Tag Archives: Adam and Eve

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?

Is Jesus Enough?

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When I was a much younger single person, I remember a lot of conversations with older folks (mostly married) in which I was challenged with the thought of, “Is Jesus enough?”  In other words, “You’re single right now so Jesus will have to be enough.”

Man that sounded holy to me (It also made me want to sing the Doobie Brothers version of Jesus Is Just Alright – still does actually).  That’s right dang it, Jesus is enough.  I don’t need someone else.  However this is only sort of true, depending on what question you are actually asking.

Part of the problem with the Church’s response (or lack of) to increasing singleness is that we say stuff that not only sets singles up to fail, but also in turn sets marriages up to fail. The reality is that we need a good theology of both marriage and singleness.  One will not work without the other.  We need a lot of help with both.

When we say to a single person that Jesus is enough that implies several things. First off, it could mean that Jesus needs to be enough for right now.  But this makes no sense.  Jesus is enough for now, but not for later?  If you get married, then Jesus won’t be enough?  This goes right along with what I’ve written before about the idea of singleness being a “season where you focus on the Lord.”  This idea is so rampant and so just flat bad.  There is no season where you should not be focussed on the Lord.  And again, if singleness means being closer to the Lord than marriage, no one should get married. Marriage is not a concession to not being tight enough with God.  Yikes!

Which leads to point two.  Marriage happened while Adam had a perfect, sinless relationship with God.  In other words it wasn’t a lack of God being enough that made Him create Eve and put them together.  God looked at Adam and said it was not good for man to be alone.  Wait!  You mean even when he was totally with God, Adam still needed someone else?  Whoops.

Finally there is the idea that gets floated that if Jesus is enough for you, that means you must be called to singleness.  Once again, Jesus wants us to be focussed on Him regardless.

The question in regards to the call of singleness is not a question of how much you are focussed on Jesus.  It is a question of calling to vocation – to what type of ministry you will do.  It’s the second vow, not the first vow.  The first vow we have to make is to Jesus.  We all have the same first vow.  WE HAVE TO GET THIS.

In addition, the Jesus is enough question can lead us to other bad places as a single. Mainly that we don’t find true community.  In other words, regardless of marital status, it is truly not good for “man to be alone.”  We need other people.  We were created relationally, by a relational God, for the purpose of relationship.  If we are told enough that Jesus is enough we can end up not only avoiding marriage based on personal holiness but avoiding true community as well.

At the end of the day Jesus is actually enough in a lot of ways that matter most.  Jesus is enough for salvation – in fact nothing else works for salvation.  Jesus is enough for full life, but when we follow Him, He usually helps us get that by leading us to others and speaks to us not just directly but through the Church (his people) and the Scriptures.  But the truth is that we are not guaranteed that.  In other words He doesn’t promise earthly community and in fact lots of people have followed Jesus without the Bible.  We certainly are not guaranteed a spouse.

But a married person doesn’t have any of those guarantees either.  I could get married this week, and my spouse could be taken away the week after.  Would Jesus be enough? Get what I’m saying?

I think a better question might be, what are you staking your life on?  Now our answer to that needs to be Jesus.  Because at the end of the day He is the one sure thing.  And that has absolutely nothing to do with marital status.

We Are Scared Crapless Of Marriage

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Just over 10 years ago I was meeting with a group of about 30 juniors and seniors.  A female volunteer and I were leading a session on sex and dating (because if you are a good youth person you must do this right?).  But anyway, I asked a simple question that brought me a somewhat shocking answer.  I said, “How many of you think that you will get married one time and stay married to that person forever?”  Only about half the kids in that room raised their hands.  This was in the middle of Missouri . . . in 1999.

We so often refuse to deal with the reality of culture. The divorce rate is 50%.  49% of adults are not married.  80% of adults aged 18-29 are not married.  That is the real world. Why?

There are many reasons.  Last week I said one of the reasons is that we have become more self centered.  Today I’d like to talk about another huge reason.  People are scared crapless of marriage.

There’s this idea in the “Christian” world that marriage is less respected today.  I get that thought and I don’t totally disagree.  But I think it is a huge oversimplification of the problem.  I actually think that most young people actually do respect the idea of marriage, which is one reason they are so scared to commit to it.  They’ll do anything but get married.  They will date the same person forever, keep trying to find the perfect person, try out sex, live together and heck even have kids together.  Anything but get married.  Some of that is selfishness but some of it is just pure unadulterated fear.

What is everyone afraid of?  Several things actually.

