Being a drama teacher as well as a student of communications one thing I teach (and continue learning about everyday) is the power of body language. Body language is a tool that helps us send a message even when we are not verbally speaking. Slanted eyebrows typically means we are mad or angry about something whereas eyebrows raised high usually means we are surprised or shocked about something. Pouting lips means we are sad, folded arms means we are gaurded, fidgets of any kind usually mean we are anxious or nervous about something...even the direction of our eyeballs when speaking can tell our audience (or the recievers of the message) whether we are fabricating our story (aka LYING!). I find it amusing too that not all gestures mean the same thing! Where waving means hello, high five means familiarity with another person, and fist pumping all mean something very specific in the US they may mean completely different things in other parts of the world.
The reason I am bringing this up is because of a movie I was watching tonight (and this blog may be a big ferris wheel of blabber but I promise, you will come back down to the bottom and hopefully have caught on to the point after you've had the chance to see the message from several different vantage points!) The movie I was watching was the huge box office tear jerker "TITANIC". During one of the first initial scenes the character of Rose is attempting to fling herself off of the huge ship. Here she has her first encounter with Jack Dawson. He rescues her so to speak by holding out his hand and asking her to TRUST HIM. She takes his hand and clearly does not fall off the ship (or that would have been one short movie and none of us would ever have known what happened on that big boat!) Anyway, after this scene I said so clearly in my own head that it could have possibly been verbal "I wish I had a guy who loved me this much that I could trust with my life." And do you know what I heard back? "YOU DO"---WHOA! What a slap on my forehead, Homer Simpson DOHH!, kind of moment. DUH! I DO have someone who loves me that much! But what about the second part? The part where I trust Him with my whole life?? (If you haven't caught on by now I am talking about God)
While letting that question sink in, I found myself semi-busy doing other things while the movie was going but EVERYTIME I came back in, it was at a part where Jack Dawson was holding his hand out to Rose asking her "DO YOU TRUST ME?" And everytime, with little or no hesitation she grabbed it and followed him, or grabbed it and held on, or grabbed it and truly just trusted that he knew what was best, and he was going to get them out of whatever situation they were in (be it running from the cops on the ship, or holding on for dear life when the ship sinks. Oh yes--SPOILER ALERT! :))
I dated a man once who in the beginning asked me to trust him this same way. To hold on with everything that I had, and to never let go. And that even if we went down with the ship, or found ourselves amidst a terrible stormy sea that is trying to suck us down under, that it would be "us against the world". What a wonderful offer huh? To not only on our own accord trust someone that much but for someone to love you so much they are willing to BE trusted that much by you because they will fight to the death for that love, is powerful. However, there was something wrong with that mentality. (And in any dynamic with anybody I think there will ALWAYS be something wrong with that type of situation).
When we trust in other people that way, or a singular other person, our need for God to be our Rescuer starts to diminish. And when that need diminishes, we start feeling like we don't need Him at all in any area of our lives. I took a philosophy of love class in college where we talked about the origins of love. (Roughly I am going to try and remember that now.) Basically there were these things walking around called "kegpeople" which were 2 people (or beings rather) attached as one. Their insides and outsides fit together, they wrapped around each other, and this was "LOVE". Well, since the kegpeople had all that they needed within their singular unit, it made the gods mad, because they were no longer being worshipped by the kegpeople. So one of the gods (with the lightning bolts) took a pair of lightning bolt scissors and cut the keg people in half. Then the god of storm or wind or something (clearly it's been a while since I have had this class haha) blew all of the keg people to the four corners of the earth. What happened after that is that these keg people would spend the rest of their lives LOOKING for their other half. Some would search forever and never find the other person and end up alone. Others would link together with another keg person whom they never originally "fit" with and because they were mismatched and wouldn't fit together, all they could do is wrap their arms around the other person, and wilt and die! (Isn't this so sad!?). This is also referred to sometimes as the "soulmate" theory. So back to my point--I feel like when we look at other people as our other half, our missing piece, our soulmate, our "you complete me" jerry maguire boyfriend--we miss out on feeling that way towards GOD.
If anyone in your life is going to be your "Jack Dawson" it needs to be God. He is always there, extending His hand to us, asking us to trust Him, and waiting for us to truly surrender to His plan. And when we do, trust and surrender, He takes us on an AMAZING journey that we never would have been on otherwise. Rose found herself ready to jump off of a boat in freezing degree water in the middle of nowhere rather than go back to her predictably controlled boring safe and dissatisfying life. But when she found Jack Dawson, and made the choice to take his hand every single time he extended it to her, to trust him and follow him, letting him lead and make choices, letting him protect her and love her and therefore in return, showing him her love for him as well, she found herself on a wild, and exciting ride-where only her wildest dreams were coming true!
So often we find ourselves faced with the dilemma of taking God's hand and fully trusting, or taking God's hand and maybe not really trusting at all. Sometimes we even look at God's extended hand and say "Um, God, could you like, hold on a sec? Let me try it MY way and if it doesn't work I'll come right back." Imagine if you were Rose and God was Jack Dawson. Picture that love, that passion, that desire to be with us always and protect us and love us and lead us in our lives. Would you as Rose EVER say no to dreamy eyed, handsome, and romantic Jack Dawson (aka Leo DiCapprio) when he extends his hand to you? So why do we say no when God steps in the picture and extends his hand to us? Remember, God is the CREATOR of the heart-therefore He is the ULTIMATE Romancer of it, because He knows the ends and outs! It would be like trying to play World of Warcraft with it's creator, expecting him not to be any good at it so attempting to play like the top ranked in the world instead, make sense? Hello!? He CREATED the game! (sorry, that was a very random analogy that popped into my head JUST IN CASE I had any male audience on this blog!)
I started the blog talking about body language, and facial expressions, and finally gestures. The single most important gesture in capturing a woman's heart is going to be the extension of the hand which always makes the statement "you taking my hand means you trust me-- trust in where I will lead you, trust me in how I'll love you, trust that I will protect you." Sure, it is a WONDERFUL idea to also trust your husband in this same way. But ladies, God created marriage to be glorified and for it to mirror the relationship He has with us. So don't you think you should trust and surrender to God in this intense way by taking His extended hand before you try and add a man in the picture? With no model, you won't know how to do it. That simple.
So I guess specifically I am talking to ladies again here. We ask for chocolates, we ask for diamonds, we ask for kids, we ask for love, we ask for time, we ask for attention, we ask for .....someone to extend their hand to us, so that we are ABLE then to surrender, being free from all control, to fall into the arms of true LOVE that surrounds us so much that we feel our heart might explode. Well, God is waiting and wanting to do that for us right now. His hand is always extended. What will we choose to do with it?
In Him,
Meg
