Marriage Is For Grown Ups

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So as a single guy, I’ve definitely watched too much late night television.  Every now and then after I’ve had enough Sportscenter, I’ll flip through the informercials.  Now I’ve only ordered two or three things ever (NuWave Oven – greatest thing ever –  Ab Roller, not so much). But one of the latest trends is just incredible to me.

This is the anti-aging movement.  We’ve got Cindy Crawford’s Meaningful Beauty (she really does still look the same – weird), Victoria Principal who is now 63 years old and has been doing “anti-aging” for what seems like forever and the latest I saw is “Julie is 53, but looks 35”.  We also have all the men’s versions.  You can get drugs to make your hair grow back, your sex drive go up (watch out for that four hour erection) and apparently get all your old energy back.

Here’s the reality.  We live in a culture that worships youth and it is confusing singles and killing marriage.

Marriage you see, is for grown ups.  Everyone knows this, which is why no one is getting married. . . . because they don’t want to grow up.

In 1970 69% of 25 year old white men were married.  In 2000 33% were.  In 2010 only 20% of all adults aged 18-29 have ever been married.  A huge part of the reason is that we keep moving the bar of what it means to be an adult.  Several studies now say that adolescence goes all the way up to 26 years old. It used to be adolescence ended at 18 and you’d have reached most of your adult milestones by 25.  Forty years ago you would have been done with your education, had a job, been married and probably had a kid. Now it’s a free for all.

Human brain development has not changed, human social development has.  

Humanity has always wanted to live forever and the natural outtake of that is that the younger I can look, feel and act, the better off I’ll be.  As a society, and to some extent as the church, we’ve embraced it all.  “Get your masters,” “Follow your dreams”, “join this short term program right after college – you know before you have to get a real job” “see the world” etc.  We have over nurturing parents that don’t want their kids to grow up. Even churches and ministry organizations have fallen into this trap.  We have youth group, then college group, then young peoples group.  Where’s the grown up group?  But I digress.

The point here is that one of the huge reasons that we have more single people than ever before is that we have more immature people than ever before.  I’m sorry if that hurts.  It’s hurts me.  But if we’re honest it’s just true.  We can get away with it so we do.  This is especially true with guys.

Adolescence and singleness are not the same thing.  But by extending adolescence we are making it harder to distinguish.  Marriage is seen as something I can do later, when I grow up – if I grow up.

This is bad for everybody.  So what do we do?

The Church must go after the unmarried.  If the church isn’t going to do this, then we are in serious, serious trouble.  I mean big time.  Here’s what the church used to do. They’d lose all the early 20 something men, but they’d get them back because when they got married and had kids they remembered that they used to go to church.  But now they aren’t getting married and they aren’t coming back.  We HAVE to address this.  According to Barna 37% of the “unchurched” are single/never married and 55% are men.  Do the math.  If our plan is, “they’ll be back when they are married” we are in serious trouble.

Second, we as singles have got to grow ourselves up.  We have to fight against the temptation to act like an adolescent.  We need to move out of our parents houses, take real jobs (even if it is a starter job), quit playing video games and looking at porn, and figure out what it means to make a vow to another person, be it the vow of marriage or the vow of celibacy.  We need to start facing our sin and woundedness. Community will be required for any of this to happen so we’ll have to actually engage others.

If we don’t it’s not going to matter whether or not you get married because you will either be a completely narcissistic single person or a terrible spouse.  We are not called to be either of those.

The good news is that grown up is good.  Facing our stuff is hard but freeing.  Getting older should mean getting better.  That’s the thing about each step of maturity.  It is harder but better.  That is what growth is.

So are you a grown up?  What areas of your life do you still feel like an adolescent?  What area of your life can you get away with because you are single?

What To Do When You Just Aren’t Into Them

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Here’s a crazy thought I had today.  I’ve been dating (or trying to) for over 20 years.

Now there are lots of stories here, many of them fairly entertaining.  But one thing that is true of all of them, in the end, for all of the dates, none of them worked out.  Which leads me to something I haven’t talked about yet.  Ending stuff.

Now I haven’t been in a lot of long term relationships and in some ways those were actually easier to figure out.  I mean if you’ve been in the relationship and then it is determined that you are not going to get married, well then as painful as it might be, at least there is clarity of some sort.  But what I have always struggled with is how to cut it off early on.

For example, at what point do you owe an explanation?  If you meet up one time and then we don’t go out again, do I need to call you and explain why?  Two dates in?  Three?

