There's a specific time in everyone's life where they have an exclusive opportunity to serve God without restraint. These years are set aside as a time of serving, of learning, of growing. Those who use their time wisely during these years grow up ready for life. Those who squander their time become lazy, weak, and unskilled. Needless to say, these years can be some of the best. But they can also become of the loneliest and most confusing. Ah, the single years. Gotta love em! Or maybe not...
The Harris brothers are pretty big on not wasting time. Bret and Alex wrote two books just on doing hard things! And Josh loves to write about how to use your single years as preparation for life and marriage. When I read their books two years ago, I agreed that dating would be a pretty big waste of time. I didn't see much value or return for my work in the dating scene. Actually, I saw drama, pain, temptation, and distractions more than anything. There's one teenage couple I know who've dated for just over two years. All the other couples I've seen get together and disband only lasted a few months at the most.
Dating is temporary and ineffective, at least in the teen years. I've also seen more pain, whining, and drama on Facebook because of dating than any other issue. Broken relationships leave awkward friendships, broken hearts, bitter enemies. Of course, the temptation is much higher in a relationship, as well.
The one that got me, more than the other three, was the distraction. My mind is wired to focus intensely on one thing. The times when I focus too much on a crush or get a girlfriend, life becomes less and less on God. My focus becomes on the girl, and God gets pushed to the back burner.
I'm a really romantic guy. I love love movies. Yes, I love the Notebook, Sense and Sensibility, the Princess Diaries, A Cinderella Story, Another Cinderella Story, Beauty and the Beast, and all the other greats! That's what's so hard to grasp. I love romance, and would give my right arm to fall in love. But I just don't have room in my heart yet for a woman and my God. I don't know how to fit both in. So I choose only God. And while that may sound degrading of my view of God, it's not! God created man and woman to fall in love and have kids and live our lives together. I just struggle with loving two things that much and keeping my primary focus on God and not her.
So for now, I'm stuck in the dreadful "single years". Que dramatic, creepy piano. But it's not as bad as it seems. Being single has hundreds of benefits I'm sure I'll miss when I'm married. It stinks to feel lonely all the time. It'd be nice to have a pretty little lady be head over heals for me. But one thing I know for sure is I don't want to waste these single years. I might as well make use of these years by doing things only single people can do!
7 comments:
This is an encouraging post. Encourages me to keep laying aside all of distractions of boys, you all are so very distracting, it ridiculous. HA! Annnyways, I'm in the same position as you and it's hard because I have been in a relationship before (the dumbest thing ever and hard to break off) so I miss it and my sister is all involved with someone, and truth be told, it makes me jealous. But thanks for posting this. I'm more encouraged to hang in there now. And the great thing is, we serve a good God and when the time is right for us to be interested in someone and marry, He is going to allow that person to share room in our hearts but not take it all. That's really cool to me. In our teenage years, I don't think God has made us to be able to handle both God and Relationship but He is going to enable us and send us someone who loves God just as much or more than we do, which will make it easier to keep God first.
So, so true. Thanks for the encouragement.
Wow that’s pretty much exactly how I feel and the bad thing is even without the girl knowing she can so easily take the place of God in my life. I’ve really been struggling with that as of late, but God supplied a friend to tell me to pray, read Jeremiah 29:11, and listen to While I'm Waiting by John Waller. It helped so much, and I am now able to (at least temporarily) be patient as I wait on God to reveal his will.
True story but I think we should also remember that this is a huge season of preperation-like it or not. And it is a great way to be a witness... even when people think you're crazy. :)
-RuthAnne
Wow! Did I need a reminder of that! Sometimes I, and many other singles, get caught in the trap of looking forward to marriage as if that is the one thing that will make us happy, as if marriage will fix all of our problems. But God has given us this time to focus on Him, and that is the reminder I needed. It's difficult to shove aside the emotions for a while to focus wholly on God, but your post has really encouraged me to focus on that! Amazing post!
And I just want to let you know that God will take care of your focusing when the time comes. He's preparing you for marriage someday, and when he brings that girl He'll have prepared you to be able to focus on both. And like Ashley said above, He'll bring a girl who loves God so much and that will help both of you to focus on what is important.
Thoroughly enjoy reading your blog!
In Christ,
LeaningOnHim
I can totally relate. And agree! : D
Thanks SO MUCH for posting!
I have been struggling so much with this subject lately, it's INSANE!!!!!! Seriously, I'm the girl whose known for likeling some guy, and when I do, I fall head over heals and loose my mind for him! I don't want to be that girl anymore, I want people to see me as a strong Christian young woman who is in love with God, not boy crazy. I appriciate your honesty and it is CRAZY HELPFUL to know that I'm not alone in my beliefs and wishes! Thanks again for being so open and honest; it's special to see a guy do that!
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