Girl-Gone-Wild: Demands Gratification
Girl-Gone-Wise: Forfeits Gratification

Girl-Gone-Wild: “Come, let us take our fill of love till morning; let us delight ourselves with love.” Proverbs 7:18

Girl-Gone-Wise: She denies herself and take up her cross daily and follows Jesus. Luke 9:23

At a conference for ministry women in Thailand, I met many such women. They came from all over Southeast Asia and the Middle East. One was deaf in her left ear because of a bomb that attackers had thrown into her house-church several weeks earlier. Her son had narrowly escaped death. They were still picking shrapnel out of his head. Another was weary from the police constantly harassing and threatening her children. Another, a former student of mine-a brilliant woman who was working on her doctorate in theology-was planning another move. Their names were on the Chinese government’s wanted list. They had to move every 3 to 4 months when their evangelistic efforts alerted local police to their presence. They could have returned to North America, but chose not to. Another woman trembled as she worshipped, and tears poured down her face as she lifted her hands-At home, she was only able to whisper the name of Jesus, and it had been years since she was able to raise her voice and sing it aloud.

The most striking thing about all these women is not that they suffered for the name of Jesus-but that they suffered so gladly. They had the same attitude as the martyrs burned by the stake in the 1500’s. When the sheriff put the rope about Ann Audebert, she called it the wedding-sash wherewith she would be married to Christ. With joy on her face she exclaimed, “Upon Saturday I was first married, and upon a Saturday I shall be married again.” Or Elizabeth Pepper and Agnes George, who kissed and embraced the stake before they were burned. Or Elizabeth Folkes, who shouted, “Farewell all the world! Farewell faith! Farewell hope!” And taking the stake in her arms joyfully exclaimed, “Welcome love!” With fire licking and consuming her flesh, she clapped her hands for joy and raised her arms in exuberant praise.²

They were like the women in the Hebrews faith hall of fame who “received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated-of whom the world was not worthy-wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.” (Hebrews 11:35-38) Or like the apostles, ten of whom were reportedly martyred by various means including beheading, by sword and spear and, in the case of Peter, crucifixion upside down following the execution of his wife.

Entitlement is the next point of contrast between a Girl-Gone-Wild and a Girl-Gone-Wise. A Wild Thing is intent on immediate gratification. She feels she has a right to be comfortable, happy, have fun, get what she wants, and indulge in all sorts of pleasures. Enjoyment, comfort, luxury, and ease are what she feels she deserves and what she constantly seeks and demands. A Girl-Gone-Wise, on the other hand, knows that the highest pleasure exists in denying self and willingly bearing the cross of Christ. She forfeits earthly gratification for the eternal joy that God has set before her. She sacrifices lesser joys for infinitely greater ones. She knows and accepts that on this side of heaven, Christian discipleship is a costly, uncomfortable, painful, and even bloody business.

It costs…

It costs to follow Jesus. Girls-Gone-Wise will pay a price for their obedience. In this culture, they will suffer for taking a stance on Christ’s teaching about gender and sexuality. Like Amy, who endured stares, snickers, and whispers after she took a stand on morality in her social science class. Or Lisa, whose friend secretly dared three males to enter a competition to get Lisa to lose her virginity. Or Samantha, who broke off her relationship with Jim because he didn’t share her conviction on sexual standards. Or Christina, who was ostracized from her church group for having views that were far too radical. Or Kimberly, whose husband tried to force her to watch pornographic movies and relentlessly mocked her when she wouldn’t.

Or Alison, who lost her job because she refused her boss’ advances. Or Rebecca, whose tires were slashed and house vandalized with graffiti when she said that homosexuality went against God’s design. Or my fellow author who was stalked because she publically took a stand on purity. Or Natalie, whose heart aches for a husband, but who refuses to settle for a man that isn’t sold out to God. Or all the women who have been mocked, scorned, ridiculed, despised, and attacked because they take the Bible’s teaching on gender and sexuality seriously. The price of obedience is suffering and self-denial. It’s costly.

