Beulah (Married)

Before I left for IHOP I felt like God wanted me to start reading this book called Lady In Waiting. Well, it’s been probably three or four months and I have just finished reading it. It’s all about being a Woman of God and developing your love relationships. Even though when I began reading it I had no desire to be in a relationship with any man, halfway through the book I realized God was preparing me for Him. As I began to read this book about all the characteristics of a Godly woman, I felt like it was a struggle and it became really hard for me to focus and keep my attention. It was hard because when I tried reading it I wanted to apply the things the book talks about to a physical man. I didn’t realize God wanted me to apply them to Him. He wants me to be this woman for Him.There was one chapter in the book called Lady of Purity and while I have struggled with this concept for so long, it’s like it hit home all the sudden. There was a time when I felt like I had betrayed my marriage covenant with my future husband and I realized I had unknowingly betrayed it with God. I am still healing from the reality of this, but God has given me hope. He has given me hope because He has redeemed me, as I have really turned from my sin and allowed myself to pursue Him in righteousness. In Colossians 1: 21-23, Paul says, “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation- if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel”. If we remain in Him, we will remain pure and set apart in His sight. This reminds me of the marriage covenant. The marriage covenant God has showed me He has made with me. At church lately the pastor has been talking about marriage and while I have always tried to make sense of marrying God, it just never really made sense. Well, now marriage finally makes sense. Marriage is not about finding someone to spend the rest of your life with. It’s not about finding your soul mate and the one you can finally be yourself around. It’s not about having a consistent lover. It’s not about having someone to help you pay the bills. It’s not about having a baby and feeling secure that you have a real husband or even a ring on your finger. It’s not about the things the world says marriage is about, or it’s not about the things the world shows marriage is about. God gives us marriage as a key to announce how He wants us to be with Him. We get married to demonstrate the cross, so we are a living declaration to His plan for us to eventually marry Him. He wants us to lay down our lives for Him, others, or our spouses and to declare and testify to that, just like Jesus would for us. This is the way God planned it from the beginning. Marriage is to train us and show us how to love, love unconditionally for one another and most importantly for Him. Marriage to our mate is just a glimpse of the passion He has for us. We are to be married to God for forever and marriage with our mate bears witness to this. God designed it so that we put others above ourselves out of love. Someone might say, “Why would I want to put others above myself?”, and it’s so the glory can fall on us and be in our lives and in our marriages. Ephesians 3:13, Paul says, “I ask you, therefore, not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which are your glory”. We “suffer” or lay down our lives for each other and God releases glory in our lives. As we bow down to our own desires and wants of the flesh, we are testifying to God and each other. God wants us to have good marriages, even if we are not married. He wants us to be married to Him. He wants to woo us and show us how much He loves us by giving us this marriage covenant with Him. What a privilege to be married to God. The only one that can unconditionally love you for you, with or with-out make up on, whether you showered that day or not, whether you just ate a whole pizza, whether you went to the gym that day or not, even whether you haven’t opened your Bible in months, years or maybe never. We please Him and He has the pleasure of loving us in spite of our weaknesses, insecurities, and sin. In Song of Songs it says, “Dark am I, yet lovely”. This means that He loves us even with all our sin and short comings. We are dark from our sin, yet He still calls us lovely. He loves us no matter what we do, and because He loves us so unconditionally He wants us to testify to His love for us; by having us offer love where it is not earned, and love one another in spite of our differences. Love is eternal, but you can’t have this true love if you don’t have God.  It says in 1 Corinthians 7:32-34, “I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs- how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world- how he can please his wife- and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world- how she can please her husband”. God doesn’t want us to get caught up in ourselves and what we think we have to do to please Him.  He tells us in 1 Corinthians 7:7 that whatever situation we are in is a gift from Him and He loves us. We please Him just the way we are. God loves us so much that He wants to marry us and become one with us. He is jealous for us and is fighting for us to become one with Him. Sometimes it’s hard for us to accept ourselves in this situation or circumstances, but He does. And that is all that should matter. We should rest in the fact that He delights in us. We are pleasing to God. Marrying Him pleases Him. Becoming one with Him pleases Him. Honoring your spouse above yourself pleases Him.