Alice's battle

When advice from the godly clashes with the Word of God | Andrée Seu

Illustration by Krieg Barrie

Alice is a Christian who is thinking of getting married but she has cold feet. Her best friends are godly women, given to prayer, reverent and pure, doers of good deeds in the name of Jesus. They support Alice in her plan, but gently warn that marriage is not all she dreams of. There is that initial disappointment, always—but don't worry, God gives grace to adjust. Moreover, romance is a passing thing, which God and nature use to further kingdom ends. One should not expect that phase to last.

This is a bit of a downer for Alice, but her friends are godly, as I said, so she works on contented resignation, tamping down her expectation. The girlfriends' counsel colors her thoughts like a low-hanging fog.

But Alice is a woman who for months has been seeking hard after God. In particular she has asked for the mind of Christ. As Jacob and his brother jostled in the womb, so she is feeling nowadays a jostling of two kingdoms in her breast, where formerly there was just one that ruled her uncontested. This is not altogether pleasant, as you can imagine. Something is trying to be born, and it comes not without travail.