Tag Archives: God

Should We Develop Dating Skills?

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When I was a kid I loved basketball.  I loved playing it, watching it, listening to it on the radio and then re-enacting that game in the driveway the next day.

As I got older I began to actually work really hard at it.  I was coached by my dad (who still has a quicker release on his shot than me).  Later different coaches spent time with me and coached me up.  I played spring and summer ball.  I went to the outdoor courts to practice.  I did drills.  When I reached high school I conditioned and even bought strength shoes to help my vertical.  I shot endless free throws making sure I made 10 in a row before I quit for the day – no matter how long it took – even in the dark.

Now I never became a star.  I got a few awards but I was no where near good enough to play division one.  But I did get better – a lot better.  And even now I can still bang it out in the post against most people.  I can’t do physically what I could 20 years ago, but the flow and movements come naturally – because they are ingrained.  They are a part of me.

Practice and coaching are a part of almost everything we do in life.  Think about it.  If you’ve learned to play a musical instrument, learned math, got a degree in anything you’ve been coached and you’ve practiced.  When we enter the workforce we are trained by someone. When you get a new job, you have to learn the culture of that company or industry.  Someone helps you – at least hey hand you a manual or something.

Even in church this is true.  To be a small group leaders usually means you have to be in a small group first.  Then there is at least a training weekend.  Someone should check in on how you are doing.   A new Christian can usually get help on how to read the bible.  There are membership classes.  Need help in an area? There’s a class for that.  Marriage, parenting, spiritual gifts, bible study, all of it.

But when it comes to helping single people get married, not so much. We are so lost in this area and there is very little help.

There are all sorts of things that keep us single.  Some of it is situational.  Some of it is our own sin or lack of commitment.  No doubt.  Some of it though, has to do with skill.

Now we all hate that it takes skill.  But we hate this in every area of life.  I mean I wish I could be good at stuff without working at it.  Who doesn’t?  But that’s not the typical situation.  I’d love to be able to hit the golf ball where I want it to go without ever practicing. I wish I never had to study for a test in college but I did.

There is skill involved in getting a date.  There is the inner confidence part.  The approach part.  There is the body language part.  Many of us have never even considered most of this.  Most of us have never worked at it.  And almost none of us have ever been coached or mentored in it in any way whatsoever.

Many of us grew up without a dad or without one who taught us this stuff.  A lot of us learned all the wrong things.  It’s a mess.  It doesn’t have to be.  But you probably aren’t going to wake one morning, flip a switch and do it different.

This is why a lot of the spiritual platitudes in Christian dating are a complete waste of time.  “God will bring you someone” is pointless if you can’t close the deal when He does.  Telling me about marriage is helpful but won’t help me get married.

Most in the Church basically say don’t date.  Don’t pursue someone unless you are sure it could go somewhere.  Don’t practice. I get the idea.  But to me it’s unfair to assume that someone can never go on a date, and then just turn it on at the right moment for the right person.

Am I saying go on hundreds of dates?  Am I saying ask everyone out, or hit on every girl.  Heaven’s no!  But what I am saying is that somehow we need to help people work through their stuff and develop their ability to actually move with confidence when they feel led to.

We need to quit focussing solely on keeping people from marrying wrong.  People are already not getting married.  Instead we need to somehow become proactive (within our principles of loving others) in helping people figure out how to get married right.  That has to include more than who not to marry.  It has to include how to make the right thing happen.

I have more questions on this than answers.  How do we get better at dating/relationship starting?  Where did you learn what you do know?  What do you wish someone would have helped you with in this area?

The Theological Cop Out

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A few weeks ago I was perusing some Christians singles sights and I came across one with a question and answer section – kind of a Dear Abby for Christian singles.  Most of it was pretty good.  However one of the most real questions got answered in a way that too many people answer singles’ real questions – namely without actually answering the real question.

A woman wrote in and basically said, “Hey I’ve read all the books on singleness and gone to church my whole life where I’ve heard plenty about what to do and not do, and what marriage is about.  However almost no one seems to address getting a date to begin with. What if I don’t have anyone to set boundaries with because I never actually have anyone? How do I know if it’s me?  How do I attract the guy to begin with.”

Now that’s called being real.  She’s saying, “I’m in.  I believe in dating and marrying right.  I’m following Jesus.  Now tell me how to start.  How do I get a date?”  I love this because she has the right heart, commitment and desire.  She just needs help forward. And she is even willing to learn, change and improve.  She’s not even mad.

