In the fall of 1966, I was a college freshman. I went to a small college only about 40 miles from my home, but lived on campus and started enjoying the freedoms available from living on my own away from my parents and family. I greatly enjoyed the college experience and making new friends and experiencing new things. I had a number of college roommates and enjoyed the friendship of them all. One of my new friends and roommates was Dick Bashore, who lived in the town next to mine back home but went to a different high school so we had never met. Dick and I became pretty good friends our first year in college.
During the spring semester, I occasionally noticed Dick talking with this young female student. I thought she was pretty cute, and decided I would like to meet her. So I asked Dick about her and found out it was a good friend of his from high school, who lived close to where we all grew up. I talked with him about how I wanted to meet her. So we agreed on a plan that when we returned home for the summer he would introduce us at a weekly dance that they had all summer long back at our home area. So at the first dance that summer, Dick introduced me to Cindy Wilhelm. After that first dance, we dated all summer and continued to date after we returned to college. Except for a brief interlude that fall (you can ask Cindy about that !), we dated continuously through college, got married the summer after college graduation, moved to Gainesville Florida for me to begin graduate school, which set our life plan in motion, although we never expected Gainesville to be the resulting plan for the next 50+ years!
Just as Cindy was never aware of what I was planning (or plotting ?) with her friend Dick to meet her, so were we all unaware of the plan that God had for us long before we ever thought of Him! As Sarah Young said in Jesus Always on April 19:
You love Me because I first loved you. I had My eye on you long before you were interested in Me. I noticed everything about you and followed you everywhere. I orchestrated circumstances and events in your life to help you see your need of Me. I provided people and teaching that told you the truth about Me in ways you could understand. My Spirit worked within you to make you spiritually alive – enabling you to receive Me and believe in My name. All of this flowed out of My deep powerful affection for you. I have loved you with everlasting love!
He knew and knows everything about us, and He has orchestrated our lives and provided us opportunities that have greatly impacted our lives. Just as Cindy eventually loved me because I first loved her, so do we love God because He first loved us.
1 John 4:19 – We love Him because he first loved us.
The more time I spent with Cindy after we met, the more I liked her. We grew closer together day by day, of course we also had some setbacks over time, that is part of the natural growing process, but our love grew over time until we knew we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. Sarah Young added:
The more you realize the immensity of My ardor for you, the more fully you can love Me. This enables you to grow, little by little, into the person I designed you to be. As you spend time in My tender Presence, it becomes easier for you to delight in Me and to show kindness to other people. When you are with others, ask Me to help you love them – with My Love!
After we find our spouse, we then spend a lifetime continuing to learn to love each other more and how to express that love. The focus of that love may change at times in our lives, like when children arrive, but the love should continue to grow and mature with time. So it is with our God, how we grow in our love for Him over a lifetime of experiences and opportunities to grow in Him!
2 Peter 3:18 – but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.
We need to spend our lifetime both pursuing Christian maturity and a deepening knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ …….. just as we need to spend our lifetime growing in our spousal love and love of family and love of all others around us. Only then can we be the mature Christian that He desires of us in our lifelong walk!!
1 Peter 2:2-3 – as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.
Amen!