Dear Praying and Fasting Friends,
This is your reminder that we are fasting and praying during what would be Monday lunch for 1) marriage for those who are designed for it and for 2) the courage for men and women to walk upright and into relationship–with God and one another. If at all possible, find a friend with whom you can pray, in person or over the phone, during that lunch slot or whenever it works. There’s something about two people praying together that is deeply encouraging.
And as you pray, you might consider using the following video as ‘fodder’ for your prayers. I was sent this by a friend, Kevin, who warned me that before he saw it, he was scared it might seem “a little cheesy” but was actually spot on in its content. Anyhow, Washington, DC is a decidedly sophisticated place, and anything with a high ‘cheese’ quotient normally receives a few rolled eyes and is pitched out as irrelevant. So when I clicked on it, I was internally prepared to feel a little cynical and eye rolling myself. But I was surprised.
When I watched it, I thought, “Oh my goodness–this guy totally knows what I’m after! He has said it better than I could.” So, I’m sending it on to you, thinking that it’s actually worth watching, worth discussing, and worth praying into.
Take the 6 or so minutes and watch the video. Then I’d encourage you to pray in light of it. I’ll put a few suggestions below, and let’s pray together and see what happens this week.
Many Blessings, Connally
What Women are Looking for in a Man
What are my honest thoughts are about men and power? What symbolizes power to me? What is real power? Pray for the men you know to gain deeper relational power.
What might it feel like to be wanted/desired “without fear” by a man? Pray for the men you know to be set free to desire without hesitancy. Pray for the men you know to have the confidence that they have something to provide/offer a woman.
What does a ‘healthy’ man look like in my experience? Pray for the men you know to be able to:
- connect,
- be present
- have good boundaries and be able to say ‘no,’
- be comfortable with their imperfections (and that of the women in their lives), and
- be able to grow up and be adult, able to treat women neither as mommies nor as children, but as equals.
Pray for the men you know to get healthy and show up as full people (even as, of course, we pray the same for ourselves as women).
Let’s take our energy around this topic and pour it back into our prayers before God!
Thanks, Connally. Only just now got around to watching it, but it was worth the wait. I especially loved the last half. Will be praying for God to grow this relational health in both men AND woman.
I’ve talked with countless single women over the years, 1-1 and in groups. Based on all those pastoral counseling conversations and what I’ve seen in my own family, I recently wrote about Servant-Hearted Men … “Who is THE MAN women are looking for?
HINT: He might not extravagantly wine and dine. He doesn’t necessarily appear at the door laden with expensive boxes of chocolates. And he may not haul home extravagant bouquets of flowers for every conceivable occasion.
Those things are all well and good.
But the man that a woman really yearns for is the one who says “I love you” by …
http://creeksideministries.blogspot.com/2012/03/servant-hearted-men.html
This is so spot on. Thanks for sharing Connally.
Great wisdom here, Connally. OK, so I am mentoring two young guys one 30 one mid 20s, both I have had conversations with that essentially say, “If you want to become a man in Christ, in full, yor completion lies in responsibility to become what God intended–a steward of his creation, complet in Christ spiritually, and complementarily, complete in a life relationship with a woman. We are to be fruitful, multiply, subdue the earth and we do not do that casually or alone. They want a relationship leading to marriage from all they say. But . . . Neither are yet fully healthy. Can a young woman accept a guy who is not fully healthy and help him get there? Can young women see there are lots of reasons for immaturity in a ground guy and still accept him? From what I am seeing, they need a woman who can accept them and be part of the “growing together” process. How can I as an older guy advise them and how can connection to women who will be willing to be patient with their growing edges be made? You are laying wise and Godly pipe to connect this generation to each other.
Interestingly, Ray, I wondered even as I was writing the blog if the guy speaking on the video was/is setting impossibly high standards. But maybe like with all standards, he’s giving a sense of what men should shoot for and of what we as women really are looking for (over and against economic, social or physical power), even as we all have to keep learning to operate with TONS OF GRACE with one another.
I do know that most of the mature, relationally powerful men I have known did not start out that way, but they have gotten to where they are in tandem with an honest, real and loving wife. So somehow, men and women are part of one another’s maturing process–i.e. not postponing marriage until both are fully formed, as that will never happen in this life time.
I guess, Ray, you can serve guys by pointing them towards the right kinds of power to pursue, even as you can serve women by encouraging us to see the diamonds which are oftentimes in the rough.
Thanks for being a mentor to so many men (and women for that matter), Ray.
Connally