So does she receive real talk back?  Not so much.  In a nutshell they tell her, “Dating is not the goal, an Ephesians 5 marriage is.  Just because you don’t ever date doesn’t mean you can’t get married.”  And this rich, “The goal is not to get dates but to discern if the person you are dating is a marriage candidate.”  What the . . . ?!  That’s why she is asking the question!!!  She would love to be discerning a candidate – how the heck does she get one.

The really long answer ends with saying, “while you are waiting for this person just focus on the Kingdom and all else shall be added.”

The thing is, it’s not that the person answering her is completely wrong.  We should seek God and the kingdom first.  We should engage community and live life well.  We should look to mature and grow. We should for sure keep in mind that the goal is not to go on 100 first dates.  It’s to find someone to marry.  But this woman was trying to go on one date, not 100.

It all sounds holy and is technically right.  It’s good help you sleep at night theology. Need a job?  Just seek the kingdom.  No reason to put a good resume together or apply anywhere.  God will bring you “the job”.  Now God might dang well bring you a job – but you still apply right?  Or you need to lose 10 pounds.  Just seek the kingdom.  God is in control.  He has you over weight for a reason.  AHHHHHHHHHHH!  In His time he will have you lose that weight.  I mean would you say that?

This sort of Oprah, postmodern “it’s all good crap” combined with bad Calvinism is killing us – and not just in dating.  But dating is one of the biggest places it shows up because it’s an easy answer – or lack of answer as the case may be.

This is especially important as guys.  We have to figure out how to actually act. Now I know some will say that they act and nothing happens.  I get that, I really do.  I’ve been there. For me that meant I needed to bring some others into the conversation at a deep level.  I needed some men to help me quit over thinking and over spiritualizing the whole thing.  I needed some people to challenge what part of my being single was my fault.  People to sit in it with me.

In the end it was that familiar combination of me dealing with my sin (including insecurity – which is a sin) and God bringing someone great into my life.  But I don’t think it would have “just happened”.

Here’s what I’m really getting at.  We need to deal with the reality whatever that is. Yes we need to know the need for sexual boundaries.  We need to keep the end in mind. We need to grow in Jesus.  We need to use discernment. But to get married, especially if you’re over 25, you’ll probably need to first figure out how to go on a date.  Hopefully not 100.  But at least one.

It’s ok to ask those real questions.  Why do women turn me down?  Why do I clam up when I’m around someone I like?  What am I afraid of?  Why is no one attracted to me? Why am I not attracted to anyone? Why can’t I commit? How do I increase attraction early on?  How do I get a date or two?  There are all sorts of answers depending on the situation.  There’s not one nice little answer for everyone.  

To some extent there is theological truth in every situation, fair enough.  But sometimes it’s not the only answer we need.

Money and Singleness

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One of the lies out there about singleness  is the idea that singles are better off financially than marrieds.  Being in full time ministry over the last 20 years and surrounded by married people (about 90% of the people in my position are married) I’ve often been told to enjoy the freedom I have and how it is tougher with a family etc.  And I bought that.

But here’s the problem.  In general it’s not true.  Single people are not better off financially. Not even close.

Here are some numbers.  The median income for a married man is 109% greater than that of a single man.  Before you go and say that is just an age thing (for sure a factor) the median income for a married man is 33% greater than that of a divorced man.  The median family income even with only one person working outside the home is still higher than that of the single man.

We’re not done.  Married men get promoted more, receive better appraisals and oddly enough miss work less.  But it’s not just jobs and income.  It’s also taxes, laws and health benefits at companies.  A recent study  found that a single woman making $40,000 a year until she is 60 years old ends up missing out on over $484,000 over that period compared to a married woman.  That’s crazy.  Even if their estimates are off, it’s still crazy.

Now statistics are just that and for sure you can manipulate them in different ways.  But make no mistake, no matter how you do the numbers, married people end up with more than singles.

Now there’s all sorts of practical reasons that marrieds do better.  For one you share expenses.  You have one mortgage, get group insurance rates, have one electric, water, and sewer bill etc.  When something goes wrong in a job, sometimes the other person can keep you afloat for a while. You get a more tax help for being married.  The list goes on.

I’m not sharing this today to complain.  I’m not looking to start an equality in single pay movement.  I share it mainly for two reasons.  First to bust the myth that if you are single you have it easier financially.  That is completely false – especially over the long haul.  The second is because there are some things singles need to think about that can help them navigate finances in light of the this truth.

