Daughter Dilemmas
Welcome to week eight of Daughter Dilemmas, a weekly ask column devoted to exploring hard questions, together!Asking the hard questions, the messy questions and the just plain awkward questions is important. We should not disqualify them simply because of the discomfort they bring.Finding the courage to ask honest, hard questions enables us to see that others are asking the exact same thing. It spurs (much needed) conversation and allows us to consider perspectives we may not have otherwise considered.*Please note: We are not therapists, doctors or life coaches. Our answers are not intended to give you an instant fix, but instead to point you to Jesus Christ, our Savior. Our response to each of the questions below are rooted in what we believe to be true according to our understanding of the Gospel, as well as what we believe God has laid on our hearts to share after prayerful consideration. More than anything, it is our prayer that this ask column glorifies God and blesses His people! May it encourage you in your walk with Christ and enable you to see just how much of a good thing asking hard questions can be. May it lead you into His loving embrace.To submit a question anonymously, click here.
I’m currently in a situation where I’ve been spending time with this guy I like, but I’m unsure of where I stand relationship wise with him. How would God want for me to handle this?
Some men can be quite content to just spend time together and not define it. If you’re like me, that can be infuriating. Looking back, I see now that the guys that weren’t seeking out time with me and weren’t excited about talking/texting with me, never ended up being right for me.God wants you to have a guy who can’t wait to see you, doesn’t want to leave you and is excited about making plans for a future with you. And that’s the way you should feel about him.If all you’re feeling are doubts, he’s probably not the one for you. Because it doesn’t take long for you to know once you’ve actually started dating someone. So, if your time together has just made you want to have more time together, have the conversation. Ask him if he’s interested in taking your relationship to the next level. Better to know than to wonder. Either way, remember that you are beloved by God, and trust in His plans for you as you keep your eyes fixed on Him.
How do I find my way out of a sin I keep going back to? I feel like an addict who keeps on slipping up.
That’s a good comparison. Sin is addictive. How do addicts deal with it? They have support groups. As embarrassing as that is when it comes to ongoing sin that we just can’t seem to let go of, we have to find friends that will hold us accountable--someone to call to talk us out of it or take our minds off of it, someone to pray with.Prayer takes our focus off our worldly desires and puts it back on Jesus.Ask yourself, “If Jesus were to return right now, is this what I want to be doing when the trumpet sounds?”Memorize Scripture like Philippians 4:8, or write it on cards and stick it around the house. We were created to glorify God in all we do. How is your ongoing, recurrent sin glorifying Him? You know it’s not. You’re just shoving your relationship with God aside while you do it, so it’s easier to do it and not feel guilty. Lay this sin at the foot of the cross and move forward with your eyes fixed on the One who makes all things new.
How and when do I know if God is speaking to me?
God is speaking to you now in so many different ways. He is that voice in your head that protects you, that prick of conscience that stops you, that peace in the storm. Life would be so much easier if God would audibly speak to us and tell us what to do. He doesn’t. He has given us His Word and in that Word we are told to glorify Him in all we do and to keep our eyes fixed on Him. When we do that well, the path before us is so clear.When we forget and look to the world, or listen to that other voice--the father of lies--things get hazy. He is with us all the time. If we can’t feel Him it’s because we’ve moved away, not Him. We shouldn’t pray with the expectation that God will “speak” to us and tell us what to do. We should pray for Him to direct our path and believe that as long as we are seeking to glorify Him, He will. I believe God gives us choices. They’re all good choices. He will be pleased with whatever we choose as long as that choice doesn’t turn us away from Him, or stop us from seeking to glorify Him in all we do. Remember Philippians 4: 6-7. It doesn’t say that God will give us whatever we ask for or tell us what to do. It says to lay it all out for Him in prayer, let go of it, and He will give us His peace. Once we have that peace, we can fix our eyes on Him and choose what is best.
What are your thoughts on election and how to reconcile verses that specifically mention the elect/chosen/predestined vs. the choice we appear to be given in the gospels?
Different religions have different views on this very controversial topic. I come from a reformed background and we believe in predestination and don’t believe that it contradicts the idea of free will. God ordains all things. But He is not the author of sin and doesn’t violate our free will. He involves us in accomplishing His purpose. All human actions are free in the sense of being self-determined but none are free from God’s control.I have recently come to understand this more fully by looking at the account of Moses and Pharaoh. I previously thought that if God “hardened Pharaoh's heart” then he took away his free will and that didn’t seem fair. But in doing a word study, I discovered that when God hardens a heart it means he strengthens the resolve of someone. That’s entirely different than what I thought. It means that Pharaoh was already predisposed to say no and God strengthened that mindset. How? By sending ten plagues. Duh. Why didn’t I see that before? The plagues hardened his heart. That would certainly harden my heart.So, consider it like this: We were all created with this God-shaped hole inside us. We have the free will to fill that hole with whatever we want. (And boy, don’t we?) God makes Himself known to everyone through creation. Because He is omniscient, He knows every thought before we even have it. So, he already knows those of us that are going to be predisposed to seek Him. Those are His chosen and He will keep after us with “plagues” of grace to strengthen our resolve to seek Him. “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13). When, in our own free will, we finally choose to fill that God-shaped hole with Him, that’s when He sends his Holy Spirit to radically change our heart and make us new, knowing full well we were going to choose that path. Like the Trinity, it’s mysterious and complicated and truly beyond our human brains to understand it.The bottom line is that we’re thinking too highly of our free-will. All it really means is that we exercise “free-will” by participating in our salvation through the free choice to believe that Jesus Christ paid for our sins on the cross and conquered death by submitting to it and rising from the dead so that we who believe will have eternal life. That is our free choice, we just don’t come to it without Providential guidance. (“plagues” of grace) That doesn’t contradict the truth that God is sovereign and is working all things to accomplish His plan. It reveals that truth. (For better explanation and Scripture references to back it up, see The Westminster Confession of Faith.)