I have often failed miserably here and I’ve been failed by the ladies as well.  Why is this so hard?

A lot of it comes from passivity really.  In other words I can easily justify in my mind that the other person probably isn’t really that into me yet anyway so it’s no big deal.  But that is so weak.  I’ve been that guy.  The one who took you out three or four times and then just didn’t really call you.  That’s not ok.  This happens all the time.  So here are some thoughts about what to do and not do.

First of all if you go out with someone and you just aren’t interested don’t keep dating them.  I would occasionally fall into this trap.  Usually it was because I liked the person and didn’t really have anything to say bad about them.  I just wasn’t interested in dating them.  But if I had to do it again, I’d just tell them that – not exactly like that maybe but something close to it.

I was seeing one gal for a while and then I left for a month.  While I was gone I realized it just wasn’t really there between us. When I got back I called her and we chatted.  She was great and we both agreed it just wasn’t really a match.  It wasn’t that anything was wrong with either of us, we just weren’t going to pursue it.  But this was a lucky example.  Most of the time, one person is more into it than the other person.  This leads to the second reason we avoid the conversation.

We don’t like hurting other people.  But the problem is that it is actually less hurtful to have a one time conversation.  Now girls and guys avoid this different ways.  Guys just kind of disappear, which is pretty gutless.  Again, I say that having been “that guy”.  Ladies typically mishandle this by coming up with reasons to say no – that aren’t no.  “I’m not free that weekend” or “I see you as a friend“.  We both need to just say it.  “You’re a great person, but I’m just not attracted to you.”  It hurts a little but it’s clear and it’s over, hopefully.

The truth is, for the most part, if you are not attracted you are probably not going to be.  I’m not saying it never happens that you become attracted later, but you probably won’t be more attracted by continuing to “half-way date” them.  Again I think I’ve fallen into this many times.  I like the person and think they’re great.  They love Jesus etc. so I keep trying to be attracted.  This is typically a waste of everyone’s time.  It would be better to walk away.  And you know what, if you walk away and then decide, “wait a minute I really like them” you can call them back and see what happens.

Finally when we are on the other end we need to assume the best and move on.  If he doesn’t call you, there is not some mysterious reason, he’s just not into it.  So move on. If she always has a reason to not hang out, she’s not really that busy.  If a girl likes you, she’ll find time.  So move on.

We can save ourselves a lot of time and a lot of hurt if we are just honest.  So learn to man up (or whatever a woman calls that) and just end it if it’s not going anywhere.  We owe the other person that.

So how are you at ending stuff?  How do you handle when a person is into it and you aren’t?  What about when you are into it and they aren’t?

Sexual Immorality Leads Away From Marriage

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C.S Lewis once said, “It would seem Our Lord Finds our desires not to strong but too weak.  We are half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he can not imagine what is meant by a holiday at sea.  We are far too easily pleased.

Nowhere is this more true than when it comes to what we have done with sex and marriage in our culture.  We have created a mess.

The problem is not desire.  The problem is that when we try to fill the desire the wrong way (not just sexual desire), it get’s in the way of the right way of fulfilling it.

Sixty years ago 60% of people aged 18-29 were married.  Today only 20% of that same demographic has ever been married.  That is a dramatic change. We are typically entering puberty earlier (there’s not space here to go into why) and yet waiting longer to get married.  So where as we used to say, “just wait 5 years or so to be married”, now we basically say, “just wait 15 years to have sex”.  Thats crazy!  The problem is cyclical because in one sense it’s harder to wait that long, but in another sense because people are giving up and meeting that desire other ways, it is making people have less desire to get married.

Paul writes in 1st Corinthians that if you want to have sex, get married.  He basically says, “rather than burn with unmet desire, get married and meet it the right way.”  But this is a far cry from where we are at today, even in the Church.

We mess this up a lot of different ways and none of them help us when we are single or even later when we get married.

One plan often offered is to kill the desire.  This is where we just basically tell people sex is bad, don’t have it.  We may not say it but we essentially end up leading people there.  This is a horrible idea because desire for sex isn’t bad  Being controlled by it (or any other desire) is but the desire for sex and intimacy is a huge part of the reason for marriage. Worst of all, if I get married, I won’t be able to just flip a switch that all of a sudden makes sex good.

