preparing for marriage: step 1 take your thoughts captive
So I finally woke up this morning a little after 6am after planning on doing that the previous week. But my “planning” was actually secretly doubting that I would ever be able to achieve such a feat so I lay in bed and am lulled back to sleep every morning…until today (mwahaha)
After getting up, had my morning cup of Barley Max (it’s actually not that bad), dressed and ready to go, I even had time and motivation to do a ten minute YouTube workout video (finally!!!)! I felt super awesome. I was so on a roll. High five Sunny! You da bomb!
As I began to descend down the stairs, grin on my face, bags in my arms, coffee in my right hand and watching an interview on my iPhone I slipped and had an epic fall on the stairs where I landed on my toosh. I had to sit on the steps for awhile to recover. Thus concluded my glory sprinkled morning…Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo……
There are so many things that can and do happen daily that potentially flips a perfect day into the worst nightmare. But this does not need to be our fate ladies.
One of the first things Becky Falkner, my small group leader, shared with us in our women’s small group (she started this small group with the focus of preparing us for marriage) was the importance of taking our thoughts captive (2 Corinthians 10:5). This seemingly simple act is one of the greatest thing you can do to prepare yourself for marriage.
God has gifted women with rich emotions to enter into His heart which is far more emotional than any of ours (possible? yes it’s true). Yet this gift, like any other gift the Lord gives needs to go through the fire of testing. The Lord is faithful to mature our emotions by teaching us how to respect His truth by reigning in our emotions through the practice of taking our thoughts captive.
Just as the Lord commanded wives to respect their husbands and for husbands to love their wives, we do this first by submitting to and respecting our ultimate Bridegroom, Jesus Christ (Ephesians 5:33).
Before you run in panic of me mentioning the “s” word, all that submitting means, is that we allow our husband (whether that be Christ or our earthly husband) to love us.
When we allow the Lord to love us, to enter into the door of our seemingly chaotic, ugly, roller coaster hearts, His love and grace enters in to comfort and bring true freedom.
We do not need to subject ourselves to the control of our emotions or how the enemy plays with our hearts. We have access to the power of Christ which dwells within us and the grace extended to us to take our fearful and anxious thoughts captive.
Like any new discipline, it takes time. Don’t give up or condemn yourself when you feel like you’re not doing it well. It took me nearly a year to get a little better at it and I’m still working hard on it. Be patient with yourself.
Let’s give our fears, our anxieties and insecurities to our Abba today. Oh God, increase our capacity to receive Your love more and more! Help us give our fears and anxious thoughts to you.
What are you afraid and worried about? I’d like to know : )
