Tag Archives: humility

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August 11, 2020

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God, Life, The Christian Life, Uh, This is Random

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So I Liked a Boy [part two: when it felt too stupid to pray about]

I was sleep-deprived and nervous when I wrote part one, and apparently “So I Liked a Boy” is the best I could do for a title. Apparently it’s also pretty click-baity. Most people that I know in person don’t read my blog, but I guess all one must do is throw something up with a title like “So I Liked a Boy” and half the church decides it’s high time they check out Rosalie’s blog. I’m uncomfy.

ANYWEYS.

If you missed part one, you can read it here. Otherwise, here’s what to expect from today’s post: dating, desiring, and crushing differently than the world and when it feels too stupid to pray about a crush.

crush 2

Dating, Desiring, and Crushing Differently than the World

Maybe this goes without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway. As Christians, our approach to people of the opposite sex cannot be the same as the world’s approach to people of the opposite sex.

In our current cultural moment, romantic relationships are king. You want someone, you go get someone, using whatever means you feel like, only listening to those whose advice is what you want to hear. As Matt Chandler says in his book Mingling of Souls, “We are a culture simultaneously obsessed with relationships and sex, but dysfunctional in our approaches to them.”

You like someone, you date them, you use them, you accrue some hurt, you throw them away. You aren’t fulfilled if you aren’t in a relationship. You look to a boyfriend or girlfriend (or spouse) to meet all your needs, speak to all your insecurities and fears. Flirt, entice, cheat.

And just as Christians can’t do marriage in the same way as the world and can’t date in the same way as the world, Christians can’t crush on someone in the same way as the world. Most Christians I know already know this, but our response (my response) is to stuff it, as if that’s the Christian way of dealing with desires.

Spoiler alert: stuffing it isn’t the Christian way of doing anything. At least it’s not the truly Christian way.

So over the course of this little series of How To Like a Dude Without Marrying Him So I Liked a Boy, we’re going to talk about some ways to honor Jesus in how you approach liking someone. Obviously, I’m a girl, so this is all especially pertinent to girls, but hopefully this is helpful to anyone. Honestly, it’s pretty basic and similar to the rest of the Christian life—listen to wise counsel, be transparent with trusted and mature Christians, submit to God’s will, oh, and, yes, prayer. Start with prayer.

When It Feels Too Stupid to Pray About

So, when I was hardcore moon-eyed about The Guy (see part one), it took me a solid month (if not more) before I actually, you know, prayed about it.

It felt like I was making it into something if I prayed about it, as if praying about it brought it up to some sort of level of Important. Because apparently I only pray about Important ThingsTM. Things like my sin, seeing people hear the gospel and be saved, the up-building and keeping of my friends, etc..

In my heart, there is an unconscious category of things that I don’t pray about.

I hear things like “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths…” or “…in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” and other such verses, and there’s some sort of disconnect inside me.

I will go to God and acknowledge him in some of my ways, and in some things by prayer and supplication I’ll make requests known to him. But not in all of my ways, not in everything. I have a hard time praying about the little things, and that’s a symptom of

  1. unbelief/not understanding in my heart the scope and depth of God’s love for me and
  2. belief that I can and should handle the “little things” myself (aka: self-reliance).

Kids, unbelief is sin. Self-reliance is sin.

Isn’t all sin rooted in unbelief about God? Adam and Eve believed the lie that God was holding out on them in the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They trusted their own judgement, their own understanding.

So when I don’t pray about things because they feel too stupid or too little or I’m embarrassed (from a crush to a pet being sick to dealing with a difficult customer at work), that’s pride manifesting in an incredibly subtle way. That was (and is) a symptom that I don’t trust God fully with my life.

Jesus is my everything. Jesus is Lord of my everything. Jesus is the Caretaker of my heart and soul. When I don’t bring things to him to be Lord over, to take care of me through, I cut him out of areas of my life and forfeit the blessing that is his affectionate, relational love and guidance.

Here is a fact: nothing is too stupid to pray about.

Prayer is communication. Prayer is honesty. Prayer is humility. Prayer is dependence. Prayer is vulnerability. Prayer is reliance. Prayer is trusting.

Let me say it again for the people in the back: nothing is too stupid to pray about.

