Read an Excerpt

God. Guys. And the Great Mix-Up.

This is a book about God…
…and guys…
…and how we get them mixed up.

Oh, do we ever.

It shows up in the little things: picking the short skirt, racing to update a relationship status on Facebook, filling a journal with guy-talk instead of God-talk, texting under the pillow at night, jumping from guy to guy, taking the “walk of shame”…again, or bailing on friends when a guy calls. As you think about similar choices in your own life and what they suggest about the priorities of your heart, you may have an intuition that I’m right. Your spirit gets it, if your mind does not.

I’m certain that a part of you desperately wants to get lost in God’s love. At least some small piece of us always seems to be aware that we are wired to seek God’s heart and to let Him touch our own. But it’s so difficult. After all, the love of a guy is so stinkin’ tangible. You can see a guy. Smell a guy. Touch a guy. Hug a guy. Text a guy. Get gifts from a guy. And they are everywhere! There are more than 139 million men in the United States alone. No wonder we get distracted from seeking God’s love! I certainly have been prone to reach for the tangible love of a guy rather than the ultimate love of God. As I look back on one particular scene from my sophomore year in college, I see it as a classic example of my own mixed-up thinking.

“I’ll meet you in the yearbook office in one hour,” I confirmed to Russ before I hung up the phone. Russ was my yearbook editor at Cedarville University, and after two years of hard work, I was in line for his position the following year. On top of being a great résumé builder, the job came with a hefty scholarship. If my boss needed me, I’d be there!

Since I wouldn’t have time to hit the cafeteria, I turned on my electric kettle to boil water for some Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. It wasn’t fancy, but it was fast. I was pouring neon-orange powder over buttered macaroni noodles when my phone rang again. Before I could get out a hello I heard, “Dannah Barker, say you’ll marry me. But if you can’t, then at least break it to me gently by saying you’ll go to Wittenberg with me to study.”

Bob Gresh!

This guy, whom I’d been dating for a while, always kept me laughing.

“Yes!” I giggled. “When?”

“I’ll be right over,” he said. It shouldn’t have surprised me. Bob was the definition of spontaneity.

“Umm,” I hesitated, thinking about the commitment I’d just made to go help Russ. And I really did want that job next year. Should I risk it?

“We’ll run through Lee’s on the way for some chicken,” he promised.

“Well…okay,” I said, dumping my noodles into the trash can. “Let’s go!”

For a brief moment, I considered calling Russ to cancel, but I wasn’t sure what to tell him. The truth: This great guy just proposed marriage or a date at the Wittenberg library, and I chose the latter when I’m really shamelessly going for the first option! Or the other truth: I’m a complete dolt, risking what I’ve worked two years to achieve in that yearbook office all because I’m incapable of saying anything but “yes” or “oh, yes!” to this guy because I crave him night and day. Either way I’d sound like a complete loser.

So I didn’t call Russ. I needed to think of a good excuse first. (Read: I was planning to tell a really good lie.)

I gathered my books, met Bob in front of my dorm, and jumped into his white sports car, casting aside my integrity.

God in all His sovereignty made sure I’d run into Russ’s best friend at the Wittenberg library. Russ was forgiving, but I’d have given almost anything (except my boyfriend, of course) to have not seen the disappointment register in his eyes when the truth unfolded.

There was no denying the truth.

I was guy-crazy with no ambition to be God-crazy.

That impulsive decision—along with so many others—was driven by a deep-rooted reality: I had confused my longing for God’s love with my longing for a guy’s love. All because of the Craving.

The Violent Craving.

You have it. Your friends have it. Your mom had it. Your grandma had it. Your greatgrandma had it. It’s been around awhile.

Countless generations of woman have experienced it.

The Craving is a part of the Curse, which means it dates all the way back to Eve. After she and Adam sinned, God showed up to explain that things would never be the same. To Eve, He talked about the Craving. Genesis 3:16b reads, Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.

The word “desire” is critical here. Two respected theologians once said that the Hebrew language used in this verse evokes a “desire bordering upon disease.” They also said that the desire might best be called a “violent craving.” In the original language of the Bible, God used some pretty expressive wording to describe what women would experience in relation to men after the Fall. Simply put, we hunger for them. The Craving makes us all insatiably hungry for the attention of a guy, but each of us experiences this desire in a slightly different way.

I asked college-aged women who follow my blog to share how the Violent Craving has shown up in their lives. Here’s a sampling of their responses:

I have felt the Violent Craving expressed as jealousy toward my peers that have boyfriends. How foolish I felt, to feel jealous instead of happy, when a friend started dating a guy I DIDN’T EVEN WANT TO DATE.

Elementary school to high school, I didn’t get the attention I wanted. I was the chunky monkey that everyone went to for a good laugh. It wasn’t until I got to be around 16 I got the attention from guys, and it got the best of me and took one of the most valuable things from me—my virginity. I lost it to a friend who liked my sister and respected her, but thought I would be the easier choice. And he was right.

My main regret would be that I haven’t spent my time enjoying my singleness.

There used to be a boy that I cared for very much. He was godly Christian, extremely polite, and we communicated through e-mail almost daily. My deep longing to be desired and pursued blinded my eyes from the warning signs that he wasn’t everything he claimed to be. A year or two after I met him, he ended up having sex with my younger sister on the couch in our living room.

I went to a secular university and was involved in a campus ministry. One of the most popular sayings among the girls was “ring by spring.” To say there was a Violent Craving toward the idea of having a husband is an understatement.… I was the only single girl in the apartment. I allowed myself to be ruled by a Violent Craving for a husband.

My Craving started at the age of twelve when my dad passed away. I longed for a man to notice me. I wanted that attention. I dressed to attract men and wanted a man’s approval.

They shared countless such stories, each expressing a sense of “eureka” at finally having a diagnosis for their symptoms! Of all the voices who offered examples of how they express, deny, loathe, live in, and ache from the Craving, it was a sweet seventeenyear-old girl whose experience mostly clearly described the effects of the Genesis 3:16 curse. She wrote,

I’m seventeen, raised by a very liberal mother and an extremely conservative father. That marriage didn’t work out. It ended when I was seven. Since then, I’ve always been very angry about marriage and cynical of love, due to its causing much pain, loneliness, and anxiety in my life. I swore I’d never marry. But even with all that confusion and anger, I still desperately wanted to be noticed and passionately loved by a man. I wanted someone to see and know me. The first guy I had any real relationship with, I clung to for four years, desperate for his attention and love. During those four years, I made many mistakes. I gave him everything I could physically and emotionally just to keep him around (except the actual act of sex). He was a need. A necessity. But why? I hated marriage yet wanted a man.

She “hated marriage yet wanted a man.” I believe that’s the modern-day aftermath of the Fall. The consequence of original sin—and all the ways women have rebelled since then against God’s design—results in both a hatred of God-designed marriage and an insatiable longing for the presence of a guy. (The Craving may not cause you to actually hate marriage, but you may hate God’s specific design and purpose for it. A lot of us struggle with that!) I believe that every daughter of Eve is burdened by both a Craving for a husband and a rebellion against God’s design for marriage. What a mess!