But more often what we do is go out and meet our desire for sex in some other way. Sometimes this means having sex outside of marriage. This does not lead down a path to marriage.  That’s not to say that people who do this don’t get married but it doesn’t increase the chances.  This is why so many people who live together end up not getting married.  Playing house and being married are not the same thing.  Sex before covenant is never beneficial.

But the biggest problem in the church right now is what I call Lazy Sexual Immorality. This is where I don’t meet my sexual need with another person at all.  Instead I just watch, read or think about someone else doing it and “meet” my need that way.  Tony Campolo once said, “If you are going to sin, at least do it boldly.”  These are the opposite of bold. They are gutless.

If you are under 30 you have seen internet porn.  It’s just the truth.  You have.  The average age a person first sees it right now is 11.  Read that again.  Now this screws us up in all sorts of ways.  But fantasy and habitual masturbation are right behind it.  They are all ways that we can meet our needs without having to “involve” someone else.  And they are killing us.  I have a friend who says that every guy thinks marriage is going to be a porn movie and every girl thinks it’s going to be a romance novel.  It’s not either.  It should be better.  But that is what we are expecting, and when it doesn’t happen we bail.

When we meet our sexual desire outside of marriage it leads us away from marriage.  Either we get our desire met, and therefore don’t want to make the sacrifices to meet them in the right way, or we get wrapped up in our shame and guilt and therefore either can’t engage the real thing or feel like we don’t now “deserve” it.  Usually some sick twisted combination of all of the above.

It’s a nasty cycle and a lot of people are in it.  I’ve been in it many times in one form or another.  Fortunately, you don’t have to stay in it.  I’m going to write more on that soon.  But for today the question really is this: What are you doing with your sexual desire?  How are you meeting it?  Do you see how that affects you from engaging the real thing?

 

Avoid The Friend Zone

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I have a friend who recently met a girl he was really into.  She was beautiful (ok hot) and loved Jesus. However she was somewhat uncertain about her job situation and there was a chance she would be moving.

My friend handled this well.  He basically told her that he wanted to get to know her and that he wanted to date her.  He made his intentions clear without coming off like a crazy person.  He just wanted her to know that he was hanging out with her with a purpose in mind and he wanted to be clear on that.  Good job by him.

So they went on several dates and then hit a time period where they were both traveling. They texted some etc, but they both knew they were kind of off the grid so to speak for a couple of weeks.

She got a little slower to text back which my friend recognized as a bad sign.  When the both got back to town, my friend called her and they decided to grab coffee.  As they were talking my friend basically asked her if she was into this dating relationship.  She said no. He did an incredibly brave thing and asked her why.  She said that she just didn’t see him that way.  But then she said, “But I’d really like to hang out as friends.”

Then my friend did what so many other men should do.  He said no.  That’s it.  He said that he wasn’t interested in running around as friends.  First of all he has friends. Secondly he liked her as more than that so it would be intellectually dishonest to hang out as friends when that was not his intentions.  Finally, he was looking for someone to date and eventually marry and if he is running around with her as a “friend” then that would be confusing to others.

She was pissed. She literally didn’t know what to do with it.  She said, “so this is what it feels like to be broken up with.”  This was of course hilarious since she was the one saying she didn’t want to date him.  He took her home, they shook hands and said goodbye. Best part is she texted him that night as if it had never happened.  Wisely he didn’t respond.

I share this story with you because this guy handled this exactly right.  I joked with him that he was now a true Jedi and had avoided the dark side that I call “the friend zone”.

As men, we have to avoid the friend zone.  It was no doubt tempting for this guy to think, “well if she wants to hang out with me, I can eventually win her over”.  Not so.  In fact I’m telling you right now that if there is any chance that she would like him it will be because he did what he did here.  He stood up to her.

She was mad because she was used to being in control.  Now I’m not saying here that we should be out to make girls mad.  Far from it.  What I am saying is that when we allow the friend zone to happen we give her all the power and completely kill any chance of her ever being attracted to us.  You as a guy, have to get this.  No matter how attracted you are to her, you can not “chase” her.  By walking away, you respect her lack of attraction to you. But you also increase her respect for you as a man.  And you gain confidence – which is hot.

Being “friends” with the girl that you want to date is just clobbering yourself.  I mean I hate to say it that way but it’s the truth.  It doesn’t help anybody.

Now here’s the thing, I’m not saying you can’t be friends with an attractive woman.  I have lots of friends and some of them are women.  I’m even friends at some level with a person or two that I once asked out.  But I didn’t get turned down and then become “hang out friends” with them.