If you believe that there are things too little, too insignificant, too stupid to pray about, you don’t know the God of the Bible. Praying about something does not imbue it with importance; praying about something simply shows that you are in fact a human trusting Jesus and submitting your life to him.

Eventually, by the grace of God, I cracked and started praying about The Guy I liked and bringing my questions and confusions to Jesus. Even though in my head I understood all the reasons why I should pray about it, it was hard.

I felt embarrassed and felt foolish and all the other stuff from the last post, except now it was all in the presence of God and I was a.w.k.w.a.r.d. But isn’t it always hard to come naked into the light? Isn’t it always hard to invite someone into the things that feel shameful? Isn’t it always hard to trust that you can be fully known and fully loved at the same time?

But bit by bit, the Holy Spirit helped me calm down and realize it wasn’t a big deal to pray about, and if I could trust Jesus to see me through the harshest storms of life and keep me to the end of this life without losing me, I can trust him enough to tell him I have a crush and admit it feels silly but I really like a dude and it’s confusing and ask Jesus to lead me through it.

When I started praying about liking The Guy, that’s when Jesus really went to work on my heart. It was in my private prayer time when I learned to start bringing up the little things that the Holy Spirit really got a hold of me and went to town on my heart. He began exposing and overturning so many lies in my heart and testing me in ways I’ve never been tested before. Everything good that grew out of that season, all the fruit and clarity I have now, came from learning to pray about it.

So when it feels too stupid to pray about your crush, pray about it anyway.

Get to know Jesus’ heart from you from the Bible and also in the real time of your life. Trust that he’s actually as interested in your life as he says he is. Trust that the God who designs blades of grass and galaxies and says that you as his child is his crowning creation and says he wants all of you and nothing less, actually wants all of you and nothing less.

Because if you’re keeping even one thing out from under his lordship and protection and guidance, you’re probably keeping other things away from him too, and you’re missing out on what he has for you in those things.

With love,

Rosalie

p.s. – coming up next week: why you shouldn’t just pray for your crush to go away (because I was for sure praying that my stirrings would just GO AWAY…. until I realized I was still holding onto my own will) and miscellaneous perspective that brought me back down to earth when I was sure I wanted to marry The Guy.

p.p.s. – little tidbit of that perspective: it can feel like foolish to like someone that you don’t end up marrying. Spoiler alert: you’re going to probably like quite a few people before you like the person you end up marrying. And that’s good. And normal. I’m proof that so much can get worked out in a human heart when you like someone you don’t end up dating (or marrying).

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August 4, 2020

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God, Life, The Christian Life

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So I Liked a Boy [part one: intro and storytime]

So, I liked a boy. Like liked a boy. For nearly ten months. So this post is about that, and hopefully it’s helpful to some of you. This’ll be a bit of a series; I guess we’ll see what God does.

Full disclosure, this feels very, very difficult to share on the internet, but here we are.

crush 1

Storytime

He’s from my church here in Texas, one of the church-planters who uprooted their lives to tell people in Texas about Jesus. I started noticing that I noticed him July 4, 2019. All the college age small groups were going out to watch fireworks together (remember when we did things like that? Before Covid?). I’d been feeling really curious about him, so I approached him as subtly as I could and struck up a conversation.

Things went downhill from there in the following weeks and months. I liked this kid, and I had it bad.

I was soooo drawn to him, noticing (what felt like) everything—the way he’d pray, so full of faith and zeal. The way he would throw everything he was into worshipping God. The way he didn’t flirt with girls. The way he was wild. The way he was intentional with people who visited our church. The way he did anything Jesus asked of him 2300%.

I don’t know what a crush is like for you, but let me tell you what it’s like for me (trust me, this is going somewhere helpful, but it seems necessary to tell more of this story).

I would go to coffee shops and get a flutter in my stomach hoping and dreading accidentally running into him. Whenever his name came up in a conversation, my attention was jerked there like I was on a string. Every Sunday I noticed where he was in the lobby before church started.

My mind spun scenarios where I’d do or say something Really Freaking Amazing and he’d notice me. I wanted to be beautiful and mysterious and impressive and aloof and vulnerable all at the same time. I thought of a bunch of questions I wanted to ask him. I wondered what it would be like if he liked me too and we were to date.

I liked this guy for ten months, and by the grace of God, I am not the same now as I was on July 4, 2019, when I was beginning to get all infatuated. Jesus taught me so much through this season, and I’ve felt pressed to share it—starting with the things I felt silly for feeling and doing and thinking.

