Captivating Series

ILLUST> In the movie Shall We Dance, John Clark is middle aged Chicago estate lawyer who loves his family and his wife Beverly but their combined hectic lives and schedules have left him feeling unfulfilled and empty. Like we talked about last week he is a man who has lost heart. So he decides to pursue ballroom dancing, probably initially anyway for the wrong reasons, the beauty of a certain instructor. With all of the time that he spends away Beverly suspects that he might be having an affair. In the end, his pursuit of dancing re-ignites his heart and his heart for her. He dresses up in a tux, buys her flowers and shows up at work to dance with his wife. You have to love her response. Now, it would be easy to conclude that there it is on display, the heart of a woman. If you want to understand and get through to her heart just follow suit and do that. Nothing could be further than the truth, there is so much more to the feminine heart than just that. That’s why we need to spend some time together today talking about that.

Before we jump in and do that good morning and welcome to DCC, so glad that you are here. 3 quick essentials before we get started this morning. All of your story is safe is welcome here regardless of how it reads, you belong with us regardless of what you believe, and you are in a room full of people who are just like you, not people who used to be like you or have learned to put up with people like you, people I promise you who are just like you. So I hope that you feel safe and wanted here today because you are and that you have a great experience and want to come back hopefully even next week. So special welcome from all of us to you, and to all of our friends watching online right now too.

So we are in this series called Ransomed Heart and last week we talked about the heart of a man, the masculine heart, which brings us to today and the heart of a woman. So let me start with this. I kinda feel like I am walking through a minefield today with a blindfold on. My only sibling is a sister, I have been married for almost 32 years, and I have four daughters ages 24-14 and yet the tagline to the book Captivating still rings true to me…unveiling the mystery of a woman’s soul. While I have more clarity and understanding than I did 30 years ago even 10 years ago, the truth is that much of the feminine heart and soul still remains a mystery to me today and there are dozens of women in our church who could lead this journey much better than me. So, I am hoping that you seek them out after today because despite my best efforts, I still struggle to speak girl.

Let’s jump back in by going back to Proverbs 4:23. Above all else guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life. Which is great, but in order to guard them we must first understand them. That’s what we are after in this series. So what about this feminine heart? John and Stasi Eldredge in the book Captivating suggest that most women feel unseen, even by the people closest to them, unsought, that no one has the passion or courage to work through the messiness and pursue them, and uncertain, uncertain of what it even means to be a woman or be feminine, uncertain if you are or if you will ever really be. What if that is true? What is at the core of every woman’s heart? What are her desires? What did she long for as a little girl? What does she still long for in her life as a woman today? Let’s take this journey today together and see…

If you have a Bible we are going to be right back in Genesis chapter 1 today. If you don’t have a Bible we would love to give you one. They are back on the back tables that you can grab right now if you would like if you close or on you can always grab one on your way out. As always you can hit our app or the You Version app too. Or you can ignore all of that and read along with me on the screens. So, here we go let’s start right where we were last week in Genesis chapter 1 beginning with verse 27…

27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”