A Girl's Holy Ambition: Her Knight in Shining Armor

Sarah and I were talking the other day. We do that a lot, but this particular conversation was especially thought-provoking. We were noting how fast our peer circle is growing up. Our little buddies are driving, our sisters are taller than we are, and our friends are heading into college. Basically, our social group is experiencing the winds of seasonal change. All of these conditions, achievements, and circumstances are normal in the process of growing up, but it’s still rather strange to see the paradigm shift as past seasons come to a close and we enter a new stage of life.

Also, a development that we see as quite strange is how many of our friends through grade school are "in relationships" with their recently (or not so recently) discovered significant others. We learn of these "situations" and, after a wide-eyed look of shock crosses our faces followed by several awkward blinks, we go about the task of finding a knook or cranny in which to store the strange piece of information in our unyielding brains.

It's not like we've never considered the day our dad will walk us down the aisle, it has just never been of such immediate importance that we spent much time dwelling on it. As girls, we're not going to initiate that type of "relationship" (See Mark Driscoll on this idea, its rather entertaining.) so we don't spend our mental energy wondering, worrying, or planning for it. ...Not to mention the fact that we've always been "too little." If those special people come along, our dad will let us know.

That aside, there is one mindset regarding guy-girl relationships that really ticks me off. It pains me to see girls who graduate or finish their schooling in some form or another and then just wait around to get married. They have no real evident purpose and no practical plan. They sometimes work a few odd hours a week, or "help out" at home, but their life's philosophy seems to complacently say, "Oh, I'm just waiting for my knight in shining armor to come and find me." Their whole purpose in life is oriented around that ride into the sunset.

As Sarah and I were discussing this sad reality, I made the point that, "These girls seem to just sit around, waiting for their knight in shinig armor to rescue them," and then (in my best attempt at a Mark Driscoll impersonation : 7:00-7:15) I'm like, "I HAVE ONE! His name is... JESUS! I don't need this guy!"

If a girl's purpose in life is founded in Christ, then He will completely exceed her expectations. If a girl's purpose in life is founded in her significant other, that poor man will always fall short of her expectations. Either that, or she will worship him in the place of Jesus, yet another role he was never meant to fulfill.

 I was rather challenged and inspired by this message from John Piper.