Christ’s call for self-denial is radical. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23) A Girl-Gone-Wise answers Christ’s call to radical obedience. Every day, she takes up her cross and resolves to follow Jesus-no matter the cost.

If there was ever a young man who knew how to self-indulge, it was the first century philosopher, Augustine. He lived a hedonistic lifestyle, drinking, partying, and sleeping around with women. He felt himself drawn to the Lord, but hesitated to become a Christian because he thought he could never live a sexually pure life. He is famous for uttering the prayer, “Lord, grant me chastity and continence, but not yet.”

Augustine was radically converted when he read Romans 13:13-14:

^“Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”

After he gave his life to Christ, he discovered, much to his surprise, that self-denial led to a far greater joy than self-indulgence ever did. The joy of Christ was sweeter than all other pleasures:

How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose! . . . You drove them from me, you who are the true, the sovereign joy. You drove them from me and took their place, you who are sweeter than all pleasure. . . O Lord my God, my Light, my Wealth, and my Salvation.³

Do you believe it? Do you believe that treasuring Christ holds greater pleasure than sex, wealth, power, and prestige? Are you willing to forego worldly gratification? Are you willing to self-deny and suffer so that the True and Sovereign Joy, “sweeter than all pleasure” can take the place of all lesser pleasures? It will cost. For some, it will cost a great deal. But it’s a price that a Girl-Gone-Wise is willing to pay.

© Mary A. Kassian

This is a pre-publication excerpt from “Girls Gone Wise in a World gone Wild,” © Mary A. Kassian to be published by Moody Publishers in 2010. All rights reserved. You are welcome to link to this post, but please do not copy and/or reproduce this copyrighted material without express written permission of Moody Publishing.

Girl-Gone-Wild: Circumspect
Girl-Gone-Wise: Indulgent

Girl-Gone-Wild: “I have spread my couch with coverings, colored linens from Egyptian linen; I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.” Proverbs 7:16-17

Girl-Gone-Wise: “She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy… she makes bed coverings for herself…”. Proverbs 31:20-22

Although that particular ad campaign hasn’t run in North America, it’s the clandestine message of virtually all mass marketing efforts. Merchandisers want to convince us that we need more of whatever it is they are selling. The Bible’s perspective differs from the world’s. Constantly buying more stuff isn’t a trait of a woman who’s smart, it’s a hallmark of a Girl-Gone-Wild. The Wild Thing is an indulgent, voracious consumer who pursues pleasure through the purchase of material goods. A Girl-Gone-Wise thinks differently about the way she spends her money. She’s circumspect. She understands that everything she has comes from God. She tries to honor Him by being a good steward of all her resources. She treasures the riches of the Kingdom more than the riches of the world.

The fact that the woman in Proverbs 7 takes such care to detail the extravagant luxury of her possessions gives us a clue as to her attitude towards them. It’s clear she has an underlying attitude of self-importance and self-indulgence. She wants the young man to be impressed and to hold her in high regard. She wants him to admire her, and to charm him with all her finery. She wants him to affirm that she is really something. She’s like the harlot, Lady Babylon, who indulged in the “power of luxurious living” and in the “passion of sexual immorality”, and seduced nations to “drink her wine.” (Revelation 18:3)

The passage in Revelation informs us that Lady Babylon was a greedy consumer. She was a shopaholic who bought all sorts of exotic imported merchandise: “gold, silver, jewels, pearls, fine linen, purple cloth, silk, scarlet cloth, all kinds of scented wood, all kinds of articles of ivory, all kinds of articles of costly wood, bronze, iron and marble, cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and slaves, that is, human souls.” She was extremely fond of these “delicacies and splendors.” In her mind, they were status symbols-”must-have” items. The latest and greatest in Babylon’s More magazine was “the fruit for which [her] soul longed.” (18:12-14)

Nowadays, we’ve substituted designer jeans for purple cloth, satin sheets for fine linen, French perfume for frankincense, 5-star restaurants for cattle and sheep, BMWs for horses and chariots, nannies and housekeepers for slaves, but we’re just as greedy and self-indulgent. Like Lady Babylon and the Proverbs 7 woman, we’re caught up in the endless quest for more. We spend and spend, even if we don’t have the money.

