A guy friend of mine, Damian, was venting to me about a woman he had been dating. He said that he ‘cut her off’, and the reason he gave for terminating their relationship is that she was “doing too much”, as he put it. When a man says this, it can mean a whole lot of things in his mind, but from our conversation about it, I understood him to mean that they were not on the same page about the direction of their relationship. She wanted something much more serious than what he was ready for. Neither of them had been upfront and honest about their expectations, so there was a lot of frustration, disappointment, and anger in their relationship.
Damian enjoys his space, and although he didn’t keep this a secret, he wasn’t all that great at defining exactly what this meant for him. His ex-girlfriend took it very lightly, and as the relationship continued, it slipped to the back of her mind. She inserted herself into his life in ways he found intrusive, but because he felt she was taking care of his physical needs, he allowed her to continue. Constantly blowing up his phone, she expected him to pick up every time and stay in close contact. When he fell short, she’d accuse him of cheating. He became increasingly non-committal, and the final straw came when she began expressing her disappointment through tantrums. At the end of telling me all this, he made the statement, “Oh well, on to the next one.”
These kinds of attitudes and behaviors play out in relationships all the time, but we shouldn’t for one second think this is what God desires. It’s not why He’s given us the gift of relating to one another, and it doesn’t meet His requirement of how we should treat, honor, and respect one another. Damian was ready to move to the next woman, but I don’t think he had any intention of changing his behavior, and it didn’t appear he had learned anything from his last relationship. I asked him, “So, what’s your purpose for moving to the next one? Is it to marry or just to take up time?”
I was saddened by his response. He said, “Marriage isn’t important anymore.” The mind-and-heart-set behind this kind of thinking has become entrenched because satan had blinded the minds of so many. If a man feels this way about marriage, what does it tell you about how he ultimately feels about women? Marriage is God’s institution. He created it for His purpose. He was the One who brought Eve to Adam, and we have no other choice but to understand that He is the One who put them together. God doesn’t do things just to be doing them. Everything He does is carried out in His love, purpose, and plan. Everything God does is beneficial and fundamentally wise, and if He set it in motion, we had best believe that it is important.
God sets patterns for us to follow. We are not the leaders. He is the Leader. We follow Him through Jesus Christ, and that will always and forever be the precedent. Our Heavenly Father has shown us His love through Jesus Christ. Our Redeemer said in John 15:13(NLT), “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Jesus Christ gave his life on the cross because this was part of his mission for coming to the earth. God sent him here to be an offering for our sin, and to redeem us from darkness. John 3:16 tells us that God loved the entire world so much that He gave His only begotten Son. He did this so that we would not perish but have everlasting life.
Heavenly Father has shown us that love requires sacrifice. God’s love is the kind that binds a relationship together with strong glue. If a man lets you know straight out the gate that he will not love you this way, that he’s not capable of even understanding sacrifice, walk away. In Ephesians 5:25(NLT), God commands, “For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her.” A boyfriend is not a husband, but we should have enough wisdom to discern if he’d make a good one. The barometer for measuring whether he will or won’t is his motivation to sacrifice just about anything for your well-being. As His beloved daughter, God sees you as worthy of this, and this is how you must see yourself.■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
“Doing Too Much”, written by KLizzie, edited by Reverend Fran Mack, for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2021. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! SMS is dedicated to inspiring and encouraging Christian Women through the Word of God.