The friend zone is to be avoided at all costs because it’s not real friendship.  It is when the girl uses the guy who she isn’t attracted to for the benefits.  She comes to you with stories about other guys.  She needs help with something and you rush to help her.  She has “spiritual questions” and you “minister” to her, but the whole time you want to date her.  That brother, is the friend zone and it will crush your manhood.

You are not a victim.  Don’t tell me that everyone just sees you as a friend – that’s because you let them.  You have to choose different.  It’s not up to one girl or another.  It’s up to you.

Are you always in the friend zone?  Are you ready to get out?

Would Jesus Snuggle?

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The other day one of my friends posted a link on facebook that just stopped me.  I wasn’t even sure exactly what to do with it – it’s just dumbfounding.  And yet . . . it’s not.  Which is why she posted it.

There is a new place called The Snuggery.  Basically the idea is that we all need physical touch and intimacy.  It brings healing and comfort.  But sense most people don’t have it, this lady has started a business.  I’m not making this up.  For $50 you can have a 45 minute snuggling session.  There are two professional snugglers.  You can snuggle with both for $100.  Again, I’m not kidding.

It’s not to be sexual and it must be fully clothed (pajamas are ok though).  Just wear what you are comfortable in.  You can talk or not talk.  Whatever you want.  You just snuggle. You get to be touched.

I’m literally not sure whether to laugh or cry.  Seriously.  In a way it breaks my heart.  This is where we are at as a society.  We are this alone.

Now I guarantee there are some married people who haven’t snuggled at home in a while, which is tragic.  But as a single person this is a huge issue.

I mentioned this in one of my first blogs.  One of the absolutely hardest things as a single is the lack of touch.  And the older you get, the more this is true. What these ladies have right is that touch matters.  Under the heading of WHY SNUGGLE they list out the benefits of intimate, nonsexual touch.  They aren’t wrong about any of it.  And as their lead sentence says, “Why Snuggle? Quite simply because it makes us feel good.”

But if you are single what do you do with this?  If it is true that we need touch, what do we do?

The problem is exasperated by several things.  First off we have had a lot of bad physical touch in our culture.  Over the course of their lifetime 28% of kids age 14-17 have been sexually violated in some way.  This doesn’t even begin to include physical abuse or physical neglect.  That is the world we are growing up in.

Secondly, we have a much more isolated world.  We are way more likely to work alone, and 28% of us live alone. (Now if half of us are married that means that 50% of single people live by themselves.)  That does not lead to good touch.  It leads to isolation.

Finally, partly in response to all of the above and the sexually immoral culture that we live in, the Church has told us not to touch anyone.  Kiss dating goodbye.  Don’t touch or it could lead to sex.  I get it, I really do, but man, if we don’t touch at all, that can’t be good.  We can’t live in fear and call it religion.

I can speak from personal experience here.  I went 10 years without kissing anyone (age 25-35).  Most of that was spent with very little touch.  There were lots of reasons.  But to be honest as I turned the corner of 30 I was messed up, and I’d say lack of touch contributed to that.  I remember feeling awkward even hugging sometimes.

I’ll be honest and say I’m not sure how to fix all this.  I’m not suggesting the Church start establishing Christian Snuggeries.  But I know that we need an answer.  We need something different than “don’t have sex” and “don’t go to far”.  Why should two women be addressing this while we stand on the sidelines?

Appropriate touch is vital.  I can’t remember where I saw it but there is a video of nuns in a poor country taking in dying children.  You know the first thing they did?  They hugged them and held them for extended periods.

In Mark 2 a leper approaches Jesus.  Back then, lepers were separated out and seen as unclean.  They were to avoid contact with the “clean” people at all costs.  In fact there was a six foot rule that said no one was supposed to be within six feet of them.

But as this guy approaches Jesus, he doesn’t move out of the way.  Now Jesus could have said the word and this man would have been healed of leprosy.  But he still would have been untouched, and maybe people would have wondered, “is he really well?”

In one of the most simple, powerful moments in Jesus’ ministry, he reached out and touched the man.  He knew he needed more than a physical healing – he needed to know he was touchable.

Somehow we have to rescue this.  We have to know that not only are we “Christian” or “Saved” but that we are touchable.  Whatever message we send the single person, that has to be part of it.

Have you ever suffered from lack of touch? Where do you go for appropriate touch?