A Girl-Gone-Wild is a voracious consumer. She treasures the things of this world more than she treasures Jesus Christ. She settles for fleeting pleasures that do not satisfy her deepest needs, and in the end, ultimately destroy her soul. The world tells us that smart girls get more. But Scripture says that if we’re truly smart, we won’t settle for the “more” the world can offer. We’ll want immeasurably more than its cheap, temporary thrills. The problem is not that we desire beautiful and precious things, but that we have a faulty perception about what is most beautiful and most precious. We settle for treasures that wear out, break down, and can be stolen, when we ought to set our hearts on riches that last forever.

The Bible teaches that what you do with money-or desire to do with it-can make or break your happiness forever. The Girl-Gone-Wild who makes material riches her goal in life has the wrong values. However wealthy she may appear, she is poverty-stricken in God’s sight. In His economy, the truly rich woman is the one whose main aim in life is to serve him as King. Her wealth lies in the currency of faith and good works, opening her hand to the poor, and reaching out her hands to the needy. She has a heavenly bank balance that no one can steal and nothing can erode. She lays up for herself treasures in heaven, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:21) The Girl-Gone-Wise knows that heavenly treasure is the kind that smart girls get more.

© Mary A. Kassian

This is a pre-publication excerpt from “Girls Gone Wise in a World gone Wild,” © Mary A. Kassian to be published by Moody Publishers in 2010. All rights reserved. You are welcome to link to this post, but please do not copy and/or reproduce this copyrighted material without express written permission of Moody Publishing.

I’ll be joining Priscilla Shirer and David Landrith as keynote speakers at the The National Women’s Leadership Forum 2009 in Nashville next week, November 12-14. Worship will be led by Travis Cottrell and a special concert by Kelly Minter. The theme is MOMENTum-Living and Leading in Today’s Culture.

The forum will be webcast live from Nashville next Friday, November 13. My keynote, entitled, “Leading in the Moment” starts at 3:30 pm Central Standard Time. I will be speaking at about 4 pm CST. Lifeway will be doing live webcast interviews all day, so you can log on anytime. I’ll provide a link next Friday morning on the blog, so you can catch what’s happening at the forum.

The forum will feature valuable ideas, information, and inspiration for Women’s Ministry leaders. Led by LifeWay senior lead women’s ministry specialist Chris Adams, this 3-day leadership event includes breakouts, reception, and sessions with LifeWay trainers and authors.

Key Verse: “Pay careful attention, then, to how you  walk - not as unwise people but as wise - making the most of the time, because the days are evil.” Eph. 5:15-16

Women attending this year’s forum will:

• Gain insight and wisdom as a leader
• Develop ideas and strategies to lead
• Are challenged to maximize momentum in ministry

Chris says, “Our desire is to strengthen leaders in order that they may walk wisely in today’s culture. The forum focuses on how to take insights learned and develop effective ministry that is intentional and creative. Our prayer is that leaders leave the forum challenged and inspired to invest in ministry that is relevant to the culture and has lasting impact and value.”

For example, this is how my day has gone so far. I checked the news, and saw stories about a 15-year-old girl who was brutally gang-raped by by anywhere between 7 to 10 men outside of a high school while at least a dozen others stood by and watched it without interfering, and a sadist who allegedly raped, murdered, and stowed the bodies of at least 10 women in his home. Those are just the stories in CNN’s headlines–the tip of the iceberg nationally. At the same time, there are numerous local stories about child sex abuse and murder that didn’t even make the national news.
Next, I checked my Twitter feed, which carried news of many non-profit organizations (Christian and mainstream) that are working to improve the conditions of women and girls around the world. High on their list of concerns is sex trafficking and enslaved prostitutes.

