Here’s what I asked my guy friends recently:
What would the pursuit of a girl look like for you personally? I ask ’cause a teen girl recently told me her fave quote is:
“The next time a boy pursues you, he better do it like a dying man looking for water in a desert. When it’s the right guy, you’ll know, because he’ll cherish you.”
Might be me, but I just don’t think that first sentence is realistic, and I don’t think it’s gonna necessarily be that obvious. Am I wrong? Please help a girl (scratch that—lots of girls) out.
—Paula
Here’s what my guy friends had to say:
“That’s over the top. I want Christ to be my top priority and then if He brings along a girl, then that’s good. I certainly want to cherish her but not like a dying man. For me personally, pursing a girl looks more like becoming good friends with her first, and when the time is right, with permission from her parents, taking that relationship/friendship deeper.” —Trevor J.
“As the other Trevor said, I think that picture of pursuing a girl is a bit over the top. The picture in Jeremiah 2:13 of forsaking the fountain of living waters (God) for broken, dusty cisterns (anything that is not God) comes to mind. My thirst needs to first be satisfied by God and then by a wife (Pr. 5:15–23).
“For me, pursuing a girl looks like befriending her, seeing what her trajectory in life is like, speaking clearly about exploring the possibility of marriage, and then moving forward from there, certainly keeping her parents in the loop all the while.” —Trevor M.
“Haha yeah, I’d say that statement is a little extreme. The start of pursuing a girl for me is more about getting to know a girl and seeing if there is even any mutual interest. Extreme desperation is probably not the best place to start.” —Mat
Now, I will say God does challenge men (specifically husbands) to cherish their wives, to follow Christ’s example and lay their lives down for her in the daily grind of everyday life:
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her . . .
In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church (Eph. 5:25, 28–30).
But expecting a guy to leap from admiring you from a distance to pursuing you with the zeal of a dying man looking for water in a desert seems unrealistic and unhelpful (and quite possibly unhealthy) to me.
How about you? What do you think?
Fact is, there is a man who pursued you all the way to death, the God-Man Jesus. He didn’t do this out of desperation for your love, (Acts 17:25 tells us He doesn’t need anything!) but out of obedience to His Father and out of pure, selfless, sacrificial love that was looking out for your best interests:
God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).
How have you responded to His pursuit of you? With an a) “I’m not interested, thank you very much,” or with a b) “I can’t fathom how you would love me, but YES, I give all of myself to You!”
Written by Paula Hendricks
