wyhr.orgWendy’s World

I’m still reading The Sacred Romance: Drawing Closer to the Heart of God. For a few chapters I’ve been wondering how the romance, i.e. the whispers of romantic adventure from God, appeals to men. In my latest readings I found an answer:

“The question every woman is asking goes something like, ‘Am I lovely? Do you want me?’ The question every man is asking is, ‘Do I have what it takes? Am I adequate?’ As men and women, we want to be chosen for different reasons, but we both want to be chosen, to be welcomed into the heart of things, invited into the Drama to live from our heart.”

This chapter was about recognizing that we were created by God and in His image. We are wanted. God doesn’t want the person we become, He doesn’t want the mask & costume we put on for the world. He wants us – naked and unmasked. But we all have been hurt before and so we’re afraid to be that vulnerable to someone again, even God. But we cannot have intimacy, the relationship that God wants with us, without being our true selves.

The quote above describes the questions we ask ourselves as men and women. It helped me to realize that the adventure God is calling us to appeals to men and women for different reasons. Men want to feel worthy and respected for who they truly are. Women want to know that they are beautiful without their mask and they want to feel pursued. As I’m writing this I also realized the words “romantic adventure” help to explain why both men and women are called in to this intimate relationship with God. In Wild at Heart, John Eldridge writes that men seek adventure. That’s why little boys play cowboys and Indians or cops and robbers. As a woman, I know that I desire romance. Romantic adventure. It is in those words that God is calling both men and women to come to know Him fully, in a relationship unlike any other.