You Are Not Called To Be Alone

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One of the great struggles of singleness is the feeling that you are alone.  Now I know that even if you are married you can still feel that way, but it is almost a guarantee that if you are single for any length of time you will feel it.

It can be made even harder by the fact that we live in a culture that has become more and more individualized.  Not all of that is bad, we have more freedom to move different places, explore different options and take different opportunities.  But there are a lot of unintended consequences.  One of those is that we end up switching friends all the time and not really going deep.  And this can lead to feeling alone or to for all intents and purposes, actually being alone.

We end up not really knowing how to have real community.  But we need it, whether we are single or married.

In Genesis, God creates Adam and then says, “It is not good for man to be alone.”  You see God was not alone.  He has always been in perfect relationship as the Father, Son, and Spirit.  And He created us in His image, which makes us relational beings.  It is critical that we get this.

In our world we are told that it is all about the individual.  It is all about you, making your way and doing what you need to do.  It is about self advancement.  Even in the Church it can become about my relationship with God, my ministry, my spiritual growth.  Now there is truth in that.  You and I have an individual role to play in the story – but heres the key – we are not THE story.

I think one of the many reasons we have more single people than ever in history is that we are more alone to begin with.  We get used to operating on our own and going after the stuff that helps mainly us.  We are not used to working stuff out in community, let alone with another person that I have to be with every single day.  It’s hard work and even though we are made for it, we are resistant and we’ve been trained to be.

It’s gotten to the point where it is just kind of accepted.  “I’m on my own.”  But you are not supposed to be.  Even if you are called to celibacy (to be single and not marry), you are not called to be alone.

People who are truly called to celibacy typically get this.  Priests and nuns are typically less alone than us.  Throughout time, they’ve typically lived in community.  They get that the call to celibacy is not a call to aloneness.  (By the way I learned more about the call to celibacy and marriage and the difference in about an hour sharing a panel with a priest and nun than I have in 20+ years of being in the protestant church – but I digress.)

The point here is that we are not created to be loners.  My pastor spoke on this last week and he brought it perfectly at the end.  He said, “What if you didn’t have to navigate your marriage alone.  What if you didn’t have to navigate your singleness alone?  Or your parenting? Or your career? Or your wounds? Or your success?”  Exactly!

We need people in our lives who know us.  People who know our story – both where we’ve been and where we are trying to go.  Yes I’m talking about accountability, but more than that.  Yes I’m talking about meeting together, and sharing together, but more than that.

Marriage is not the only covenant relationship available to us.  If you get married it is the number one covenant relationship in your life (behind Jesus) but it doesn’t have to be the only one.  It’s all over scripture.  Look at the early church.  Look at Aaron and Moses or Jonathan and David.

But it takes work and more importantly it means making a decision to be in it no matter what.  This kind of community doesn’t “just happen”.  If it can “just happen” then it can just as easily “unhappen”.  That doesn’t create security, trust and unity.

I think one of the huge traps as a single person is that we can, over time, become more and more independent, to the point that we are actually alone.  And alone is bad.  We are not meant to carry our burdens, sins, decisions, fears, dreams, and celebrations alone.  If we are indeed called to be married we will be way more prepared if we have real community that we have had to work at.  If we are called to celibacy then it is just as critical so that we don’t become isolated.

Do you have real community?  Who knows your dreams, fears, sins, successes?  Who knows your heart?  Whose heart do you know?  Are you single, or are you alone?

Sexual Immorality Is Not Just About You

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About two weeks ago I was relaxing at a hotel bar where I often go to chat with friends or write this blog.  I was just about to shut it down when a gentleman showed up who was from out of town.  He sat down and started to share about why he was in town etc. Anyway after a while he asked if I had a family and I said no, but I was about to get married.  He of course congratulated me and shared he had been married for 20 years. Then he said this, “Of course you know, that once you get married, you’ll have less sex.”  I laughed.  I sure as heck hope not, because we are not having sex now.

It was the same when I was in college.  I was literally the only person in my suite of 9, that didn’t have sex my freshmen year.  They used to joke about it.  I was also the person they came to when stuff in their life was hard.  They knew I was different.

You see we don’t just flee from sexual immorality for ourselves.  It’s one of God’s ways of separating us out – as a witness.  It’s not just about you and me and our little moral battle.

One of the big misconceptions that people have is that sexual immorality is worse today than at other points in history.  There is the idea that all of a sudden it’s “crazy” out there and that marriage is being devalued etc.

