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Quiet Time

    by Kasia Kedzia

A Proposal Worth Refusing
Date Posted: May 16, 2006

A friend of mine asked me to marry him. I get proposed to on a yearly basis. No, I'm not joking, and yes, the proposals are serious. I have great male friends who I have known for years who want to marry me, but I say no. They are great men who treat me like a queen but they are not Christians and the bible is not their standard and since our standards differ they are not the men for me.  This however, becomes hard to accept when the men with the same standard as mine don't quite seem to value me as much as the others.

One of these non-Christian friends sees it in this way, "But when you bestow yourself  to people who don't deserve you...they in turn will try and keep up with you but will always fall short", he was speaking of the Christian men in my life. This kind of disturbed me. So I needed to return to love. What it is, what it is not, and how I will recognize it and not compromise my standard.

Carlino Giampolo, the author of The Art of Letting Go wrote, “The benefits of love cannot be calculated. In order to have a clearer knowledge of the relationship between giving and receiving, you will have to consider what your motivation was in giving something in the first place.  Where you feel pain or resentment for what you have given, the guiding force behind the giving was itself negative. It was based upon a calculation of what you expected to receive in return.” Considering this I must learn healthy boundaries in my giving. Where I feel genuine joy for having given, it is because my giving was really a sharing of myself. I agree with Giampolo, that giving as sharing of oneself is the very foundation of love. Seeing these biblical principles invoked through a lens into the psyche reaffirms them for me. It can be hard and risky to give but how else do we learn to love and let others love us according to God's standard?

1John4:8 (The Message) The person who refuses to love doesn't know the first thing about God, because God is love--so you can't know him if you don't love.

Fear can often prevent me from loving others and from letting others love me. Psychologist, Sylvia Clare wrote, “Our vulnerability is never in the moment; it's in what we fear will be. Have you ever noticed that you are usually frightened after or in anticipation of what will happen but very rarely in the moment? So we get a sense of our strength because we are right in the here and now. We lose our vulnerability which is based on what if, not on the here and now.” I think that, other times fear is just an excuse for not knowing, its one's way of buying time. Fear is not a sin but cowardice is. So we pray for courage and step out on faith through our acts of love.  

My disappointment is always based on what I think should have happened or what I hoped would happen or what I thought the other person should do. It is never based on what has actually happened. So I want to be in control instead of leaving it to God. My expectations of Godly men in my life are higher, and rightly so. Know I just need to be patient.

Pr 3:5 - (the Message) " Trust GOD from the bottom of your heart; don't try to figure out everything on your own."

Letting others give to me is by far the hardest thing I am learning but if I can trust that those doing the giving are striving towards the same Godly principles I am, then I can trust that God will make all things clear in his time and I can be resolved regardless of outcomes.

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"'Christ in You...'" from Dale Krebbs

Perilous Times

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Biography Information:
Gods brought me a long way from the New York City Housing Projects. I studied the Bible, repented, and was baptized for the forgiveness of my sins when I was 17 and have been repenting and striving towards heaven ever since. The hardest thing about becoming a Christian at 17 was trusting that God would take care of me, meet my emotional teen needs, and help me overcome my enormous insecurity...what else would a teen girl have trouble with?

Since those first days, I have made it out of the Projects, finished my Masters degree in International Development, and moved  to DC  to work in my field. As a young single Christian woman my struggles today are a little different than they were when I first came to know God, but who am I kidding, not much. It's the every day battle for my heart to be pure before God, to strive to please him, and help others to seek and know Him.

Over my years of a faithful walk with God I have received much grace and compassion and have been blessed beyond my wildest dreams. Through out it all one thing has stayed consistent: God's word. Through His word I have been inspired and it has kept me faithful even when faith seemed like a foreign concept and God seemed deaf to my prayers. I started emailing my Quiet Times which helped me stay accountable as I shared my struggles and fought for understanding. Some wrote back and said they too were inspired and could relate. I hope some of my times can help inspire others who are seeking and fighting just like I am, to get to heaven and take as many as possible with me along the way.

Like what your read? Check out my blog: http://stronggirlforlife.wordpress.com/
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