One of the promises of Jesus is that He will make all things new.  From Jesus’ very first sermon in Luke 4, all the way through the gospels, Jesus is bringing a message of renewal. (This is different by the way than making all new things – that is not the promise – it is making things new, putting things right, making it the way it was supposed to be).

But if this is the promise then there is also an assumption that things are not right – both in the world and in each person’s life.  Otherwise why would we need to be healed?  Yes Jesus came for the forgiveness of sin, but that is not the only reason He came. It is the first necessary step – but not the last step.

This is so relevant to the topic of singleness.  Because if we are wounded then guess what, that is going to play out in how we live.  We are wounded by our others and our own sin. We live in a broken world and we have the scars to prove it.

Our first wounds come from our family.  I don’t care how great your family was they were all human.  There are wounds from that.  This affects how we think about our world, ourselves and most importantly God.

There are a lot of reasons to not see or deal with our wounds.  Sometimes it’s hard and we just don’t want to.  Other times we don’t even realize that we are messed up because it’s really all we’ve ever known.  This can be even more dangerous if we have a good family because we think, “well it all was pretty good”.  Also many times we don’t want to be mad at anyone and rather than deal with it we just let it go.  But that doesn’t solve anything.

I was once in a random bar (called The Coyote Catina – how great a name is that) in Colorado with three guys I had just met.  We were talking about this exact thing.  One of the men said something that was incredibly wise.

He said, “Look at it this way.  Let’s say that you are in the kitchen.  I break into your house, steal a knife and stab you.  This would be horrible but you would know what to do.  You would do your best to fight me off. Then you call 911 and the police and ambulance come. I’m arrested and you go get treated for your wound.  It’s clear I’m the bad guy and you can forgive me or not – but the situation is clear.  Now let’s say that instead you and I are best friends and we are hanging out in your kitchen making a meal together.  I have a knife in my hand.  Then I slip or you slip and I stab you.  You scream in pain.  I say ‘Oh my gosh I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to’ and you say, ‘I know you didn’t mean to’. But here’s the thing – you are still stabbed.  You still have to call 911.  You still have to get treated for the wound”

The point is it isn’t about blame – but it is about getting treated for your wounds.  Because if you don’t you will keep bleeding.  As a single person this can be harder to see.  As a married person a lot of stuff comes out in your relationship and you (hopefully) have to start to deal with it.  If you have kids it is massively apparent and (again hopefully) you start to deal with it.  I think as a single person it is easier to hide from our woundedness.  But we’ve got to deal with it.  Because if we don’t we keep bleeding and we take an even bigger wound into our 30’s, and if we do get married, into our marriage and family.

I have much more to say about this but for now let me ask a couple of questions.  Do you know where you are wounded?  How does that play out for you as a single person?