I even hesitated to write about it because it is so extremely different from what you hear and see every day, in other words "out of this world"...
It is like I discovered something that I want to keep only with me because I worry that it could be misunderstood and get lost. But at the same time I want to share it with the whole world.
It all started with a book, "Authentic Beauty" by Leslie Ludy. I would not consider me being part of her target audience (it seems more to be fit for teenage girls/young women) but there is a truth found in the book I am not too old for. I am glad I eventually found this living example the author draws in front of the readers eyes and I can't imagine how she must have felt sharing her life's story with the world by writing this book.
I actually found a post that summarizes the book better than I could do but I'll give you the link later because I do not agree when the author Carrie says "Ludy's approach to purity is more strict in nature to the one I prefer".
Since I decided to be an "authentic christian" I found it more and more difficult to really live it out. And here purity comes into play. Leslie writes:
Many of us know a lot about our Prince. But knowing about Him and knowing Him are two very different things. Do we know Jesus? Has He become the Lover of our souls, the essence of our every existence, the center of our entire beings, and the One for whom we would give up everything, including our very lives, to follow?
Knowing Him like that is not easy. In today's world (even the Christian world) we are usually living at an insanely frenzied pace of life, we are all too often bogged down with years of piled-up emotional baggage, we are distracted by confusing relationships or stressful circumstances, and we are bombarded by the relentless noise of the culture around us. The question is: how do we learn to know our Prince in the midst of all this? The answer is: we can't.
Jesus does not live at the frantic pace of this world. He is not found in the clanging clamor of the culture. His tender whisper is like a still, small voice that is quickly drowned out by our distracted minds and wandering hearts. To discover Him as our Prince, to know Him as our Lover - we must become like the princesses in our childhood fairy tales who were willing to leave everything else behind to follow the man each loved. We cannot stay where we are and go with our Prince.
To set a scenery that is able to hear "the still, small voice" Leslie provides some tools and one of it she calls "building-up an inner sanctuary". That implies to clean up my life and throw out all the bad stuff that could sneak into my heart and mind by concentrating on circumstances, people or just some TV-shows.
And if you start to clean up your inner sanctuary and start an intimate relationship with The Prince your inside will be changed and as a natural consequence your outside will change as well.
And there is something else:
Since I was a teenager I questioned myself if there was something wrong with me concerning guy/girl relationship. Sometimes I wondered if my standards were too high and if I was looking for something or someone that only exists in my fantasy: a perfect man. But the message of the book gave me to vivid insights:
- The perfect man is found in Christ. He desinged a woman to look for a soulmate and all her needs and desires are met if she realizes that the only existing soulmate for her life is Jesus. You will never find a human being on the whole earth that is so able to read your mind and answer your deepest longings like Him.
- There are still a few men outside who also decided to live a "set-apart life" and who are being transformed into christ-shaped manhood. They reflect the life and the character of the Great Prince and they are worth waiting for.
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