Imagine you have met a guy and he is totally into you. He calls you non stop to the point of excess. He is ready to cancel any plans he has to be with you. If you are feeling slightly claustrophobic around him and act a little bit colder than usual, he does not mind at all and only wants to spend more time with you. If you start trying to avoid him a little to get your space, he only seems to be more interested. You can do no wrong. He speaks to everyone about how much he likes you and puts your pictures up all over his facebook page. He lets you know that you consume his waking thoughts. He tells you he is willing to do anything to get you including moving location, quitting his job, changing church, ignoring his friends…anything. He wants you to stop doing everything you are passionate about to be with him. He drops his ministry responsibilities to see you and wants you to do the same.
How would such behavior make you feel? Annoyed, suffocated, overwhelmed, stifled, pressurized? But why would you feel this way? I’ll tell you why…he has made you into his God. He has put you on a pedestal that no woman should live on. In doing so he has devalued himself in your eyes and your respect for him has greatly diminished. No one likes to be idolized. It feels disgusting to be idolized.
But how many of us women have idolized men? How many of us:
- Have put a man on a pedestal that only God should live on.
- Are willing to sacrifice time, friends, family, ministry responsibilities and mental sanity for a man.
- Have acted in ways that are clingy, desperate and annoying when we meet a prospective husband?
- Have put a perfectly good potential spouse off us as a result of our idolatry?
If that’s us, what’s the answer? First of all, we need to repent of our idolatry and repent of forgetting our first love…
But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. (Revelation 2:4-5a)
…secondly we need to seek first the Kingdom of God and recommit to pursuing God and loving Him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength:
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matthew 6:33)
And he [Jesus] said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”. (Matthew 22:37)
The best way to avoid ruining a relationship by getting too obsessed with a man, is to be so passionately obsessed with God that no man could take His place! [Rowina Seidler]