I then started work by listening to a media panel about “transmedia” efforts–telling a single story across a variety of media platforms. One of the panelists spoke without shame of working with a clothing company that sponsored an interactive game about a stripper. The gamer controls the stripper’s actions, which this media expert cheerfully said allowed the player to either make the stripper engage “in the most depraved actions” or “save her.” It’s an odd sponsorship, given the fact that the sponsor’s clothes aren’t seen very often. (The clothing company wasn’t mentioned in this panel, but I wish it had been so that I would not patronize their stores or product.)
 

Listening to this panel, I wanted to scream: Why can’t we connect the dots here? Why is it that as a culture in the developing world, we put our heads in the sand and voiciferously protest there is no connection between the media we consume and our actions? Yet, other studies show that when television is introduced to new areas of developing nations, there is a measurable change in behavior. Do we think we are somehow immune to the effect of media in our own nation? Do we think we can allow people the fantasy of degrading and brutalizing others (especially women) and argue that this thought life will not eventually affect behavior?!

What can we do to change this thinking? I want to encourage each of you to become media activists. Please protest media that undermines the safety and dignity of women and girls, in particular, through social media and your wallets. Teach your children to understand that what they feast their eyes upon will become normalized to them. Let retail vendors know of your displeasure. And please support media that challenges these denigrating, dehumanizing trends by producing edifying content. I’m not arguing for cheesy, unsophisticated content in the name of being positive, but well-produced content that elevates human dignity. If we speak out, we can make a difference in the lives of the next generation of women. Media is a powerful tool to shape and change behavior. Let’s make sure it shapes and changes it in the right way. Pay attention and do your part, because media matters.

© Carolyn McCulley

Girl-Gone-Wild: Depends on Man
Girl-Gone-Wise: Depends on God

Girl-Gone-Wild: “So now I have come out to meet you, to seek you eagerly, and I have found you.” Proverbs 7:15

Girl-Gone-Wise: She delights in the Lord, and He will give her her heart’s desires. Proverbs 37:4*

“CGS?” I asked, alarmed, “What’s CGS?” It sounded like a terrible communicable disease. I had visions of their friend lying quarantined in a hospital room, hooked up to a respirator, with tubes sticking out from all over his body, surrounded by masked doctors and nurses talking in hushed tones. “Is it serious? Is he going to be okay?”

Warren looked at me with a deadpan expression and explained, “CGS-Clingy Girlfriend Syndrome-It is serious, and NO, he’s not okay. He’s suffocating to death.” I just about fell out of my chair laughing. I knew exactly what he was talking about. And so do you. Some women are so needy for attention and affirmation that they cling to men like plastic wrap to a piece of raw meat. The young man couldn’t come to his scheduled outing because his girlfriend didn’t want to spend the evening alone. She insisted that her needs take precedence over his wanting to spend time with his friends.

As the Proverbs 7 narrative unfolds, we see the woman expressing her ardent desire to be with the young man. She hopes and expects that he will come to her house and meet her needs. She’s spent the whole day preparing for this possibility. She says, “So now I have come out to meet you, to seek you eagerly, and I have found you.” She strokes the young man’s ego by emphasizing his importance to her:

“I have come out to meet YOU, to seek YOU eagerly . . . YOU are the man of my dreams! YOU are so amazing, so strong, so handsome, so right for me! YOU are the only one who can help me! YOU are the one I’ve been waiting for! I’m so glad that I found YOU!” She puffs up the young man’s head to think that he is the only one who can rescue her from her loveless plight. He’s her knight in shining armor, her savior. But the truth is, her flattery has very little to do with him being sensational, and very much to do with her being needy. He is merely a means to a perceived end. She’s only interested in him because she thinks he will satisfy her desires.

