to me is "forsaking all others." That's the standard that's been set in my life and its plainly put here. Sex is powerful enough to disturb your relationship with God and your relationship ordained by God. That's powerful stuff. Handle it with the gloves of marriage and offer it freely to the one He gives you.
I Corinthians 7:7
I wish that all men were like I myself am [in this matter of self-control]. But each has his own special gift from God, one of this kind and one of another.
Oh celibacy. Mine used to be easy. Like mindblowingly easy. How hard is it to avoid digging a ditch if you don't want to dig one? Not hard at all. But let me tell you something about who I am.....
I'm not like Paul. Not at all. This particular special gift isn't one He's given me. Nope sure hasn't. What He has given me is the gift of not knowing. I don't have any real concept of what He's ordained for me but I do have a fairly vivid and rich imagination. I'm certain my not knowing is what's best for me because if its better than what my mind has cooked up, and it is, I won't be able to leave it alone. There's something beautiful in not knowing. When I do know, you'll know I know. There will be rings.
I Corinthians 7:9-10
But if they have not self-control (restraint of their passions), they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame [with passion and tortured continually with ungratified desire].
But to the married people I give charge—not I but the Lord—that the wife is not to separate from her spouse.
This is me Paul. I've got thinly veiled self control because I only want the one God has put on my heart PRAISE GOD but still. You know how the scripture is talking about you? This is scripture talking about me, myself, and I. I actually asked God one time a few months ago, when I had no idea what was going on and to show me something as confirmation, and I opened my Bible to this passage. Yup....mind blown. He knows me. He knows what I'm capable of. He knows what I need.
The other piece here is the commitment piece. Its critical. The Bible keeps saying that the commitment is entangled with sex. They aren't separate. For sexual expression to be everything God's designed it to be and what I see as worship, its got to be founded in "I'll never leave you for forsake you." That was God's promise to His people. Its also supposed to be the promise of marriage. Its the question He asks me "Forsaking all others, would you choose her?" Yes God, forever yes.
I Corinthians 7:14
For the unbelieving spouse is set apart (separated, withdrawn from heathen contamination, and affiliated with the Christian people) by union with his consecrated (set-apart) wife, and the unbelieving wife is set apart and separated through union with her consecrated spouse. Otherwise your children would be unclean (unblessed heathen,outside the Christian covenant), but as it is they are prepared for God [pure and clean].
This was a big one for me. At the beginning of reading Corinthians I started praying that God show me a new thing. I wanted fresh insights from His Word, things I'd never seen that spoke to my own situation. He's always speaking but I wanted Him to move my mind closer to His thoughts. This was one of those moments.
The big thing I got here was that an unbelieving person isn't separated from the believing person because of their unbelief. The belief of a believing spouse carries the unbeliever. That idea rocked my world. Why? Its two fold: one person's faith can be big enough to carry someone else and grace.
Have you ever considered what intercessory prayer is? Its praying on behalf of another. Its central in Christianity and its something I've been doing for a long time. I went to my first intercessory prayer meeting when I was about 14 or 15. It was early in the morning, all women, and I was the youngest in the room by about 40 years. Intercessory prayer is based on the idea that your faith and relationship with God grant you the ability to ask for something for someone else and stand in the gap between them and God. Now consider how much more intimate that is if that person is your spouse? Amazing huh?
There's also unhindered grace there. God is saying you don't both have to believe to be covered. You don't both have to believe to receive my favor. God's favor fountain is poured out on both for the sake of the believer. God needs to see someone's belief but everyone's faith and journey with Him is different. God's not looking for all but for some. I haven't always had the faith to believe for certain things but people around me have. When I think about times in my life that I've walked this out I'm humbled by this scripture. Who I could become was enhanced by my mentor's belief in me despite what I didn't see in myself. Her belief in me carried me. It matters that so many believed in me and my ability to get this PhD while I was getting it. My love's belief in the fact that I mattered beyond my academic pursuits carried me. I didn't believe....but she did. I actually used the metaphor that she let me rest on her wings until I could fly again so many months ago. Her belief carried me. (SN: I love when I think something is my own thought and God's like "no girl, that's Bible. That's the Spirit in you.")
