I hope everyone has been doing well and hope this short piece encourages you. When you are single and you stand in so many weddings you always hear this saying, "Always A Bridesmaid, Never a Bride." Now a days it doesn't even matter if you stand in many weddings, you may be just attending many weddings of friends jumping the broom. In any event, you are never the bride and sometimes we in our single states are happy for our friends to see how in love they are, but we also sometimes allow the enemy to allow us to become jealous and the self righteousness starts to come out. Why couldn't it have been me? She hasn't been obedient to your word Lord? She hasn't been keeping herself pure for her spouse? Father their not even saved? After all the questions flood your mind, still the thing that you wanted the most you haven't gotten.
After really thinking about it, the Holy Spirit brought the story of the Older Brother in the Prodigal son to my mind. We all know the story of the Prodigal Son, but we never truly concentrate on the Older Brother. The story can be read from Luke 15:25-32. The younger son left and spent all of his inheritance partying, on prostitutes etc, yet you had the older son who remained with the father, comforted him as he mourned the lost of his youngest son, did what was right, never disobeyed him, yet after all of this the youngest comes home after squandering all his money and the father gives him the world. Do you see the relation to the jealousy above?
I want to take this a step further, in our Christian walk when we see new converts come into the church or people who may have backslidden come back to Christ and seem to be excelling in the ministry more than we are, and receiving blessing after blessing and everyone is making a big deal about them and we are are just there, not growing, not moving, not being blessed. We tend to feel just like the older brother, we have been obedient and done what is right yet we aren't progressing and being blessed like our brother or sister who has just come to Christ or just came back to Christ. We allow the enemy an avenue into our thoughts to start planting seeds of jealous and bitterness. Instead of being happy for our brother or sister we are jealous and bitter.
When the Holy Spirit revealed this to me it changed my whole outlook on life and my season of singleness. God said, I don't love your friend more than I love you and everything I have I will give to you, but all in MY time. It's not your season, its not your time. Wait my dear child. This is when I truly understood the response of the father to the older son. He said, "And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found." Rejoice when your brother or sister comes to Christ, rejoice when your brother or sister is blessed! All that I have is yours, but your season is coming, your time is coming. Wait and trust in me.
I am so happy for my close friends who get married and find love and so happy to see my brother and sister come to Christ and advance in Christ and it has made my life so much easier. To stop the plan of the enemy to plant seeds of bitterness and jealousy. So I know that I won't always be the bridesmaid and never a bride. I am already a bride to my Father in heaven and He will make me a bride in the natural one day! Until then I will wait and trust in Him and be ready for my season of blessings!
Love always,
Raven
Be blessed by: Still by Hillsong
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