First off it is important to not fall into the trap of believing that because you are single, you should be “freer” with you money.  Here’s what I mean.  There were a lot of times over the last 20 years of singleness that I kind of had the attitude of “why not” because no one else was really counting on it.  Why not go ahead and take out the car loan. Why not go ahead and go on the trip I can’t really afford – I’ll pay it back.  Why not buy dinner for everyone, no one else will need my money right now.  The list goes on.

Why have a good health plan?  Why have good insurance?  No one but me is counting on it.  Here’s the truth – we tend to make different decisions when others are counting on us than when we are just dealing with ourselves.

Now to some extent that is reality.  But we have to be really, really careful.  What if something goes wrong?  What if I can’t pay it back?  What if I get hurt?  If you are disabled tomorrow – who pays for that?  Know what I’m saying?

Adding to the complexity is that others around us (especially married friends) have also bought this lie.  So they think you’re fine.  If a married friend of mine blew a few thousands bucks they’d probably get called out. “What are you doing?  You have a family.”  A single friend blows it – not so much.

Which leads to what I believe is the biggest trap for singles when it comes to finances.  No one knows what you are doing with your money.

Ask yourself right now – who knows how much you make, what you spend, what your expenses are, how in debt you are.  Is there any person in your life who knows any of it, let alone actually holds you accountable in any way in this area of your life?  My guess is no.  Do you even have financial goals?  Does anyone know what they are?  Are any of them more than 5 years long?  If you spent a few thousand dollars tomorrow who would know?

Everyone wants singles held accountable in dating, sex, porn etc. but we almost never talk about this.  And it is costing us.  Literally!  The funny thing is that scripture talks more about this than any of the stuff we are worried about.  If there is one thing I’d do different in my 20 years of singleness this might be it.  I’d try to be able to answer all the above questions with a yes.  I’d have some people who knew all the above and held me to it.

The biblical principles for money are the same for married and single people. But the context is different and we are foolish not to recognize that.  We can’t control tax codes and company benefits.  But we can control what we do with what we have.

What are you doing with what you have?  It’s a huge question.  Jesus says, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  Where’s your treasure?

Car Shopping And Dating

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About six weeks ago my car got totaled.  Actually it got flash flooded out.  (By the way if you have ever wondered how long you would have if you crashed into water before water seeped into your car – answer – not very long, as in get out of the car immediately).

At any rate, this meant I needed to go through the insurance process and then go find a new car.  My insurance company was very fair, and I had a little extra money to spend.  So I went about trying to find a car.  Now here’s the deal, I was committed to not take out a loan so I had exactly what I had.  I also knew what kind of car I wanted.

I visited around 20 different dealers, looked on all the websites (even craigslist).  There were lots of ok cars, but not so much “my car”.  I’m 6’4″ so there has to be room.  I’m in it a lot as most of my job is out of my office.  It needs to run a long time – my last car (not the totaled one) lasted for 322,000 miles.  And I wanted a V6, because, hey, I’m a man.

About two weeks in I found one.  All the cars I had seen like the one I wanted were at least $1500 -$2000 more than I had and this one was no different.  We met, I drove it, but at that time, the dealer couldn’t go that low.  His price was fair, I just didn’t have it, and I had to walk away.

You see the key to car shopping is actually pretty simple.  Don’t quit looking, don’t buy something you aren’t a little excited about (aka spend a fortune on something you don’t like), and always be willing to walk away.

I could have bought a car the first week and it would have been fine – but I would have been disappointed.  I also could have become discouraged – which I actually did.  But I had community and people to encourage me and loan me vehicles etc.  Finally I could have caved and spent more than I wanted to.  But I was able to walk away.

I share this way too long example because I think it totally relates to three traps we can fall into in looking for a spouse.

Let me just come right out and say that I’ve done all three of these things wrong. . . many times actually.

First, we can for sure quit looking.  There’s are lots of ways to get discouraged.  Maybe we go on a lot of dates, but after a while get dating fatigue and we just want to stop trying.  Or maybe we go on no dates and after a while we just quit asking.  Maybe we get our heart broken and we just don’t want to go back out there.  I’ve for sure been all of those places.  The key in my opinion to this is not dating alone.  In other words you need people in your life who walk with you in this area.  People who can encourage you, tell you what they see you could do better, or just let you vent.  But we needn’t give up.

