What To Do While Waiting (Natural Preparation)

Hopefully we have all come to terms that we have to wait on God and are content with whatever His will may be for our lives. We know what to do spiritually while we wait for our husbands, pray, focus on God’s promises, devote ourselves in ministry and live in the present and not the future, but what can we do naturally?  

In the last post I shared with you all that God laid on my heart in relation to the parable of the ten virgins and how He revealed that yes you are waiting, but in waiting there has to be preparation. Just like the five wise virgins prepared for the coming of the bridegroom by having extra oil in their lamps, we too must prepare spiritually and naturally for the man of God that He wants to bless us with. My mother always tells me that why do single women think that God is going to bless them with a man of God when they themselves are not in order (relationship with Christ, others, not bearing the fruit of the spirit, not living right etc.). It is very true and when I think back on what she always tells me, God isn’t going to give you a blessing unless you are truly ready for it. This is where preparation is so important. Now that I have gotten the most important part of our preparation out of the way, let’s deal with the natural.

One of the first steps in natural preparation is taking care of your temple. I Corinthians 6:19-20 states that, “What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.” Primarily we know that one of the main reasons that we should be taking caring of these bodies is because they are the temple of God, and they are where God dwells.  I remember when I was in college a friend told me that men were visual beings. When she said it I was laughing, but as I grew older I came to find the statement to be true. Ladies I will keep it real let's just face it...what usually draws a man to you initially is your appearance. We know that beauty is only skin deep and what is inside is more important. Now if he is your “Boaz,” he will look beyond your physical beauty and fall in love with your inner beauty. So take care of your bodies, eat right, don’t drink or smoke, exercise. In doing this we are honoring God with our bodies as well. Doing the best with what God has given us honors Him. In addition, it may draw attentive eyes! Take care of your temple!

The second thing that you can do ladies is work on yourself. What are you bringing to a relationship that is valuable? In working on yourself ladies the five things that I feel are important to practice and which I know we women struggle with are submission, trust, respect, honesty, and forgiveness. Yes I said submission, and I will spend a little more time on this one because it’s always been a troublesome word for Christian women. For many years I even had a problem with this word because I misinterpreted it as a man being able to rule over a woman. But submission is defined as, “The action or fact of accepting or yielding to a superior force or to the will or authority of another person.” The word of God says in Ephesians 5:22, “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.” It’s not a husband ruling over a wife, but just a wife yielding to her husband and acknowledging that he is the head of the household. For example, if there were a decision to be made concerning the best interest for you both, your husband would make this decision. Now I would hope that before he makes a decision, he consults with you and you both are equally contributing to this final decision. This is the way in which God intended it to be, not for man to rule woman, but to make decisions together.  In our daily walk many Christians have a problem with trusting, forgiving and respecting people. I often encounter women and have friends who say that they don’t think that you can trust men, or if a man did a certain thing to them they can’t forgive them. In addition, a lot of women tend to disrespect their men, doing things behind their back etc.  Yet these women want to eventually be married. How can you build a relationship lacking, trust, honesty, respect, and forgiveness? If you cannot trust the man, respect him, be honest with him, forgive him, why would you get into a relationship or even get married to him? You are building something that will not last. Now I want you to ask yourself these questions, are you trustworthy, honest, and respectful? In addition, do you forgive easily?  Proverbs 31:11-12 states, “The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.” If you answered no to more than one of these questions know that these are things that majority, if not all, Christian men are looking for in their Proverbs 31 woman. Marriage is definitely not easy. You must be willing to compromise, and you must trust, forgive, respect and be honest in order for it to work. There will come times when the man will make you mad, and do something that he probably shouldn’t do. But no one is perfect and getting into a relationship you must be respectful, forgiving and trusting towards that man and he towards you. So I want to encourage you that if some of the things that I listed are still hard for you, continue to work on them while you wait. I know that I am growing in each of them that I have listed each day, while I wait. Remember that Ephesians 4:32 says,  “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.”

Finally, work on your domestic skills. I believe that a man should help with the cooking and cleaning if you both work. But let’s be real, how are you going to go into a marriage and you cannot cook a thing or clean? You will probably say that he should not want me because I can cook or clean, but the saying, “the quickest way to a man's heart is through his stomach" is still true. It may not be a pressing requirement for some men, but many would love to have a wife who can cook. I have married friends and I see how the man gloats, and boasts, when he comes home to a cooked meal. To him he has the best wife in the world, and all of this over just a cooked meal.  So I want to encourage you to practice keepings a clean house, and learn how to cook. Your husband will appreciate it and you will feel good being able to make him happy in this way. And when the time comes for you two to share those responsibilities, it will be easier for him to help as you have already shown him that side of you. The God in him will want to help because he appreciates what you have already done.

Ladies take care of your temple, work on yourself (submission, trust, honesty, respect, forgiveness), and work on your domestic skills. Ladies lets start or continue to make preparations (spiritually and naturally) for when God sends our Boaz!

Love you all,

Daughter of the King!

Bible Verses for the Week

“What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.” I Corinthians 6:19-20 (KJV)

“Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.” Ephesians 5:22

“The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.” Proverbs 31:11-12 (KJV)

 “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.” Ephesians 4:32

Be blessed by "The One He Kept For Me," by Maurette Brown Clark

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sE40VAIpfI