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Best of the Best - Final in the series by Jessica Sheets We talked about what we need to be looking for in a guy; now let’s talk about what a godly guy is looking for in a giBest of the Best After everything that we have talked about for the past several weeks, I want you to think about where you are right now. Maybe you are single with no prospects in the future...are you OK with that? Maybe you are single with a prospect that doesn’t return your interest...do you believe that God is really all you need? Maybe you are in a relationship that you know is not growing you in your relationship with God...are you willing to do what you know in your heart you need to do? Maybe you’re one of the very blessed ones that has a godly guy and a healthy, Christ-centered relationship...can you hold to it loosely knowing that, until you have a ring on your finger, you don’t know for sure what God’s plan is? Relationships can be so tricky! And they can be so fulfilling! The key, as we have talked about numerous times, is THE relationship...the one with God. If that one is not growing and alive and the most important relationship in your life, then no other relationship will work! Ten years ago, I received a Christmas card with Luke 1:45 written on it. That verse stayed on the mirror in my bathroom until I left for my honeymoon. It says, "Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished." God promises that He has an incredible plan for your life. If you choose to believe Him, then you will be amazed and possibly shocked at what the future holds. I want to conclude with a story from the book Quest for Love by Elisabeth Elliot. She tells about the relationship between a minister named John Vanderhorst and his wife, Dotty. The story is written from John’s perspective who was not a Christian when he and Dotty (who was a Christian) began dating. I think we’ve talked enough that you know I do not recommend this. Most of us probably are not as strong as Dotty. But, fortunately for us all, God works in all kinds of circumstances. The story is a little long, but stick with it...it’s worth the read. "The obvious deduction, from the circumstances of our first times together, was that Dotty and I would physically consummate our love very soon. My own expectation was that sex would be a matter-of-course link between us from the outset. I thought this was to come quickly; I wondered how quickly. It was up to Dotty, and I didn’t press her. I was quite comfortable waiting: it was good to be loved; it was good to be loving--to have that feeling of warmth and approval in my heart which I thought was love; and the anticipation of that finer and deeper intimacy to be accomplished through sexual union was a pleasure in itself--all of which gave me lots of patience. I even found pleasure in Dotty’s reluctance, assuming as its cause a quaint coyness and laudable caution--it was only right that we knew one another a little before we made our bodies one. The disclosure of Dotty’s virginity was one of the major surprises of my life. Here was a girl anything but frigid or fearful, and yet for obscure religious reasons she had disdained lovemaking. In unbelief I had to ask, ‘Are you sure you’ve never...?’ She had not because she was a Christian. This news of course immediately altered my expectation for our relationship; what it did not alter was my desire to be with Dotty, to continue experiencing her love for me and mine for her. To these things I would desperately clutch--I thought they were salvation. What did it mean that Dotty was a Christian? To me it meant very little at first. It meant that we paused before meals to thank God for the food. And it meant that because we weren’t married, we weren’t to make love. Later it meant that because I wasn’t a Christian, we weren’t to be married; it was this finally which terrified me. To Dotty, being a Christian meant much more. I knew that by the way she talked of ‘him’--Christ, the mysterious third party in what seemed a love triangle. As months passed, and his hold on Dotty did not falter, I wanted to say she’d abandoned me. I wanted to say that ‘he’ had diverted her love. I saw and felt the reverse. Her love for me was strong and real--somehow, I sensed, because of his hold on her. I was beginning to see that who Dotty was depended absolutely on what she believed--that the person she might have been, had she not known Christ, or the person she might become, should she repudiate him, would be a person very different from the Dotty I’d given my heart to. I didn’t want her to change. I saw that ‘he’ would have to remain a part of the triangle. I thought I could live with that. I could share her with a stranger--if that meant she loved me the more. I hadn’t reckoned, though, on how the Stranger would view things. I was told the Stranger (Dotty’s friend) and I lived in separate worlds. It didn’t need to be this way, and he didn’t want it this way--I could choose in a moment to enter his world. Not to do so meant keeping the Stranger a stranger. I was satisfied with that footing, but in a way I hadn’t yet grasped, it meant keeping the woman I loved a stranger as well. The alternative--to enter that other world--would require a step more daring and immense than I thought I could ever take. Slowly I awakened to my own painful choice. Somehow a little romantic conflict had blown up into an ultimate cosmic question. I wanted the romance to be all; the stakes were simple and familiar. I wanted it to be her decision: ‘Take me or leave me, as I am;’ somehow she had thrust it back on me: ‘I love you. Come and see his world.’" John goes on to tell of his "campaign" to discredit God. He studied for months, and he only found evidence of a loving Savior who gave His life for him. And as that Savior pleaded at his heart’s door, he finally gave in and opened it. He describes the night it happened: "My heart raced. Defenseless, I turned a steady gaze upon him. He was near now, no longer so blurred. Faintly still--my eyes were adjusting. I knew he had won. Of course, he had never been in danger. He had taken an interest in my campaign, but from the start he had feared it only for its danger to me, not as any threat to himself. He was not gloating in his victory now; nor mocking the futility of my resistance. He longed for my surrender, not that he might punish me, but that I might find rest. He had felt my bitterness pass, and was waiting now for me to come. Now, master over death, he beckoned to me: ‘Come.’ It was a soft call. ‘Come. Come, now.’ I told him, ‘Yes.’ And a quiet knocking on my door roused me from the bed where, shivering and now soaring, I had surrendered my life to him. I realized, when I opened my door to Dotty, that she was now my second love." Wherever you are in life right now, He must be at the center of it all. As you learn to give Him control of your love life, your relationship with Him will grow in ways you never imagined. You will find that He has an incredible story just for you, and it will unfold in a way you could have never imagined! As each chapter ends and you think it can’t possibly get any better, you’ll turn the page to discover that the adventure has only just begun! "Now glory be to Him, who by His mighty power at work within us, is able to do far more than we would ever dare to ask or dream of--infinitely beyond our highest thought, hopes, prayers, or desires" (Ephesians 3:20, The Living Bible).