I was embarrassed.

This one probably won’t be universal, but I was so embarrassed that I liked him. Not because of anything in him (to this day, my vision no longer colored in roses, I hold to the fact that this dude is pretty freaking amazing).

Maybe I felt embarrassed because of the single Christian girl culture I know (i.e. that you’re either immature and boy crazy or you’re mature and thoughts of boys never enter your head ever). To me it felt like if I liked someone, I must not be satisfied in God or content in the singleness he’s given me. It felt foolish and immature to like a boy.

In my head I had built up this image of what a single girl should look like chasing after Jesus. Her head wouldn’t be turned by anything so petty as a boy. Her heart was given over to Jesus forever and always. She didn’t daydream about a boy; at worst she considered the necessary details of life; at best she ruminated on the rich things of God. Her singleness never felt hard. She was too mature to notice a guy’s haircut. She was too mature to be distracted by a guy nodding along to excellent points in a Bible teaching. She was too mature, too strong, too pre-occupied with the things of God to notice anyone of the opposite gender. Blah, blah, blah.

I was also embarrassed because it felt like incredible weakness to have affections stirring in me that were not returned. It felt shameful and wasteful (yeah, we’re going to have to talk about 1) why I didn’t try to make anything happen with him and 2) why I want to date as few guys as possible before getting married [if marriage is something Jesus has for me]).

All this to say and show that I was under a lot of lies, because that’s what all those fears were—lies.

The truth I learned:

It’s actually natural, healthy, and not at all immature to have a crush. And that it’s actually very necessary to think and pray about a crush a lot because how else are you supposed to seek God’s face on what

  1. could be nothing or
  2. also could become the most life-defining relationship you will have with another human.

For some, this may seem obvious. It wasn’t obvious to me. I felt like I must be idolizing a relationship if I was distracted and actually having to sort through my affections and attractions. I felt like I must be All Out Boy CrazyTM because I was crushing on some super amazing, faithful, faith-filled dude from church.

Anyway, that’s the start of the story and all the good things Jesus reworked in my heart over those ten months. I want to share a lot more on Penprints about this because there’s so much it would have been so good for me to know sooner but I either didn’t think to ask about or felt too embarrassed to ask about (embarrassment will be a running theme).

Other things we’re going to get into:

  • why I didn’t try to get him to notice me/like me
  • what it was like laying down desire to know him and be known by him at the feet of Jesus… and then pick it up again… and then lay it down again
  • remaining focused on Jesus and his mission while feeling distracted
  • how the crush finally (finally) went away
  • truly trusting Jesus
  • general holiness
  • miscellaneous other things (like other fears that came up [including but not limited to body image, who he liked, etc.], being humbled, locking down my daydreams, etc.)

Don’t expect these posts in any particular order! We’ll just take ‘em as they come. I’m praying that it will be helpful for other single people to hear about the season that Jesus made so helpful for me.

With love,

Rosalie

p.s. –  tbh, this whole thing feels like my much less explicit version of The Reynolds Pamphlet from Hamilton. I definitely have a lot to learn about humility if this post feels like ruining my own life. Yikes. *awkward thumbs up*

p.p.s. – if anything I shared is confusing, leave a question in the comments or contact me directly! <3

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January 15, 2018

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God, The Christian Life

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An Instance When You Shouldn’t Think of Others Before Yourself [an autobiography]

Usually, it’s a good think to think of others before you think of yourself. In fact, it’s always good to think of other’s needs before your own. We’re to consider each other as more significant than ourselves, looking to their interest before our own. This is a huge part of how Christians are to love each other, how we’re to be Jesus to one another.

But today I want to talk about an instance when it’s wrong—sinful, even—to think about someone else before you think of yourself. After several stabs at this post, the best way to do this seems to be by sharing a bit of autobiography.

an instance when you shouldn't think of others.jpg

A not-so-hypothetical situation.

It was Sunday morning at church, and a visiting pastor was speaking from Ephesians 4 about how our leaders are gifts to our church, admonishing us to be unified, reminding us what—or rather who—unifies us as a church, and calling us to grow up into the image of Christ. I sat there in my pew, brimming with enthusiasm. I had a running list of people who I thought needed to hear that sermon, who needed to hear it and then heed it. I’m not the type to call out an amen in the service, but I wanted to that morning… until I realized I was deciding how everyone else had to change because of the truth we were told that day except for me. I wasn’t thinking about how I needed to learn and grow; I was thinking about everyone else who needed to learn and grow, calling them out in my head.

