Actually letting God be God

(A/N: Originally an essay for English 101, the following will refer to certain books and whatnot but withhold essential information, i.e. title, authors, etc. The book mentioned is by Eric & Leslie Ludy, WHEN GOD WRITES YOUR LOVE STORY. It is now one of my favorites. Hope you enjoy my "review" of it. Thank you for reading)

Love: It’s Kind of Crazy

Everything is simple. However, worldly methods have a way of complicating understanding. I never knew how simple it was but I did have a general idea the great work amount in keeping it simple. My father’s passing led me straight to the simple Truth he knew before he died: There is a God. Because he was a pastor, I already knew about God and even Jesus; the Bible was filling our shelves with different translations, and my first memorized verse remains John 3:16. The following three weeks of his death, however, lay before me the Truth, not just the facts. The Truth or the Gospel Truth: Christ Jesus paid the price of our sin, for each and every one of us. What I did with this Truth mattered deeply, and on every level. Ridding the sin in my life that I could have a relationship through Christ Jesus to God the Father (better than any earthly father), as long as I applied it to every aspect of my life; a decision to accept Jesus in my life as Lord over it, or put Him on the shelf as only part of my life and handle the rest on my own. The ten years thereafter now brings me to believe I should have chosen the former: accept Lord Jesus Christ as Who He is and give Him, of mine… everything. This includes what I have come to believe as truthful as the Gospel: making Him God over my Love life.

Growing up, I was always taught to ensure that my wife will be Native American. This is, of course, an example of ill-humored brainwashing to a child. Everything else didn’t seem as important as my aunts later joked with my mother, but I did ponder the kind of love life I would lead. Since Kindergarten (yes, Kindergarten… That young!), there would always be another girl catching my eye because of how pretty she was, and, boy, was that girl pretty! The hair was always long and brown, the eyes glistening, the smile wide, and appearance angelic; it was all as if I had rose colored glasses each time I saw my infatuation interest. However, the flame would die out and interest lost In addition, each time the infatuation ended I was nowhere near where I wanted to be on the romantic level. It would always end the same: drained, from investing emotions and hopes into this girl, and simply alone.

This physical deprivation, brought on by emotional needs and desires, led me down roads I had never thought to be seen as spiritually treacherous. Times alone and supposedly unknown glances seemed innocent as secrecy promised satisfaction while growing up, all of which can easily be commonly labeled “just being a guy.” As innocent I was, the devil did what he could to pervert what I was wired for and what should have been saved for a time when I was certainly more mature and wise enough to know the difference; what I thought was “just being a guy,” actually distorted and decayed the vision to see God and His plans for my life. Once the child-like curiosity ventured in, it took a three year battle for Jesus to bring me back out and even longer to restore me. The recovery process wiped away everything my junior high school locker room caked my thinking with mud, but high school battlegrounds assured the devil and myself that the weapons will be more severe and damaging, the strategies more tactical, and the soldiers more outnumbering than that I faced my adolescent years.

With the remaining teenage years, neutral ground came to be my common ground in all that I did, said and thought. Should temptations arise to let the “guy” side of me go free, there would only be a leash used as an ample way to control what I shouldn’t have had. As much as I wanted to regain the innocence and strengthen the faith I abandoned, I still kept a part of me I thought helped define me and kept nurturing to a point where it almost did. Regardless the promises it spoke to me to satisfy my momentary desires, the central source and complete center of my life asked me to let it go… and move on. Had I not let go of this pain, which was the source of my returning sin, assuredly, a different person would result a terrible outcome for me, those whom I love, and especially separate me from the One Whom I gave it. Because sadness was a norm, returning to it strengthened the pain and wrong within me I let tear apart from within. Almost everything in my life would be in reflection to what I thought I has lost, it took me my senior year to realize I had gained a gift that kept on giving as a fulfilling replacement.

Studies kept my mind from boredom in those bus rides from reservation to reservation, and our leader blessed his mission team with reading material opportunities with a certain limit for each member. After my selection, many well educated and philosophical authors voiced words of their intake to better my understanding of Whom I so wished to please; then two voices echoed well through my brain and into my soul from one particular book. Their Love and marriage themed book almost seemed like a fairytale as my eyes sped across their carefully chosen words, each carrying meaning and purpose. It took another reading to conclude with their same conclusion on my end, to finally grasp their message I was so in need to listen and apply. Once their true story ended within those pages, everything in my life fell into place and I could catch a glimpse of the life planned for me… if I would just let go and let God.  As impossible, unrealistic, illogical, cheesy and ridiculous it sounded to me or anyone else; I had to give over to my Father my Love life as I promised, the rest of “all” of my life.

There is no experience in this part of my life where I can definitely say, “I’m just tired of making bad decisions when it comes to relationships.” No hearts broken over me, nor was mine ever broken. The fact that I have not even gone out on a date is certainly evidence as to use for accurate insults and childish mockery, something I confess with a small amount of shame. However, I can battle my lack of experience and dating life with the promise my Father in heaven works out in due time. I have found new meaning in the phrase “I’m saving myself for marriage” in such a way I never thought at all to be masculine; a way in terms of spiritual, emotional, and even physical, I learned that God has planned for me something I never thought possible. The moment I realized, that through Jesus, I have a Father, the pain from losing my earthly father was stripped away its power over me. The when Jesus revealed another promise, of that which concerned my love life, the loneliness and torture of waiting for that life to begin seemed as if it were nothing in comparison.

I have had my moments in which doubt clouded my judgment temporarily, almost losing focus. Like my life former of Christ, I am not perfect: pressures and persecutions have come my way, but only to test. Though my Father did promise His constant presence, He did not say that life would be without (for lack of a better word) hell. In these hard times, He however promises a victory by a way out and strength to overcome. Like the words of the hymn, “I hear my Saviour say, ‘Thy strength, indeed, is small. Find in Me thy all in all.’”

I cannot say I have it all planned out, that everything will go according to preconceived expectations; especially as mysterious and incomprehensive as the Uncreated Being can be, He Loves to surprise and contradict limited worldly wisdom. All I simply confess, with humble adoration of the first and true Matchmaker, that my Father will take care of me; especially since He claims Love as another personality: “God is Love.”

Besides, when can you say with assurance that Love isn’t kind of crazy?