Grab your favorite drink, get comfortable, and let’s get ready to be encouraged.
As I’ve stated before, my hope is you will be curious and intrigued to the point of checking this book out for yourself. {Also, these are all direct quotes from the book, Captivating by John & Stasi Eldredge.}
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Captivating
Chapter 7 ~ Romanced
I have loved you with an everlasting love. ~ Jeremiah 31:3
* (pg 112) This wild God of mine, who knows my every thought and intention, who sees my every failure and sin, loves me. Not in a religious way, not in the way we usually translate when we hear, “God loves us.” Which usually sounds like “because he has to” or meaning “he tolerates you.” No.
Longing for Romance
* A woman becomes beautiful when she knows she’s loved.
* Cut off from love, rejected, no one pursuing her, something in a woman wilts like a flower no one waters anymore. She withers into resignation, duty, and shame. The radiance of her countenance goes out, as if a light has been turned off.
* But this same woman, who everyone thought was rather plain and unengaging, becomes lovely and inviting when she is pursued. Her heart begins to come alive, come to the surface, and her countenance becomes radiant.
* (pg 113) We long for romance. We are wired for it; it’s what makes our hearts come alive. You know that. Somewhere, down deep inside you know this. But what you might never have known is this… This doesn’t need to wait for a man.
* God longs to bring this into your life himself.
* He wants to heal us through his love to become mature women who actually know him.
* What would it be like to experience for yourself that the truest thing about his heart toward yours is not disappointment or disapproval but deep, fiery, passionate love? This is, after all, what a woman was made for.
* Faithful obedience to God is vital, but it is not all God draws us to. It is not sufficient for our healing, no more than doing the laundry is sufficient for a marriage. And it will not be enough in the long run to carry us through.
God as Lover
* (pg 114) Jesus calls himself the Bridegroom (Matt. 9:15, Matt. 25:1-10, John 3:29)
* “Bridegroom” simply means fiancé. Lover. This is the most intimate of all the metaphors Jesus chose to describe his love and longing for us, and the kind of relationship he invites us into.
* You might recall that the Scriptures use a number of metaphors to describe our relationship he invites us into.
* But have you noticed they ascend in a stunning way? From potter and his clay to a shepherd and his sheep, there is a marked difference in intimacy, in the way they relate.
* It grows more beautiful and rich when he calls us his friends. But what is most breathtaking is when God says he is our Lover (our Bridegroom, our Fiancé), and we his bride. That is the pinnacle, the goal of our redemption (used in the last chapter of the Bible, when Christ returns for his bride) and the most intimate and romantic of all.
* (pg 115) If you’ll open your heart to the possibility, you’ll find that God has been wooing you ever since you were a little girl.
* What were the things that romanced your heart as a girl?
* (pg 116) And as we journey into a true intimacy with God as women, he often brings those things back into our lives, to remind us he was there, to heal and restore things that were lost or stolen.
Opening Our Hearts to the Romancer
* (pg 116) Every song you love, every memory you cherish, every moment that has moved you to holy tears has been given to you from the One who has been pursuing you from your first breath in order to win your heart. God’s version of flowers and chocolates and candlelight dinners comes in the form of sunsets and falling stars, moonlight on lakes and cricket symphonies; warm wind, swaying trees, lush gardens, and fierce devotion.
* This romancing is immensely personal. It will be as if it has been scripted for your heart. He knows what takes your breath away, knows what makes your heart beat faster.
* We have missed many of his notes simply because we shut our hearts down in order to endure the pain of life. Now, in our healing journey as women, we must open our hearts again, and keep them open. Not foolishly, not to anyone and anything. But yes, we must choose to open our hearts again so that we might hear his whispers, receive his kisses.
* (pg 117)…God had already proven his love for me. He had sent his only Son, Jesus, to die for me. He had rescued me. He had paid the highest price imaginable for me. He had given me all of creation to speak of his great glory and love, and he had given me the Word of God in all its depth and beauty, and here I was, asking for more.
* God delights in revealing himself to those who will seek him with all their hearts. He is an extravagant, abundant Lover, and he loves to reveal his heart to us again and again.
* (pg 118) Perhaps it would be good to ask, Jesus, how are you romancing me now? We don’t always see it.
* (He loves your vulnerability, as any Lover does. He loves it when you share your truest heart’s desire with him.)
What Does God Want from You?
* (pg 119) This is not to say that life is one big romantic moment with Jesus.
* Like you, there are seasons in my life when Jesus seems very near and seasons where I can’t seem to find him at all.
* All relationships ebb and flow. The ebbing is to draw our hearts out in deeper longing. In the times of emptiness, and open heart notices.
* Often God allows these feeling to surface to help us go back to times when we have felt like this before.
* Notice also what you want to do – how you handle your heart. Are you shutting down in anger? Turning to food? To others?
