Taken from Chapter 3 of " boy meets girl" by Joshua Harris:
Three Words
Ending what he and Christy called the "us" part of their relationship wasn't easy,but they both knew it needed to happen. They went back to just being friends. They interacted at church but didn't act lika a couple. They thought of each other as brother and sister, not boyfriend and girlfriend.
THe plan worked...for a while. Even though they both knew what was right, their hearts were deceiful. They wanted the feelings. They wanted the thrill of expressing how they felt. They wanted the security of knowing they belonged to each other. As a result they began to compromise their commitment to keep the relationship strictly a friendship. In a letter, Rich told Christy that he loved her. She did the same. They did nothing physically, but before they knew it, they were back in a full-throttle romantic relationship, this time behind her parent's back.
But adfter several months, conviction set in. Deceiving Christy's parents began to take its toll on them. "We have to tell your parents," Rich told Christy one day. "We can't go on like this."
They never got the chance. A day later, Christy's dad walked by while she was on the phone talking with a girlfriend about her relationship with Rich.
"Christy what were u talking about?" her dad asked when she had hung up. "Tell me in three words."
"Personal prayer requests," Christy andswered.
"Really?" her dad asked. "It sounded more lik, 'Richard Guy Shipe.'"
They were caught.
Christy broke down and confessed her deceit. Rich met with Christy's parents a few days later. Like Christy, he was brokenhearted at the way he had deceived them. He'd stolen more of Christy's affections when he knew they didn't rightfully belong to him.
Rich asked Mike and his wife, Vickie, for forgiveness. This time, he promised, the relationship really was going to end. He understood now that this would require drastic measures. They couldn't simply be casual friends. "If we didn't pull back, we would be moving forward," Rich says. "You can't stand still ina relationship like that." They had to get out of each other's lives.
That's when Rich asked Christy to give back all the letters he had even written her. Reluctantly she handed them over. "I wanted to serve her," Rich explains. "I wanted to take everything from her that represented my feelings for her. Those letters were the record of our love and all we had shared. We cherished them and reread them over and over. I knew that in order to truly lay the relationship at God's feet, we both had to part with them."
An Early Morning Funeral
Rich was digging a hole in Christy's front yard that night to bury a box that contained all the letters they'd written each other. They were over one hundred handwritten pages inside it.
Had his feelings for Christy changed? Not at all. But he realized that he couldn't be guided just by his feelings. He had to act on principle and do what was in Christy's best interest. He couldn't just do what felt right; he had to do what was right. Even though it hurt, he knew that the most caring thing he could do for the girl he loved was to get out of her life and end the relationship that was distracting both of them from serving God and obeying her parents.
It took Rich nearly two hours of digging to finish the hole. He made it two feet by three feet eide and eighteen inches deep so it would be beneath the frost lime. He picked up the box of letters and laid it gently into the ground. He had wrapped it tightly in several layers of plastic. Rich wanted his hopes to be able to stay in the ground for a long time...maybe even forever.
For eighteen-year-old Rich, that moment was the funeral of his dreams. He was subnitting his feelings and longings to God. He stared at the box one last time, looked lovingingly up at the quiet house, and then pushed the dirt he'd unearthed back into the hole and packed it down with his foot. If You want to dig this up some day, I know You can, he told God. Bu if not, this is where it will stay.
He covered the spot with sod, then quietly stole away.
The Kite and the String
I don't want you to get the wrong idea from Rich and Christy's story. Matching romance with wisdom doesn't necessarity mean that you do the opposite of what you want. What it does mean is that you do the opposite of what you want. What it does mean is that you learn to do what's best. Wisdom is simply the ownership of insight. It's the "Oh, I get it!" that means we understand how one thing relates to another...and that we're willing to change our attitudes and behaviour accordingly.
I like the way Eugene Peterson describes wisdom. He says that it's "the art of living skillfully in whatever actual conditions we find ourselves." When we guide romance with wisdom, we have skillful romance-romance that is directed by what is true about God and about the world He has made.
I like to think that the relationship between wisdom and romance is like the one between a string and a kite. Romantic love is the kite that catches the wind and tenacioutsly heads for the sky; wisdom is the string that tugs downward holding it back. The tension is real, but healthy.
I supoose there are times when a kite feels tied down by the string. "If this bothersome string would just let go of me, I could fly really high," the kite might think. But hat isn't true, is it? Without the string holding it in the face of the wind, the kite would quickly come crashing to the ground.
In the same way, romance without wisdom will soon take a nosedive. It becomes selfish, indulgent, and even idolatrous. Have you been in a relationship like this? Have you witnessed such a relationship in the life of a friend? What was it missing? The answer is wisdom.
It's not enough to simply have romantic feelings. Anyone can do that! Long-lasting romance needs practical, common-sense wisdom that knows when to let the wind of feelings carry us higher and when to pull back. When to express our emotions and when to keep quiet. When to open our hearts and when to rein them in.
Youth service 2pm to 4pm
6001 Beach Road
Golden Theatre
5th Floor
Youth Fellowship 4.30pm to 6.30pm
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Golden Mile Tower
16th Floor
English/Chinese service 7.30pm to 9.30pm
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Golden Theatre 5th Floor
shine Your light
For this is what the high
and lofty One says –
“I live in a high and
holy place,but also
with him who is contrite
and lowly in spirit,
to revive the spirit
of the lowly and to
revive the heart of the
contrite.”
-Isaiah 57:15
Be Humble and Obedient
Your truth
"Don't let anyone look
down on you because
you are young, but set
an example in speech,
in life, in love, in faith
and in purity"
-1 Timothy 4:12