Secondly we can go with something we know in our heart either isn’t right or just doesn’t excite us.  We say things like, “there’s nothing really wrong with her”, or “I know he’s not a believer but we get along great and he’s open to it”.  Now we have to be careful here.  If anything we in our culture have overplayed the whole don’t settle thing and instead often turn to consumer dating where at the first sign of trouble we bolt.  That’s not what I’m talking about.  But I’ve stayed with stuff longer than I should or tried to make stuff work that I wasn’t into, and that’s at best a waste of everyone’s time.

Which leads to the final trap. We have to be willing to walk away.  Here’s what I mean by that.  Again, I don’t mean run away.  I don’t mean that we walk away because of consumerism or because of fear.  But we need to approach the whole deal with knowledge of “I don’t have to do this.”  I can either choose to do it or not.

This is especially key as a guy.  You have to realize that you don’t need that girl.  You may be willing to wait a while for her, or be willing to listen if she changes her mind but that’s different than chasing her.  When we like someone as a guy, we can often get locked in to the point where “getting the girl” becomes the point.  And this just crushes us.  And it makes us less attractive and keeps us from moving on.

We can get in our head that there could never be anyone else.  But here’s the truth.  There will be. To be honest, knowing you CAN walk away, makes it more powerful when you choose not to.  Knowing that there is not this one perfect soulmate, frees you up to choose to be with someone and begin to become that.

The main key to all of this is having our identity and confidence in Christ.  Knowing that I’m ok no matter what allows us to keep risking, not make desperate choices and know that our life doesn’t depend on it.

Which of these traps do you mostly fall into?  What drives you to that?

Why Church People Hate Singleness

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I’ve determined that church people really hate singles issues.  Now they don’t hate singles (even though some singles might feel that way).  I think they for the most part really do care.  But I think they hate it and avoid dealing with it.

I’ve been thinking about why they feel that way, and I’ve come to some conclusions. This is not meant to be exhaustive, just my first thoughts.

First of all, people they care about are hurting.  There are people that church leaders care for that really want to get married.  They see the desire in their people’s hearts and it bothers them that they aren’t met.

Secondly they hate it because it leads to all sorts of messy problems within the church that they don’t have good answers for.  This guy won’t leave this girl alone.  These two went out three times and now the girl thinks because it didn’t work out that the guy is a player out to do harm.  A single man has the qualities to be an elder, but what if he dates someone in the church, what if it doesn’t work out?  What if he dates someone from a different church?  What if a woman from the church likes him and he isn’t interested? Is he more likely to fall into sexual sin than a married man?  What does that scripture about the husband of one wife mean? (For the record it means don’t have more than one wife).

It’s a mess.  It’s not supposed to work this way.  But our culture has changed.  Marriage is in the decline.  If we were to continue on the trend we are on right now, married people really will be in the minority in our country.  But the church isn’t set up for that.  It also isn’t set up to help us navigate our way out of it.  And that is freaking frustrating.

Thirdly, church people hate singleness because there is no easy biblical answer to the problem.  There are some biblical answers, but we don’t like most of them.  So what mostly happens instead is that we end up trying to make them up.  We like nice little bible answers.  We like when we can say to a married man, “Love your wife in this way or that, because a verse in the bible says it that way.” Or to a married woman, “respect your husband this or that way because there is a verse or two in the bible that says it that way.”

One of the reasons the Church likes to talk about marriage and family (not the only reason) is that it makes a really good sermon.  Singleness. . . . not so much.  Not only that but you can toss a word or two into a marriage sermon about singleness because most single people in the church want to get married.  Married people aren’t interested in the single sermon.  They should be, but they’re not.

The word singleness isn’t even in the bible.  Actually I guess the word is in 2nd Chronicles but not the way we mean it.  Dating is not in the bible.  Neither is courting in case you thought it was.  Taking a wife in the bible often meant literally taking one – and that probably won’t preach.

You see the problem with dealing with singleness is that you actually have to get dirty to do it.  To give any sort of answer that matters you have to jump in with the single person.  You can’t quote a verse, do a study and walk away feeling good about yourself because it won’t do the trick.

To deal with singleness we’d have to deal with things like the call to celibacy.  That actually is in the bible, but in 20 years in church I’ve never once heard a pastor do it justice.  I for sure have never seen a small group set up to determine if you might be called to it.

