A few days ago, I was watching a show. In it, there was a dialogue between a man and a woman. Very long story short, she had discovered that the man, her husband of several months, wasn’t all he was cracked up to be (like all of us haven’t experienced that before!), but there was something that he said in response to her accusations of “leading her astray” that caused me to turn on the light, find a pen and jot it down:
“All I had to do was pretend to care and you lapped it up. I played you and you still begged for more.”
WOW. WOOOOOOOOW.
Now, this may not be deep to you, but it was to me. One, because I have been that fictitious female character before (not married, but played). I remember blaming a guy for “cheating” on me even though I “got him” by helping him cheat on someone else. I remember “losing it” when a guy got someone pregnant a year after talking me into having an abortion. I remember ending a relationship with a man because he was draining me, although when I entered the relationship with him, he was pretty much doing the same thing.
Although most of them weren’t quite the profound jerks that this dude in the show was when I confronted them about how unhappy I was, in so many words, through their actions, they said the same thing. All they had to do was show me just a little bit of attention, affection, care or concern and in response, it was like I made them a mini-god or something. (Exodus 20:3)
(For shame, for shame.)
Sadly, I am not the only woman who has gone through this. Right now, I am serving as the “unofficial marriage counselor” to several of my friends and it’s all because most of them saw warning flags before entering covenant and ignored them. Now, they are miserable.
A man is broke and his credit score is in the 400s?
A man has a child that you found out about only weeks before the wedding?
A man admits to having intimacy issues?
At the very least, this should scream “Danger! Do not proceed beyond this line at this time” (the line being common sense when it comes to becoming a helpmate to such destructiveness), but so many of us, because we are so needy, so desperate, so famished for attention, for someone to care, we ignore what the Holy Spirit, our friends and family, sometimes even the guy himself is trying to tell us.
One of my best male friends told me a long time ago that when a man is on “the hunt”, he treats the object of his desire like prey. He doesn’t chase after her, he waits until she comes close enough and then he pounces her. (Hmm, like the woman and the serpent?—Genesis 2)
Sounds a little animalistic? Shoot, a lot of relationships (without the covering of God and his kind of love—I Corinthians 13) are. But to me, it just drives home all the more why the Bible says, “Do not give what’s holy to the dogs.” (Matthew 7:6) I think I’ve said it before, but I read that one definition of “dog” is “to make an investment and not get a return”. Ladies, when are we going to start treating ourselves like the valuable jewels that we are? When are we gonna start expecting a return on the time, the energy, the affection, the love that we give in romantic relationships?
I know I’m usually long and drawn out on this thing, but I really just wanted this to be a reminder of what Philippians 1:9-11 (Message):
“So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will
not only love much but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to
use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and
intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover’s life, circumspect and
exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of: bountiful in fruits from the
soul, making Jesus Christ attractive to all, getting everyone involved
in the glory and praise of God.”
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times! There’s a good reason why Christ said that we should love our neighbors AS OURSELVES (Matthew 22:39). Someone is reading this right now and while you may feel that you are “so in love” with that guy, you probably don’t have the foggiest idea what it means to love yourself. You are in the relationship that you are in, the way that you are in it, because he knows that, but you don’t.
Please don’t get played any longer. Please don’t volunteer for any more abuse (there’s more to abuse that getting physically beat up on). Please don’t take your reading this blog as some random coincidence. If you want to be in love, start with God and then yourself. And, then, learn to love others APPROPRIATELY.
God wanted you to be someone’s queen. Never some animal’s prey.