It was a strange, disorienting, somewhat sickening moment.

The problem.

In December 2016, I was reading The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis, and that was the first time I was made aware that this sort of thinking was a problem… and that I had this problem (The Screwtape Letters can do that to a person). It ebbed in and out of my mind for months as I caught myself thinking about how the truth being preached and taught to me could be applied in the lives of all these sinners around me. Goodness knows I’m painfully aware of their sin and problems and am so wise as to know how they need to go about growing up, and I sure hope they are actually listening to this sermon because they really need to get their lives in order.

But here’s the deal.

Sermons on Sunday mornings, daily quiet time with God, convicting books on the Christian life—these are rarely the time to be assessing the sin of others.

The Holy Spirit puts me in church on Sunday for me to hear the message and learn from it, not so I can steam about how so-and-so had better be awake to hear this because I think I know so much about so-and-so’s heart and life.

My quiet time with God is my quiet time with God where he and I set up a battle plan for my life and my sin issues, not where I pick out pieces of what I’m learning and wish my sister or friend or whoever knew it so that they could stop being such a difficult person for me to deal with.

The Holy Spirit is with me while I read that book on the Christian life to convict me, not so that I can convict others.

These are all situations where I should come first in my mind, but so often I don’t. There is something sickly satisfying in looking down on someone else from the safety of my mind, from the high vantage point my self-love so readily gives me. But my mind isn’t safe from God’s eyes, and my high ground is just an illusion I’ve made for myself.

The source of this mindset.

It all boils down to pride. This is thinking much of myself and hardly anything of those around me.

There is a time and place for coming alongside a brother or sister in Christ and exhorting them with the power of the Holy Spirit, but the only power of the Holy Spirit that has to do with pride is the power that the Holy Spirit uses to expose and then cut down pride. There is no upside or strength in pride, only sin and self, and in the process of sanctification, both of those must go.

A holy heart.

How can I learn to look first at myself before turning my eyes to the lives of others? Humility and love. Humility and love. Humility and love. Humility and love.

Humility is for looking at myself first. I have sin issues. So do you. So does everyone else. But the sin issues that need to occupy my mind are my own, not anyone else’s. When I feel the tug to look at the sinners around me—whether it be in church or during my devotions or reading a book on the Christian life or anywhere else—I will stop and pray.

I will pray to the holy God to whom I should have no right to lift up my voice. I’ll ask for help from the Holy Spirit whose presence I should have no access to. I will look to Jesus, who has given my what is his, and I’ll remember that grace has nothing to do with deserve.

Pride has a hard time standing before the brilliant holiness of God, and I think that might be part of humility in a nutshell. It’s not about looking at others or yourself or comparison at all. It’s looking at God, truly looking at him, and remembering why you can.

Love is for when I do see legitimate sin in someone else’s life. Love, 1 Corinthians 13 love, is not blind, but it is true. 1 Corinthians 13 love gives the correct heartset for confronting a brother or sister in sin. It is devoid of pride and the sick urge to rejoice in the faults of others and tear them down or feel superior.

Instead of thinking anything about self, love immediately moves toward the best interest of the beloved, even if it involves painful confrontation. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

Further reading.

I wrote this because I know I’m not the only one with this sin, and so if you’d like to read the Scripture behind this post, here’s a list of some of the influential passages: Jeremiah 17:9-10, Proverbs 16:18, Matthew 7:1-5, Luke 6:31, John 8:1-8, Romans 2:1-11, 1 Corinthians 13, Philippians 2:3-10, and James 4:12.

Who has read The Screwtape Letters? Did anyone else get major speck vs. plank vibes from this post (if you did, it was probably because Matthew 7:1-5 was hugely influential)? Which is harder for you—humility or love? Speaking of humility, what do you think it is (I ask because opinions seem to vary)?

With love,

Rosalie

P.S. – this is a messy subject, and there were several things I didn’t clarify because it was getting to be a monster huge post. What clarifications/follow-up posts would you like to see?

P.P.S. – don’t forget to enter the giveaway from last week’s post by Just B. Jordan!