A Girl-Gone-Wild looks to men to fulfill the deep longings of her heart. She relies on them for her sense of self-worth. She is needy and dependent. A Girl-Gone-Wise knows that no man on the face of earth could ever fill the God-shaped vacuum in her heart. She doesn’t depend on men for her sense of self. She delights in the Lord, and depends on Him to give her the desires of her heart.

To introduce a talk, I once showed the classic Walt Disney clip of Snow White singing, “Someday my Prince will Come” to a room full of college-aged girls. Their response was dramatic. Many raised arms in the air and shouted “Yes!” Some stood on their chairs with their hands clasped over their hearts. Some whooped. Some cheered. Some hollered. Some pretended to swoon. One or two had tears streaming down their cheeks.

The response when I showed the same clip to a room full of middle-aged women, several weeks later, could not have been more different. Most looked disinterested. Many laughed and sneered. Some rolled their eyeballs. Some shrugged a shoulder and went back to having conversations with their girlfriends. Not one woman pumped her arm and shouted, “Yes!” Not one.

The reactions were telling. The college girls had hearts filled with hope of meeting their prince charming and living happily ever after. They eagerly anticipated that marrying Mr. McDreamy would fulfill their desire. The middle-aged women had hearts filled with cynicism because their prince charming hadn’t delivered the happily ever after ending they had hoped for. Mr. McDreamy had turned into Mr. McDreary and Mr. McDumpy. They had the gut-wrenching suspicion that no one would ever meet the longings of their hearts. The nods, tears, and “yes’s” for these women came when I talked about the pain of disappointment. It’s not that their desire had died. It’s just that they were wearied and wounded for all the years of hoping and yearning. They were tired of trying to squeeze water out of a broken, empty cistern. They still hadn’t found what they’re looking for.

So what are we to make of all the longing? To quench their thirst, many women spin themselves around in endless circles of desire, dissipation, and disappointment. I think of my high school girlfriend, Michelle, who has experienced numerous failed relationships: two or three serious boyfriends, two common-law relationships, one broken engagement, and one failed marriage. When we had dinner several years ago, her desire and desperation had reached a frenzied level. This 40-year-old was dating and sleeping with 3 different guys at the same time. “I just wish I could find someone to love me,” she lamented, with eyes brim full of tears.

C.S. Lewis once said, “What does not satisfy when we find it, was not the thing we were desiring.”² He suggests that we can best describe the restless desire that exists in the human heart with the German word, “Sehnsucht.” My parents were German immigrants, and my first language was German, so let me try to explain the word. There really is no adequate English equivalent. It’s a quasi-mystical term that melds ardent inner longing or yearning (das Sehnen) with obsession or addiction (die Sucht). Sehnsucht is a deep, driven, inconsolable inner longing for something of monumental importance.

Sehnsucht compels us to reach for an ultimate answer that remains just beyond our reach. Some people experience it as a type of nostalgia, others as a type of homesickness. Others think that it’s a longing for someone they have not yet met, or something they have not yet attained. They think that if they only meet that “someone” or get that “something,” will their desire be satisfied. The majority of people who feel Sehnsucht are not conscious of who or what the longed for object might be.

King David knew. He said, “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?” (Psalm 42:1-2) Sehnsucht is the deep, inner “panting” of our spirits for God. One philosopher called it the “God-shaped vacuum” of the soul. The human soul was made to enjoy something that is never fully given-that cannot even be imagined as given-in our present mode of existence. Sehnsucht is a longing for God that only God can fill, but cannot fill completely until we see Him face to face. Even the satisfaction and joy we can taste in His presence now is shot through with longing. It’s like a woman enthralled to hear the voice of a distant lover, but craving the moment he will hold her in his arms. Sehnsucht beckons and whispers, points and draw us to the time when we will finally be united with the lover and redeemer of our souls.

© Mary A. Kassian

This is a pre-publication excerpt from “Girls Gone Wise in a World gone Wild,” © Mary A. Kassian to be published by Moody Publishers in 2010. All rights reserved. You are welcome to link to this post, but please do not copy and/or reproduce this copyrighted material without express written permission of Moody Publishing.