by Kristen Lim

The season of life encompassing junior high and high school can be a tumultuous time of peer pressure, identity crises, and raging hormones. Youth-age girls have the label of being boy-crazy, but I would venture to say that many post-youth single women are boy-crazy as well. To all these single ladies (young and old) I ask, are you boy-crazy? Here are some questions to help determine the answer to that question: Do you believe you’d finally be completely happy if you had a boyfriend? Do you often pick out your wardrobe with the motivation to catch guys’ eyes? Do you change your plans or schedule just so that you can “coincidentally” cross paths with a guy you like? Are you always trying to analyze the behavior of guys to figure out if he likes you? Then according to Paula Hendricks, the author of Confessions of a Boy-Crazy Girl, you are boy-crazy and this book is for you.

Hendricks invites readers to take a peek into her past journal entries describing her experiences with guys and witness how God transformed her heart and life over the years to submit to Christ as Lord of her life, especially in the area of romantic relationships. Hendricks helps her fellow sisters in the faith to flee idolizing prospective boyfriends by renewing the mind with Scripture (Rom 12:2) and holding fast to the truth that God’s plan for each of His children is good (Rom 8:28).

So, what’s so wrong about being boy-crazy? It seems that our culture celebrates and encourages girls to gossip about their crushes and do whatever it takes to garner a guy’s attention. As sinners saved by the grace of God, we should not continue to walk in the ways of the world, but rather walk by the Spirit (Gal. 5:16) and search Scripture to gain a better understanding of who God is and what He values in order to better reflect His glory in our lives.

God is intimately involved in the lives of His children and wants us to love Him with our whole heart, soul, and mind (Matt 22:37). The first commandment even asserts that we are not to have any other gods before Him (Deut 5:7). Granted, you may not have a little statue in your home that you bow down to, but is having a relationship an idol in your heart? Hendricks defines an idol as “something that, without it, you think you’ll face a ‘hell’—your own personal version of torment and pain” (Hendricks 19). Consider Christ. “And He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed” (1 Pet 2:24). While we were still dead in our sins and trespasses, Christ died for us. We are saved from the wrath of God through faith in Christ. We have peace with our Creator through faith in Christ. We have eternal life through faith in Christ. This is the glorious gospel that should bring us to our knees and cause us to have the same mindset as Paul: “I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ” (Phil 3:8).

Recognizing the idol of a relationship is a critical first step, but the mere acknowledgement of this doesn’t mean it will go away. If you pray that God would do whatever it takes to be free from an idol, and that He would be first in your heart and life, He will be faithful to answer that prayer, though the task is not easy. Jesus emphasized the serious nature of sin, metaphorically going to the extent of cutting off one’s hand if it causes one to sin. He isn’t promoting self-mutilation, but rather describing the intensity and urgency in removing temptations from your life so that you would sin no more. What might this look like in relationships? Maybe staying away from listening to love songs if that sparks thoughts of discontent in your current love life. Maybe abstaining from stalking a guy’s Facebook page. Maybe not watching romantic movies. Beware of legalism and casting judgment on those that may do these activities. The point is for you to refrain from things that easily tempt you to sin (Hendricks 36).

Girls can fall into the trap of being overly consumed with beauty and outward appearance all for the sake of catching the eyes of guys. Every part of our life should be worship to God, even how we dress and choose to behave. “The way you present yourself can either discredit your God in others’ minds or draw them to Him” (Hendricks 46). This is not to say that girls should just wear potato sacks and be unfashionable, but the principle lies in loving God and people, to look out for others’ best interest and their undistracted worship of God.

We can perpetuate boy-craziness in the thought-life. What do you allow yourself to think about?

Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny. (Author unknown)

Too many times we allow our thoughts to run rampant without any awareness that it is a breeding ground to make idols if not actively trained to dwell on what is “true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, or praiseworthy” (Phil 4:8). The current culture is a circus of unbiblical worldviews that can poison the mind and heart with lies. It’s important to be a diligent student of God’s word and be grounded on the solid foundation of God’s never-failing promises. Having thoughts saturated in God’s truth will cause you to see life from His eternal perspective and sovereignty, even the parts of life involving love interests. As Augustine defines God’s providence: “everything that happens does so because God wills it to happen, wills it to happen before it happens, wills it to happen in the way it happens” (Hendricks 131).

Ultimately the key to killing the idols of one’s heart is to invest time in relishing God and learning to treasure Him above all else. So at the end of the day, it is not wrong to pray for marriage or other non-sinful desires. Looking at the example of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, He prayed three times to have the cup of imminent death removed from Him, but He always adds, “not as I will, but as you will. Your will be done” (Matt 26:39). There is a balance of expressing desires to God and also surrendering to His good and sovereign plan for our life. “Will you die to your own small (but dear!) dreams in order to allow God to display His awesome power through your life?” (Hendricks 138).

I’ll leave you with the refrain from “Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus”:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace. (Helen H. Lemmel)

May this be the anthem of your hearts, dear sisters in Christ.