Reaping What We Sow

And guess what… this kind of centered discipline doesn’t breed what most women today think of as “mystery” or “excitement.”

Ladies, I couldn’t agree more with your assessment of men who are nice out of need. But I would remind you that words are sacred—they have the power to build up or destroy, to enlighten or to blind, and like it or not, there is no escaping their consequences. If you are careless with them your life choices will reap bitter fruit.

Be careful what you ask for… you might just get it! Seek God and He may confront you from the whirlwind rather than places you’re more comfortable with. Seek a man of integrity and you may get more than you bargained for… you may get one of His disciples.

Ask such a man to love you and the love you receive will be full of joy and romance, but it will also be as much an act of will as of passion—solid, unyielding, faithful. If that seems too “predictable” after a while, he’ll remind you that by definition, faithfulness is predictable. Show him your heart and he’s liable to show you his and mingle his tears with your own. If that doesn’t seem "strong" by the standards of our society, he’ll point out that true strength is tender—Jesus wept at Lazarus’ tomb (John 11:35). If he has “puppy dog eyes” it will be because those are the eyes of sincerity, and patience, kindness, gentleness and longsuffering are fruits of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:22). His caring for you will be tangible and specific. The day will likely come when he will wash your feet as Jesus washed the disciples’ at the last supper. If you find this "unmanly" or too servile and protest, like Jesus he may tell you that unless he washes your feet you can have no part of him (John 13:8). Being a warrior rather than a mere soldier, he will choose his battles wisely, and prayerfully, because he will know that there is a time to heal as well as a time to kill (Ecclesiastes 3:3). He will stand up for what is right before he stands up for himself. As a man of God rather than a man of the World, it’s unlikely he will be wealthy. Protest to him that he is not “ambitious” or “successful” enough and he will remind you that no man can serve two masters, you cannot serve God and material wealth (Matt. 6:24). He will be one who clears the temple before profiting from it (John 2:14-16).

In the eyes of the world there isn’t much here to admire. You won’t find such a man on the cover of Forbes, nor will you see him on The Bachelor or any other “reality” show. Whether he’s physically attractive or not, it’s doubtful that he’ll be much of a lady’s man by the standards of GQ, Playboy, or Cosmopolitan. But he will be centered, with an inner strength that will sustain you. When he tells you that he loves you, you’ll know that he has weighed the cost of love and does not say such things flippantly. His love for you will be true, unshakable—as perennial as the mountains. You will never answer the doorbell and be confronted by another woman cradling an infant who looks just like him. His kiss will never be followed by his fist. When he makes love to you he will do so from the center of his own soul—with a passion that transcends mere sentiment or lust the way eternity transcends a flash in the pan. You will know, as certainly as you’ve ever known anything in this fleeting life, that until death and beyond he will be a loving sanctuary for you against life’s storms.

Make no mistake ladies… you will reap what you sow. Cling to a schizophrenic view of manhood and you will spend the rest of your lives in schizophrenic relationships. No amount of facile, teenage soliloquies about "chemistry" or "mystery" is ever going to save you from that, and neither will blaming the men you've given yourselves to. If true love is what you seek then you must renounce its noisy, sequined imitations and embrace the kind of manhood that is worthy of you.

No man can ever do that for you… The choice is yours.

(Unless otherwise specified, all Biblical quotes are from the New International Version)

References

Lewis, C.S., 1956, “Til We Have Faces” Recent Edition: Harcourt Brace & Company, First Harvest/HBJ Edition (July 9, 1980). ISBN-10: 0156904365, ISBN-13: 978-0156904360. Available online at www.amazon.com/Till-We-Have-Faces-Retold/dp/0156904365/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1296934339&sr=8-1. Accessed Feb. 5, 2011.