This leads to a couple of problems.  First, there a lot of people who think what the Bible says about sex is “old school” and not relevant for today.  On the other hand the Church ends up running around shouting that the world is ending, making an idol out of the family and longing for the past (which I think is the 1950’s America).

Now it is true that American culture is changing.  But none of this is new.  Neither is our call to live differently than the culture.

When you look at the sexual practices that God lays out in the old testament it needs to be understood that God was giving them these specifics for a reason.  That reason is that all the other societies in the Near East were not practicing them.  When God says, don’t sleep with an animal, He says it because others were.  He’s not making up random stuff.  The Near Eastern cultures were crazy, even by our standards.  People were having sex in every way, with everybody and everything.  They even worshiped to it.

God was saying to the Israelites, “You will not be like them.  You are my people and this will distinguish you.”

The same is true in Paul’s letter to Corinth.  They had written Paul and they asked him what they should do.  How should they practice sexuality and marriage now that they had Jesus?  Paul starts that whole message by saying, “Now for the questions you asked about – here’s how to apply God’s teaching and live the way He would want in your context.”  Which was a completely pagan and dualistic context.  Sound familiar?

If we are going to flee from sexual immorality we have to define what that is. The good news is that currently most folks are not sleeping with animals or temple prostitutes (at least I’ve never been tempted by either).  So in our day, we can’t just take one liners from the Bible and try to make them mean what we want them to.  Instead, we need to take the overall meaning of sex, marriage, and celibacy in the scriptures (which is pretty dang clear) and apply that to our current context.  In legal terms it’s like law and case law.  How does the law apply to our case today?

But beyond that we need to realize that our call to flee from immorality is not just as a set of rules to keep us out of trouble.  God called Israel out.  He made them His people and commanded them to live in a way that demonstrated Him to the world.  One of the ways they were to do this was by how they behaved sexually.  Paul tells the early church the same thing.  You are set apart.  You were bought at a price.  You are NEW and different.  Live like it – in the light!

One of the reasons we fail is that even in our morality or lack there of, it’s all about us.  That wasn’t really the point.  God has bigger plans.  When we are set apart, people are drawn to us.  Want to be counter cultural?  Want to make a difference?  Want to point towards God.  Live this area of your life differently than the world.  It was true 4000 years ago and it’s true now.

Frozen Masculinity

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My sophomore year I played varsity basketball.  I didn’t typically start but I played (a lot) on a team made up of 7 seniors and 3 Juniors.  I was the future.  But my junior year, while I was a better athlete, I was a worse player.  It was hard to describe.  It was like I was out there but I couldn’t fully engage.  I was kind of frozen.  There were many different reasons. I broke my thumb, we switched coaches and systems etc, but really, I was just off.  It was like I wanted it so bad that I couldn’t get it.  I was a starter, but honestly I shouldn’t have been.

One day after a particularly bad game my dad pulled me into his office.  We had a man to man.  He said, “Look, you’ve probably lost your starting job.  I wouldn’t start you.  You’ve got to turn it loose.  Somehow you’ve got to find some reckless abandon.  Sometimes you just have to say F it and go.”  My dad never cussed.  It’s maybe the best advice he’s ever given me.

That night I did start.  I also played freer.  I finished the last few games a little better and then had a good senior year.

Here’s what crazy.  The same thing happened to me in dating.  As a kid I had no game. But when I got to college I suddenly had dates.  I gained confidence and I was fearless.  I’d ask out a person in a store, the waitress, whoever, and they’d say yes.  But then some stuff changed. I had a long relationship that rightly ended but it was then that I knew I needed to date to get married, not just to date.  The pressure kind of mounted.  I was 22.

It was at this point (in my mid 20’s) that the whole “biblical dating” movement happened. Being a young Christian leader I of course wanted to do right.  So I didn’t date to date, never kissed anyone and even did the whole “courting” thing once.  Turns out you can get hurt there too.

When I turned 30 I moved to St. Louis, a much more target rich environment.  But there was a big problem.  I was frozen.  It was like I couldn’t pursue.  I over thought everything.  I was still too religious and when I did like someone I was too try hard.  I over thought, over pursued and felt awkward.  I was the nice guy.  It was seriously crazy.  It was like I was on the court, but not really able to engage.

There are a lot of guys in some sort of similar boat.  We talk all the time about how guys are passive and don’t pursue.  And many times when they do it’s all wrong.  A girl once told me, “I’m so tired of Christian guys.”  This was a gal who loved Jesus.  What she was really saying is, “I’m tired of wuss Christian guys who either won’t pursue me at all or who chase me and are constantly needy.”