* What is crucial is that, this time, we handle our hearts differently. We ask our Lover to come for us, and we keep our hearts open to his coming. We choose not to shut down. We let the tears come. We allow the ache to swell into a longing prayer for our God.
* And he comes, dear hearts. He does come. The times of intimacy – the flowing waters of love – those times then bring healing to places in our hearts that still need his touch.
* (pg 120) What is it that God wants from you?
* He wants the same thing that you want. He wants to be loved. He wants to be known as only lovers can know each other. He wants intimacy with you.
* Yes, yes, he wants your obedience, but only when it flows out of a heart filled with love for him.
* “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.” (John 14:21) Following hard after Jesus is the heart’s natural response when it has been captured and has fallen deeply in love with him.
* You are meant to fill a place in the heart of God no one and nothing else can fill. Whoa. He longs for you.
* (pg 121) God wants to live this life together with you, to share in your days and decisions, your desires and disappointments. He want intimacy with you in the midst of the madness and mundane, the meetings and memos, the laundry and lists, the carpools and conversations and projects and pain. He wants to pour his love into your heart and he longs to have you pour yours into his. He wants your deep heart, that center place within that is the truest you.
* He is not interested in intimacy with the woman you think you are supposed to be. He wants intimacy with the real you.
* First, God says that he will thwart our efforts to find life apart from him (we quoted this part earlier).
Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes;
I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.
She will chase after her lovers but not catch them;
she will look for them but not find them. (Hos. 2:6-7)
* He does this, as we said, in order to wear us out, get us to turn back to him in thirsty longing. Then he begins to woo us. He often takes us aside from every other source of comfort so that he alone can have our heart’s attention.
Therefore I am now going to allure her;
I will lead her into the desert
And speak tenderly to her (Hos. 2:14)
* (pg 122) And it is here that we begin to experience him not as the God-way-up-there, not the God-of-Sunday-mornings, but as the pursuer of our hearts. As Lover.
* In the spacious love of God, our souls can lie down and rest.
* This love from him is not something we must struggle for, earn, or fear to lose. It is bestowed. He has bestowed it upon us. He has chosen us. And nothing can separate us from his love. Not even we, ourselves. We are made for such a love. Our hearts yearn to be loved intimately, personally, and yes, romantically. We are created to be the object of desire and affection of one who is totally and completely in love with us.
* An intimate relationship with Jesus is not only for other women, for women who seem to have their acts together, who appear godly and whose nails are nicely shaped. It is for each and every one of us. God wants intimacy with you. In order to have it, you, too, must offer it to him.
Adoring Hearts
* (pg 123) The one thing that is needed is a captivated, adoring heart, a heart that responds to the extravagant love of God with worship.
* Our hearts are made to worship. It is what we do; we can’t help it.
* Worship is what we give our hearts away to in return for a promise of Life. Some worship fashion; others worship a boyfriend or husband. We really are limitless in what we will give our hearts away to.
* But Jesus is the only one worthy of our heart’s devotion.
* (pg 124) Jesus says the first and greatest commandment is “Love the Lord you God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37).
* It is from hearts filled with love for him that all good works and acts of love flow.
* Women hold a special place in the heart of God.
* (pg 125) A woman’s worship brings Jesus immense pleasure and a deep ministry. You can minister to the heart of God. You impact Him. You matter.
* You are made for romance, and the only one who can offer it to you consistently and deeply is Jesus. Offer your heart to him.
Cultivating Intimacy
* To pursue intimacy with Christ, you will have to fight for it. You’ll need to fight busyness. (Martha’s addiction) You’ll need to fight accusations. You’ll need to fight the Thief that would steal your Lover’s gifts to you outright.
* (pg 126) There is a fierceness in women that was given to us for a purpose. Getting time with you Lover is worth whatever it costs. Ask his help in making you desperately hungry for him. Ask his help in creating the time and space you need to draw close to him. Ask him to come, to reveal himself to you as the Lover that he is.
* Get in a private place. Let everyone know it is not a time to interrupt you. Unplug your phone. Bring your Bible and a journal to write down what you hear God say in the depths of your heart.
* The first time may not be amazing. You may feel your words and cries are bouncing off the ceiling. We grow in this as we practice. We come to God in worship not to get from him but to give to him.
* You are his Betrothed, his Beloved, the beat of his heart, and the love of his life. Draw near. He is waiting.
* (pg 127) The culture of women in the church today is crippled by some very pervasive lies. “To be spiritual is to be busy. To be spiritual is to be disciplined. To be spiritual is to be dutiful.”
* No, to be spiritual is to be in a Romance with God. The desire to be romanced lies deep in the heart of every woman. It is for such that you were made. And you are romanced, and ever will be.
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How about you?
Have you felt God thwarting your effort to find life apart from him?
(page 121)
Disclaimer: I have not been compensated for anything in this post.