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Elena1030 -> RE: Why would anyone marry you? (7/7/2008 12:52:24 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Godhead
Only if she finds out [;)]
That's called deception and manipulation. And I wouldn't want a man who does that.
The way you have worded your comments could lead one to infer that your motivation to do such an investigation
arises out of fear, rather than from a desire to indeed "find her faithful" to Christ.
From what I remember about you --- you don't want to be such a man, Godhead. That is, you don't want to be one who operates out of a place of fear.
So... I hope you were speaking largely in jest! (As the winky face would suggest.)
I would rather know that he is talking to the people who really know me: my family, my closest friends, my co-workers, my spiritual mentors. A man who checked into who I am... as he is getting to know me for himself... and did so openly... in my book, would be an honorable, respectable man of integrity. A man who carefully considers his decision making and the process of making that decision. One who is neither cautious to the point of paralysis nor is rash.
I hope that I am to a point in my maturing as a human and as a Christ-follower --- by the power, grace, mercy, love, and blood of Christ --- that I would do the same sort of character evaluation and investigation of the man who pursues me for the purpose of marriage. That he would welcome such an endeavor on my part... that I would have a high estimation in his view, because he finds that I evidence true wisdom.
Thus, I agree with you --- if a man or woman has made good use of the time* he/she has been unmarried to mature in God's wisdom (not the world's), then the time of "delay" has been well worth it.
May we redeem the time and redeem it well.
* Reminds me of the comment in the book Jane Eyre (by Charlotte Brontė) that Jane Eyre makes to Mr. Rochester about his superiority to her b/c he is older than she. (At the time of their conversation, Jane is 18, and Rochester is 36. And he proposes that his being older than her gives him the right to "be a bit masterful" in the way he communicates with her.) Her point is that his having been alive longer than she is to his advantage (and ultimately, to her benefit) only if he has spent that time living righteously and growing in righteousness. And he freely admits that he has vastly misused the time given him in life and thus cannot claim any superiority to her on that score. Ultimately, she says that he may put aside formal conventions of conversation and "be a bit masterful with her," as he describes it --- but not put aside respectfulness in conversation --- because he, her "employer," is concerned with her contentment in her employment situation, treating her not as an underling but as an equal...a fellow human being.
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