We have a serious problem.  Many guys are frozen.  The reasons include but are not limited to:

  • Over-spiritualizing the whole thing.  This includes all I talked about here.  
  • Over-thinking the whole thing.  All of the pretend conversations with girls, trying to figure out if they like me, speculating on how it will all pan out, trying to avoid hurt and on and on
  • Fear of rejection – we are often afraid to ask out who we really want to.  Part of this comes from over thinking and building up the situation to begin with.
  • Fear of commitment – a lot of guys are just scared of marriage –
  • Not knowing how to attract girls.  Most men have no training or help on how female attraction works.  They don’t know how to do it.
  • Waiting for the perfect person – you know the one who looks just right, talks just right, and acts just right – before you even know her
  • Worrying about what others think – both the girl we might ask and what others will think of her if we do
  • We’ve spent too much time having our sexual needs met other ways, which drives down the desire for marriage and drives up our shame – bad combination (more here soon)

All of these can play into each other.  It’s a cycle.  I think about it more, which steals more of my identity away from Christ, which makes me more worried about how it will go, which makes me less likely to act, which means when I do it will be awkward, which will make me more unattractive, which will mean I’m rejected, which will make me think about it more . . . . Whew I’m tired.

We’ve got to figure out how to stop it.  We’ve got to figure out how to act with some reckless abandon (which by the way is extremely attractive).  We have to break free and just go.

What freezes you?  What keeps you from fully engaging and pursuing marriage?  What has helped you get past it?

Grace, Sovereignty, And Excuses

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Here’s a parable:

There was a young man who loved Jesus.  His ministry with people was growing and God was doing great things.  As he hit his mid twenties he was still single.  He began to pray and ask God what the deal was.  As he prayed and talked to others it seemed as if God was calling him to celibate ministry.

But this man didn’t want that.  He kept dating and eventually fell in love with a great lady.  Once again, in his heart he felt like God was calling him to celibate ministry but he was in love and he shoved down God’s call.  He married this lady and decided to not even do full time ministry.

He went to work for McDonald’s.  He started as a mid level manager and then moved up to running his own store. Now somewhere along the way, he again sought God.  He turned back and repented of his disobedience and sought God for how he should live.  He ran his store in a Godly way.  He loved his workers and many came to know Jesus. Because his workers were so good his store was the best in the state.  People would drive a little further to go to “that” McDonald’s.  He and the staff knew customers’ names and what they liked to order.  Some of them even came to know Jesus.

On top of all of this the man loved his wife well.  They had kids and they grew up loving Jesus and loving others.  God blessed them in all sorts of ways.  Was this God’s plan?

One of the huge traps for any part of life, but perhaps especially singleness and marriage is this idea that whatever happens is God’s plan.  The idea that whatever happens must be what God wants, which in my opinion really means it’s never my fault.

“I’m single right now, must be where God has me.”  “I can’t help that I like this guy, even though he leads me away from what God is calling me to.” “God wouldn’t let me have these feelings if it wasn’t His plan.”  Or my favorite, ‘God let me sin this way so that. . . .”

God doesn’t need you to sin in order to show you something or use later in ministry.  He shows us stuff and uses us in His kingdom IN SPITE of our sin.  It’s called grace.

In the parable above it worked out, sort of.  But that doesn’t mean that the man wasn’t disobedient to God’s call.  It means that God’s grace was bigger than his disobedience.  It means that God worked something that was a bad decision into a good one.  God’s grace is not the same as God’s plan.

So why does this matter?  Isn’t this basically a theological argument? 

It matters because we shouldn’t assume stuff will work out anyway. Yes God’s grace is always available but not always in the way we think.  We especially need to be careful in what we tell others.

“My wife and I had sex before marriage.  I know it was wrong but it’s worked out.  We’re following God now.” “My wife wasn’t a believer when we got married.  But she became one later and now we are on the same page.” “We just couldn’t stay married anymore. But now God has provided someone else.” If we share it as testament to God’s Grace, that’s awesome. If we share it to excuse ours or someone else’s sin, that’s not so good.

Just because God rescues it and it turns out ok doesn’t make what we did right. Disobedience is just that.  God’s sovereignty and grace are not a license to do what we want.