First, in a general sense people are afraid of screwing up marriage.  They are scared they won’t be able to do it or that they aren’t ready to do it (which of course no one is).  You see they’ve seen it done mostly wrong.  It’s now more normal in our country to grow up in a “broken home” than a complete one.  Kids have grown up seeing their parents in one of two situations.  Many have seen divorce and all the cost that comes with that.  And if that is the choice then let’s not get married at all.  They don’t think divorce is ok.  They have sworn not to let it happen to them and the best way to ensure that is to avoid marriage. Believe me, I’ve talked to these people.  They’d rather have a kid out of wedlock than be divorced.  Less drama.

Secondly a lot of people have watched parents in marriages that are completely dysfunctional and they don’t want that either.  They believe in marriage but they haven’t really ever seen it work.

People are also afraid of community and commitment to others in general.  I mean think about your small group – who really is committed?  Have you ever really been completely committed to anyone or vice versa?  Marriage is the ultimate commitment. It’s the first human community – Adam and Eve with God in the middle.  That’s how it all started and it’s still the idea.  But if I’ve never had real community with anyone – how the heck do I do that with another person. . . every day. . . no matter what. . . with no exit.  Get what I’m saying? We are scared of what comes with community – fighting, getting hurt, accountability, someone knowing the worst things about me.  And there in lies perhaps the our biggest fears.

Men are afraid of failure.  We are afraid we won’t be able to do it.  Can I be a husband? Can I be a father?  I don’t know what I’m doing – can I take on that fight?  What if I fail? What if I choose wrong?  What if I’m constantly all day reminded of my failure over and over?

Women are typically more afraid of abandonment.  Not necessarily that the man will leave physically although that too.  But that he will leave emotionally or spiritually.  That somehow at some point something will happen and she will be alone.

Marriage is the ultimate test of these fears.  Making matters worse is the fact that every guy will fail and every woman will feel alone, even in the best marriage.  So why put yourself in that position.  That’s crazy scary.

I don’t have space here to go at how to face all these fears (I promise to come back to it). But here’s the point for today.  Many of us need to face the fact that we are scared.  We need to ask where that comes from because it’s not from God.  And the Church, if it is going to love singles well has to recognize and help us face those fears.  Morality is not enough in the face of fear.  More to come. 🙂

So are you scared?  What part of marriage scares you the most?  Where does that fear come from?

Don’t Date Jesus

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I remember many years ago I was talking to a woman that I was serving at a summer camp with.  We were talking about life and many different issues and of course dating and marriage came up.  (We were not interested in each other, just talking).  I asked her if she was dating etc.  She said, “You know right now I’m not really looking.  I’m focussing in on me and Jesus.  I’m just dating Jesus right now.”  I just kind of smiled.

I get the idea.  And in fact for people that have relationships as an idol and have spent their whole life filling up their emptiness by dating, it can make a lot of sense to take a break and have a season of not dating.  But we need to be really careful with stuff like this.

First of all I think the whole dating Jesus thing is just weird.  I mean later on do you break up with Jesus?  If you get married do you have to have the break up talk with God?  If I’m a guy, can I date Jesus?  Yikes.

But the bigger point here is this prevailing idea that somehow singleness is a season where I’m supposed to really zero in on “my relationship with God”.  I think this is a dangerous spiritual platitude to live under.

People say this stuff for all sorts of reasons.  It can be a way to hide from the fact that I’m struggling with singleness.  This way I don’t have to deal with the hurt. It’s often an attempt to explain why God hasn’t “delivered” someone to me yet.  “Well if God wanted me to get married it would have happened (read it can’t possibly have anything to do with me or choices I make).  So God must want me to be with just Him.” Um, God always wants us to be with him. It sounds holy.  “Well I’m just focussing in on Jesus right now”.  But how is right now any different from any other time.  Shouldn’t we always be focussed in on Jesus?

I mean we should indeed take our singleness to the Lord.  But the idea that singleness is a season that enables me to focus more on the Lord is false.  Look it’s hard to focus on the Lord no matter what.  It’s also always the goal.

This can lead us down some bad pathways.  It could keep me from pursuing a good relationship.  If marriage means that I will be further away from God then none of us should get married.  Seriously.  But fortunately that is not the case.

Marriage was created pre-sin.  It wasn’t offered up as a secondary option or as some sort of compromise.  We act like Adam somehow did something wrong so God said, “Well obviously I’m not enough for you so I guess we’ll do this marriage thing.”  That is not what happened at all.  God created Adam and saw a need for more.  He created Eve.  He put them together before anybody did anything wrong.  He put them together while they were both living in perfect union with Him.  Their marriage didn’t take away from His plan, it completed it.

Now this doesn’t mean that every person will get married or that it’s wrong to be single. That’s not my point at all.  Also, God may very well have me single for a season for particular reasons.  But to just assume it without really dealing with what is going on doesn’t seem like a good idea.

