Are You Dating a Glider or a 747?

About a year before I met my husband, a visiting minister prayed over me and said, “God is going to clear the runway of your life of all the gliders so that there’s room for the 747.” Now, here’s the thing about gliders: They have no engine. They’re just carried by the wind. A 747, on the other hand, not only has an engine, but that engine has to be big enough to carry a lot of people 30,000 feet up in the air.

In this case, the engine represents the heart.

Up until then, the guys I dated liked me enough to ask me out but then quickly changed. One day they called, and the next they didn’t. One day they seemed super interested, the next indifferent. They were carried by the wind of emotion and lacked a heart conviction about our relationship. It was a recipe for insecurity, self-doubt and turmoil.

And over the course of a year, God did exactly what that minister said. He cleared those gliders away from the runway of my life. I became convinced those men were not right for me, and I no longer mourned the loss of their attention.

And then Marvin came along. Shortly after we met, he knew he wanted to marry me, and his actions and attitudes were honorable, steadfast and single-minded. There were no double messages. I never wondered if he still liked me, and I never questioned his motives. While we dated, I was secure, happy and grounded. And I still am.

When God awakens love in the heart of a man, that man sets his face like flint and pursues the woman he loves. He gives, waits, listens and learns. He does what it takes to get the girl. And if he’s a good man, this won’t change after the honeymoon. He may relax the pursuit, but the love doesn’t diminish; rather, it grows, matures and solidifies. Largess continues to mark the relationship, and there is joy.

When mere emotion or physical attraction awakens love, the man shifts like the wind. He likes you; he doesn’t like you. You’re the one; you’re not the one. He has eyes only for you; his eyes wander over every cute figure that passes by. And there’s nothing you can do about it. You can’t be pretty enough, funny enough, spiritual enough or flexible enough. You’ll never be good enough. Nope, he’s just not that into you, and the fruit in your life is misery.

This is what your friends see and sense while you’re still blindly hoping.

You don’t want a relationship built on fickle emotion; you want one grounded on the rock of God-breathed conviction. You don’t want to get aboard a glider, which can never carry you to great heights or bear the weight of life’s challenges and will surely crash given a strong enough gale. You want a jumbo jet that can climb above the storm and lead your family through the exigencies of life.