Here's a radical thought: My belief in my marriage, in what God has promised me, can actually carry that. I'd love support in it but God clearly says here, your belief covers unbelief. One of the things I keep coming back to is the idea that He's the same God. If He was faithful before, He will continue to be faithful. My life is all the proof I need that God is all He says He is. The idea that my belief covers unbelief is huge, not because it changes anything in my reality, but it changes what I think of the magnitude and impact of my own belief. God is saying "Your belief matters." This is especially important when God has told you something. I remember buying the towels that now lay in my bookcase believing I would get into Howard and need them. That was 3ish days before I officially found out that I got in.
Now, believing for something that isn't His will won't produce much fruit but it will allow Him to redirect you. God has so many opportunities to redirect me because I seek Him. I seek after His will....even when its not easy. Sometimes I literally have to prepare to go into prayer because I know I'm going to ask a hard question. I also think God honors radical faith. To believe in something that hasn't manifested yet: My mentor believed in this PhD that I wasn't even a candidate for at the beginning of my 4th year, my love believed that my life was bigger than an MD before I could fathom that thought, and I believe for my marriage which is still a prayer on my lips...
Belief covers unbelief. Now that's a fresh insight.
I Corinthians 7:17
Only, let each one [seek to conduct himself and regulate his affairs so as to] lead the life which the Lord has allotted and imparted to him and to which God has invited andsummoned him. This is my order in all the churches.
Oh so the Lord is alloying and imparting lives to people? He's inviting and summoning us to what He has for us? Let me tell you about how He's done that for me. I've got a really fresh example!
One word: Nebraska.
Talk about an invitation? I was invited to speak out there and given a job on the spot. God made getting in Nebraska so easy. When I think back on it, I'm struck by how His will lead to there. I'd never heard of Nebraska nor did I want to go there. I wanted UNC. That door was firmly shut. I applied everywhere that had a decent program and a year before UNMC had had a booth at a conference that I'd gone to and you had to give your email to get this super cool pen. I wanted the pen. I gave my email. Nebraska emailed me for over a year. When I didn't have any other options, Nebraska had already been planted in my mental space. There are things in our lives that are leading us to different spaces, places, people, and situations. Keep an open mind! Nebraska may be exactly what you need!
I Corinthians 7:28, 34b
But if you do marry, you do not sin [in doing so], and if a virgin marries, she does not sin [in doing so]. Yet those who marry will have physical and earthly troubles, and I would like to spare you that.
And the unmarried woman or girl is concerned and anxious about the matters of the Lord, how to be wholly separated and set apart in body and spirit; but the married woman has her cares [centered] in earthly affairs—how she may please her spouse.
I have no idea how a daily devotional that take me about 90 minutes gets done in medical school much less when I'm married. When I think about the thirst for the Word God's put in me I know its because one day I'll need to call up these scriptures and I won't have the time to do an in-depth analysis and study of the Word. I'll need them at my finger tips and they'll be store in my heart. I need to get it in me now while I have the time because very soon I won't.
There are so many things that will complicate my life coming down the pike. So many things I've prayed for. Its so interesting to be in between season of great work but then I think...this right here is great work too: A great work for my soul.
I pray that despite the complications of life, that I always make time for God and I always chase after Him. We have the most beautiful of relationships and I'm so deeply edified by it. One day, I'll share this intimate space and time with my wife. I have this vision in my mind of us sitting on our bed, Bibles out, notes out, laptops open, discussing hermeneutics and preparing to facilitate a pre-marital counseling class at our church. Sure, we will be concerned with earthly things. There will be at least 4 munchkins in the house but I want them to run into our room and find us working on our marriage and our relationship with God together.
I'm thankful for this single season...for the places and space in faith that I've grown and developed. For God's uncanny ability to show me that I have work yet to do, I'm grateful. I so look for to life's complications and I'm glad I'll have done to work to support them.
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