There can also be this implication that if I just focus in on Jesus during my singleness then He will bring me someone to marry.  What if He doesn’t?  More time for just me and Jesus I guess.  I shouldn’t focus on Jesus hoping to earn a spouse from Him.  If I’m “dating Jesus” chances are that I’m still pretty focussed on wanting to be married.

The truth is that if I’m single I need to put Jesus first.  But also if I’m married I’d better dang well put Jesus first, because if I don’t I’m screwed.  If I’m going to focus on Him less when I get married we are in trouble.  To be honest, I think being married might actually make me rely on him more.  It should drive me to Him.  “Lord, help me love my spouse today even though I don’t feel like it.”  And try having kids.  Want to get on your knees?  Parent a teenager.  Wait up late on a Saturday night for your 16 year old daughter to get home to have her walk in looking exhausted, and then walk right by you to her room and spend the night wondering what happened out there.

Don’t date Jesus.  Follow Jesus.  Don’t let your whole spirituality, let alone your whole identity, be wrapped up in singleness or marriage.  We desperately need Jesus period.

Don’t Blame Women

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Last week I shared that a lot of our bitterness comes from the fact that we are mad at God. We also often get mad at the opposite sex.  Here’s the reality – rejection hurts and there’s only so many reactions you can have to that.  What can happen is over time we end up kind of mad at the opposite sex in general. This doesn’t mean that we are mad at every person of that gender who we know.  That certainly isn’t usually the case.  But we can begin to have an attitude that can cost us.

Every guy is asking if they are a man, if they are successful, if they have what it takes. What often happens is we end up taking this question to the woman.  What I mean is that if I’m asking in my life if I am a “man” when I ask a girl out, I’m often taking that question to her.  Now she doesn’t actually know that, and it’s completely unfair to ask her to answer it, but inside, mostly subconsciously, that is what we are doing.  So when she says no, she’s not just saying, “No I don’t want to go out with you”, we are also hearing, “You aren’t man enough (good enough, successful enough, strong enough, or other enoughs).”

Most guys are fighting against failure.  And we often use women as the grade card.  This is a really bad idea.

First of all, whether you are single, married or whatever, if you as a man are going to have your date, lady of interest, or even your wife as a grade card, let me go ahead and give you your grade right now.  You fail.  You can not ace the date, boyfriend, husband test.  It’s not going to happen.  If you get your identity from that you are screwed.

Typically when we “fail” we respond in one of several ways.  All of which are bad when it comes to being single.

One way we respond is to keep trying harder.  When it comes to pursuing women its a disaster.  I’ve already talked about it but you do not want to chase the girl.  It makes her a goal instead of a person.  Additionally, being try hard is not attractive and won’t make her like you.  You can’t talk her into it.

Sometimes guys also just decide that women aren’t going to like them and just quit trying. This is no good either.  Just because you fail with one person doesn’t mean you can’t ask someone else.  It may mean I need to look at what I might be doing wrong but constantly beating myself up (next weeks post) doesn’t help at all.

A third reaction is to be mad at the her or women in general.  This is where we automatically think all of the bad things about her.  We say that she likes the wrong guys or that she just doesn’t get it.  Maybe we judge her faith and assign all sorts of false reasons as to why she wasn’t attracted to us.

A woman is either attracted to you or she isn’t.  If she isn’t attracted to you then what is she supposed to do?  She doesn’t owe you attraction.  She doesn’t owe you a date because your such a “Great Christian Guy”.  You are not entitled to a date with anyone.  It’s actually fairly ridiculous to be mad at someone who doesn’t want to date you.  Making matters worse is that when you begin to have this attitude, you get even less attractive.  It comes through in how we interact with women.  They can feel it, trust me.  They are extremely uncomfortable with the “angry” guy.

To be honest, most of the time when I’ve been mad at a woman or women for not liking me it’s pretty much a cop out.  I might actually be mad at them but really I’m more mad at myself and God.  It’s yet another way I can blame someone else for why I’m not with someone.  “Women just don’t want good guys.”  “Women are only interested in guys with (money, success, titles, etc).” “I’m just not good enough for her”.   It’s Adam in the Garden, “It’s her fault.”

The truth is that “women” are not the problem or the reason I’m single.  Thinking this way is a colossal waste of time and emotional energy.

We need to focus on us and God.  I need to take my questions of worth and manhood to God.  If I let Him answer those, an amazing thing happens – the woman is no longer my grade card.  I’m free to pursue or not, free to invite instead of chase, and free to walk away if she isn’t interested.  Which might just make her interested.

So have you been mad at women?  Ladies how does this work from your angle?  Have you blamed the opposite sex for your singleness?