When Christ Asks, “Will You Marry Me?”

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April 30, 2012 by pyaase

There plays a classic scene over and over on our campus-a young man on one knee, with a delighted and tear-filled girl standing over him in surprise as he pulls out a ring. All you can do is smile when you see it unfold, regardless of whether you know the happy couple or not. And while we girls sometimes complain about some sort of “pressure” to come out of Harding married (or engaged, at the least), I too often forget I have already been asked. 

My Beloved Christ has Redeemed me long ago. He has bleached my bloody mess of a dress clean, to be white as snow. He has loved me with a love so deep, so pure, so forgiving, that it can’t contain itself in my heart. My original death in sin has been exhumed, love was found, and my life was resurrected in Christ.

He asked me to be His Bride. To belong to Him. To be committed to Him. To grow in a relationship with Him. I have a responsibility to that relationship. I have a purity to guard and a devotion to hold in high standards.

I by no means deserve to be asked. There is no reason for Him to consider me worthy of a relationship with Him. I think of Gomer, whose story we read about in Hosea, a small treasure of a book of the Bible. I have been the harlot, the prostitute, the slut, I have over and over again displayed a fickle love for my God, leaving Him in the dust as I chase after White Picket Fence Dreams of a high education, stable career, or a future husband. None of these are necessarily bad things, but I have let them get in between me and my Highest Priority. Yet time and time again, God takes me back, pursues me even. Hosea took Gomer back even after she slept with another man. She was a prostitute in the first place. But he chose her. I have been chosen. I have been called to the honor of becoming the Bride of Christ. I instinctively want to run away. I know how undeserving I am of such a love. I call myself worthless, dirty, a tramp.

But HE has put the worth in me. HE has picked me up, washed me over, nursed me back to health, and called me His. It doesn’t matter what man does to me here. It doesn’t matter who I’ve been with or what I have done. He loves me despite that. I have hurt Him as He’s watched me chase for love in all the wrong places, but He doesn’t ever tell me “told you so” or turn me down when I retreat to His all-consuming arms.

And as so many us girls dream of the day that a man will take a knee and ask us that fateful question, I think of the greatest proposal there ever was: Christ stooping to the level of a life here on Earth, among us, as one of us, giving all He had for us who didn’t deserve anything, hanging on the cross, gently asking us prostitutes, hypocrites, and scaredy-cats to take His offer. And now, I find it is I who needs to be on my knees. 

I had to think a lot about marriage when got back from India. What it meant for two different cultures, two different philosophies on the most intimate of relationships. What it means to love someone. So much has happened since last June – all sorts of confusing and deep relationships, crushes, and typical drama, but one thing remains the same: God is the ultimate love of my life.

And the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.”  So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. And I said to her, “You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.”  For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods.  Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days. -Hosea chapter 3

And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord. “And in that day I will answer, declares the Lord, I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth, and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil, and they shall answer Jezreel, and I will sow her for myself in the land. And I will have mercy on No Mercy, and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’; and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’” -Hosea 2:19-23

For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. -Ephesians 5:23

 Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready;
 it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure”—

for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

 And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.” -Revelation 19:7-9

Lastly, one of my favorite songs from those pubescent youth group years, by Jars of Clay:

In open fields of wild flowers,
she breathes the air and flies away
She thanks her Jesus for the daises and the roses
in no simple language
Someday she’ll understand the meaning of it all
He’s more than the laughter or the stars in the heavens
As close a heartbeat or a song on her lips
Someday she’ll trust Him and learn how to see Him
Someday He’ll call her and she will come running
and fall in His arms and the tears will fall down and she’ll pray,

“I want to fall in love with You”
“I want to fall in love with You”
“I want to fall in love with You”
“I want to fall in love with You”

Sitting silent wearing Sunday best
The sermon echoes through the walls
A great salvation through it calls to the people
who stare into nowhere, and can’t feel the chains on their souls

He’s more than the laughter or the stars in the heavens
As close a heartbeat or a song on our lips
Someday we’ll trust Him and learn how to see Him
Someday He’ll call us and we will come running
and fall in His arms and the tears will fall down and we’ll pray,

“I want to fall in love with You”
“I want to fall in love with You”
“I want to fall in love with You”
“I want to fall in love with You”

It seems too easy to call you “Savior”,
Not close enough to call you “God”
So as I sit and think of words I can mention
to show my devotion

“I want to fall in love with You”