Bar set high

I watched Pride and Prejudice last night (the BBC version of course) and wrote a florid piece about the good and bad of Mr Darcy's love. Last night, it looked like it could be a watershed moment in literary history - today, well, it's not completely crap. But I thought I'd pen you a more, economical, version.

Mr Darcy's okay. His assured bearing, laconic address, intense passion and ardent gaze are perhaps too much to ask of any - real life - man, but his kindness, his deep regard and love for Lizzie, and his eagerness to win her hand and see her happy, these are all precious things.

Indeed on reflection, I think Mr Darcy sets the bar too low. His tender, passionate, sacrificial love is a sweet, and vapid, shadow of the love of God. God, who gave up everything, even his divinity (and who can comprehend that?), to rescue unlovely women and men. Who kept nothing back for himself. God the Son who became weak and grotesque and died as the wrath of the Father bucketed down on him.

This pitiful-glorious romantic deed is the model for every other. Men, we are not asking you to be like Mr Darcy, we are asking you to be like Christ Jesus. Darcy gets to us chicks because he's a bit like the other Man, the Man we're really longing for.

But the bar that Jesus sets is far, far above than Mr Darcy's showjumping pole. So then women, have compassion. Your guy is learning what it is to love, and so are you. Try not to let your heart be broken when he gets it wrong or when no guy is there - turn your heart to the God who looks at you with a compassion and fervent care far more profound than Mr Darcy's, and truer and kinder and all that is good.

Retell yourself the old story of your Saviour's love for you, so that it defines your world even on days when it does not feel true. If you are single (and if you are not), take comfort that you are much loved. Don't settle for crappy guys. Don't obsess. Be glad of your standing and of all that is good. Because you have this one thing, look outside of yourself. If you want for a man, then pray and take what chances come, and God will very likely send someone your way and you will be blessed by that man's sweet, vapid mirroring of the love of your God. And should he not, you are already blessed: ask that you would know it.