Waiting For Salvation

Over the weekend, I read a really excellent book ("Captivating," and I highly recommend it) that primarily addressed the deep, complex subject of a woman’s heart. Sometimes it discussed the complimentary differences between the male and female heart, and one of those is that a woman longs to know that she is worth fighting for, while I man’s heart longs to have a woman to fight for, so he can, well, prove he’s a man.

It’s a beautiful design, no question, and its purpose is largely to demonstrate who God is—or what His heart is.

Unfortunately, as you have seen yourself, it generally doesn’t work out in the beautiful way it was designed to work. Most women have been wounded in their youth, and by the time they reach adulthood don’t believe they’re worth fighting for, and so have either abandoned hope, or have taken up the fight on their own behalf. Many men are convinced or afraid they won’t win the fight, or have concluded that since their woman is taking care of herself, they don’t need to fight (yes, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: passivity is deadly) and so they don’t. Are you getting the gist of how this cycle can so readily spiral downward? I’d have to say that we’ve reached the point where most woman are fighting their own battles (often by means of manipulation) and are exhausted and completely unable to fulfill the restful, inviting function of femininity; and most men are passive and useless, or else are fighting selfish, pointless battles.

It’s a mess.

And if the subject comes up, women blame men for not coming through (which is often a valid complaint) and men shrug and say, "why bother? Either I’m not needed, or I can’t do it well enough, so …"

Do you get it?

But let’s start at the beginning, and the beginning is that it isn’t, for women, about trusting their husbands to come through for them, it’s about trusting the Lord to come through for them. And while we women may claim that men don’t come through (and sometimes they just plain don’t) there is also the issue of human willfulness and impatience. King Saul could tell us about that.

I’ve forgotten the minute details, but the prophet Samuel told Saul to go to a certain place and wait for seven days, and then Samuel would come and perform the sacrifices. At the very end of those seven days, he came. But before that, when it was near the appointed time, Saul got antsy. I’m not addressing the reason Saul got anxious, I’m just pointing out that he did. (And I’m not addressing the topic of men who drag their feet in order to control people, either.) Saul lost his kingdom because of it.

The simple fact is that we often fight our own battles because we refuse to wait for the Lord to fight for us.

We can’t blame Him, when that happens.

If this message has been forwarded to you, and you would like to be added to Charissa’s mailing list please send your request to info@charissaschalk.com. Thank you.