This is very important as we walk with others.  We shouldn’t advise sin or tell people its ok.  In the example above it wouldn’t be good for this man to tell people, “Go ahead and blow off God’s call, you can always repent later.”

Most of the time disobeying God’s call, especially when it comes to what we know for sure to be his commands biblically, doesn’t work out that well.  As an example, for every couple that lives together first and later ends up in a life long marriage there a bunch that don’t. Why stack the odds against yourself?

Obviously we all sin and make bad choices. I know for sure I have and do. That doesn’t mean we should excuse it, and we sure as heck shouldn’t advise it.  Using God’s grace to justify sin is not ok.

What we can do is advise against it.  We can point out God’s grace and how as we’ve turned to Him, He has blessed us.  It means there is hope in absolutely any situation. Instead of justifying the mistakes, let’s focus on God’s grace and use it as a platform to save others.

Unmet Desire Is Good

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When I was a kid, I really, really loved basketball.  I wanted to be good.  I would pretend to be the Missouri Tigers in the driveway.  You know the drill – down two with time running out, you shoot, and. . . if you missed – well you were fouled.  Haha.

In high school I wanted to win, and I wanted to be the star.  Now the truth is I was good but not a star, but that didn’t keep me from working at it.  I would practice a lot.  I bought the “strength shoes” to improve my vertical. I did endless drills.

I had a good not great career.  But I loved the whole thing.  But what drove me was the chance to win.  I had a desire to win.  It wasn’t always met – but it drove me to be better.

We have a huge problem in our culture and it has a crazy impact on us as singles.  We think that unmet desire is always bad.  If I have a desire, then it should be met – right now!  This is America damn it!  Meet My Desire!

Desire is good.  In fact in Psalm 37:4 God promises to give us desires (not give us what we want, but give us what to want).  Desire drives us to do incredible things.  Desire makes us want to grow, to change, to become better.  Without desire we would be dead.

Desire drives us to act.  Always. The question becomes where do we let us drive us.

We all have a desire for love. Now obviously we need to take our desire for love to Jesus first.  This is critical for everything else in life.  The best part is that God will meet us and He does love us.  In fact he is the only person who can meet that desire.

But what about other desires.  Can God meet our desire for sex?  Can God be our spouse? Can God physically hold our hand or give us physical intimacy?  No.  And yet God created sex.  He created us with the desire for physical and emotional intimacy and partnership with another person.  That’s awesome . . . and frustrating!

So what do we do with unmet sexual/intimacy desire?

We can go out and meet that base desire by having sex with someone.  I mean we have needs and they need to be met.  A lot of us don’t want the work involved with that sin though so we settle for what I call “Lazy Immorality”.  By this I mean, porn, masturbation, romance novels, whatever.  (I’ll define this more soon).

We can also just try to kill the desire so we don’t have to feel it.  Just focus on work, or school, or a hobby.  The more extreme the better.  Whatever works.  Ministry works well here.  Just focus on other stuff.  Shove that desire down deep.

We can get religious.  Just be content where you are.  We can drop in some misused Pauline quotes.  The favorite is in Philippians 4 where Paul says, “I have learned the secret to being content in any and every situation.”  So just don’t want.  “Just Be” is how we take that.  But that isn’t really what Paul is getting at.  The “secret” isn’t to kill desire.  It’s not to be ok with whatever.  Paul gives us the secret in the next verse – through Jesus “who gives me strength”.

Paul had learned that regardless of what he felt, Jesus would meet him and sustain it.  His identity, joy, or overall life was not wrapped up in unmet desire or circumstance. That is the contentment Paul was talking about.  He wasn’t saying, “Don’t feel.  Don’t try to make things different. Stay as you are it’s fine.”  No Paul was saying Jesus was bigger than all of that.  He is saying let whatever your situation is let it drive you to Jesus.  I don’t need to kill my desire or have it met the wrong way.  I need to walk straight into unmet desire – with Jesus.

We can’t just tell people to not worry about it.  We don’t do this in other areas.  The church doesn’t say to the poor – just stay poor and be content.  It doesn’t say to the sick, just stay sick and be content.  No, we step up and step in.  We act.  (Or at least we are supposed to).  All the while pointing out that no matter what the circumstances Jesus has to be desired first.

The truth is that these desires we have are natural and good, and from God.  We need to engage Him and we need to move forward.  It’s hard.  Unmet desire is a part of life to the full.  We need to feel the tension.  It drives us to the things that God has for us – if we let it.

What do you do with your unmet desire?