Pursuit

Disgusting. Fat. Ugly. Not good enough. Different. Average. Invisible. Undesired.

Being a girl in today’s society is not easy. We’re constantly being told that we have to look a certain way to fill a certain part. Even if people are just telling us to be ourselves they’re still hinting at us on how to be ourselves. The string of words above are just a few of the comments that I’ve heard some girls describe about themselves, most of the time with tears falling down their face. I’ll be honest, there are days where I wake up and look in the mirror and think the exact same thing about myself. And as these words run through our heads we begin to wonder, “Who could ever love or want someone like me?”

Pursuit. It’s a word etched into every girl’s heart. From life’s first cry to final breath, every girl has had a desire to be pursued by someone. We want someone to come in from the rain and proclaim that we have stolen their hearts. We desire to feel wanted, to know that we hold a special place in someone’s heart that could never be stolen or corrupted.

But where did this strange feeling come from? Why do we want someone to see through us and proclaim that we are special, beautiful, unique, and wonderful? Sure, everyone loves compliments, but is this maybe something deeper?

Genesis talks about how God so carefully and perfectly created the Heavens and the earth. He spoke words into thin air and there it was! Everything was so glorious and so holy that He, the only perfect thing ever known to exist, decided that it was good. But my favorite part of Creation is where He creates man and woman.

8 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”[i]

24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Genesis 2:8 & 2:21-24

God decided that man should not be alone, so what did He do? He sought out a helper for him. God conjured up every animal in existence to see what man would name them and do with them, but none of them were right for him. What did God do next? He took one of man’s ribs and literally set woman apart from everything else.

Let me just repeat that because I love it so much: We were sought after and set apart by God when He decided to create woman. That is why we have this longing desire deep down in our souls, because it’s the foundation of how we were created. And those desires crying out from our hearts can only truly be satisfied by the One who gave them to us in the first place.

We were made in His image and we all have the same desires as our Father. When God created man He gave him the role of a leader and to be respected, much like the Father is a leader and desires to be respected. When God created woman He gave her the longing to be sought after and set apart, like He longs to be sought after and set apart by us. And each man and woman were given the qualities needed to fulfill those desires for each other!

Like it says in verse 24 above: the man shall leave his mother and father to pursue and hold fast to his wife. The woman shall leave her mother and father to respectfully follow her husband as he becomes the godly leader of their household.

This is where I believe most of today’s society has gotten lost. We’ve lost the desire to pursue a relationship through Christ somewhere in the midst of “talking” and “hanging out”. The precious roles given to us by the Father have gotten so twisted over the years:

Men don’t want to actively seek out and pursue a woman’s heart to show her how special she is because they want to be chased instead.

Women don’t want to respect the leadership roles given to men because they want to be the leader in the relationship instead.

Sisters in Christ, this is my heart cry to you: Don’t give up. We were designed to be pursued by godly men, not the other way around. If a boy is truly a follower of God he will know to actively seek you out and set you apart the way our glorious Father does! And don’t be discouraged if someone isn’t pursuing you now, God has everything under control for that special time of your life! Just remember to never stop pursuing Him because He will never stop pursuing you.