To deal with singleness we have to get in with the single person and help them navigate why they (that one person) is single?  It requires actually walking through things like, fear of commitment, awkwardness with the opposite sex, communication with the opposite sex, confidence around the opposite sex, insecurities and sin, not to mention the sins of consumerism, sexual immorality, and laziness.  It means dealing directly with people’s wounds over an extended period of time. It means dealing with fear – not creating it. 

We can tell men to man up and women to dress up until we are blue in the face but at some point we have to actually know the man or the woman and find out what’s up.  We can talk all day about God’s timing and waiting on the one He has for you, but at some point we have to move beyond sounding deep and go deep with people.

It means not pretending that there is biblical answers where there aren’t.  And church people hate that because they want there to be a biblical answer even where there isn’t one.  By the way this includes single church people too.

If the Church is interested in changing the trend and reaching out to the unmarried (50% of America is unmarried. 80% of those between 18-29 are) then maybe it’s time the Church “Man’s Up” itself and rethinks how it goes at this deal.

 

 

 

 

Why Men Struggle With The L Word

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Last week I wrote about how all men question their sexual prowess.  If you haven’t read last week’s posts, and you are a guy, I’d strongly encourage you to do that.  We ended the sexual prowess post talking about the real question we need to be answering – “Am I a good lover?”

I believe as men we often struggle with love and intimacy. I think as a single this can become a huge deal in our life.  Often we can go long periods of time without touch or loving words.

I want to say more about physical touch soon, but today I want to focus on the problem we have with the words, “I love you.”

I’m not talking about the way we say it most of the time.  I’m not talking about the sarcastic, bro fake intimacy, of “I love you man” crap.  I’m also not talking about “I love you” when we mean, “don’t be mad at me”. Nor am I talking about the “I love you” when we mean I’m desperate for you to like me.

I’m talking about being able to say it and mean it in the straight forward, no excuses, expecting nothing back, “I love you.”

This is frankly just hard for a lot of us.  There are a lot of reasons and it goes way deeper than the whole macho stereotype.

For starters many of us never heard it from our fathers.  This isn’t to say our fathers didn’t love us, although there are many of us who do come from that.  What I mean is that they didn’t know how to say it either.  Moms said it to us which is good when you’re little but if you only hear it from her you’re in trouble because “I love you” becomes feminine.  And most guys don’t want to be that.

When we don’t hear it from a man, when we become men, we don’t say it.  And I’m not just talking about saying it to a woman.  I’m talking about saying it to your parents, to your friends, to a mentor, a disciple, to your kids.

It’s like when it comes to the surface we kind of swallow it.  There are still times in my life when I know it’s what needs to be said and I choke it back.

Saying I love you – especially saying it in a serious way – requires vulnerability. What if you say it and don’t hear it back?  We can often be afraid to “go there” even with those close to us.  It feels risky.  It feels like I’m opening up some part of me that I’m not sure I want to expose.

The truth is that you can really only be a good lover if you are secure in who you are.  And the only way to be secure is to know that you are loved.  Ultimately only one person can answer that.

Let’s say that you had a 10 minute meeting with God.  In that 10 minutes God (who knows your whole life – all that you’ve done, all that you want, all that you are doing and dreaming) is going to tell you what is most important to Him that He wants you do know. What do you think he would tell you?

I’ve asked a lot of people this question.  Mostly people say something the effect of, “He’d tell me this was good or this was bad, or that I need to work on this or that.”  Some people say, “I’d hope He’d tell me why this or that happened.”

But I’m convinced that what He would do is spend the entire ten minutes telling you He loved you.  Oh if we believed that!  Oh sure we know that God “loves us”.  We know it theologically, heck even logically.  We can quote it, preach it and put it on a bumper sticker.  But living out of it – that’s a whole other thing.

Part of the reason we have a hard time saying it, is that we have a hard time hearing it.  I know this was true for me for a long time.  It was like when someone said it to me I would kind of squirm inside.  It stirred something but I didn’t know what to do with it.

As a guy we need to work through this area of our life.  How comfortable are we at receiving and giving out those words?  As a single person we often don’t have a built in place to do that, but we have to develop it anyway.  We have to become lovers.  It’s part of becoming a true adult.

How comfortable are you with “I love you”?  What did you learn from your father about “I love you”?  This weekend is father’s day.  Could you call your dad and legitimately say, “I love you”?   How do you feel when a man says it to you now?  A woman?  How do you receive it?  How comfortable are you with saying it? When it comes up in your heart do you speak it or swallow it?

If you had 10 minutes alone with God what would He say to you?

Christian Sexual Prowess

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Yesterday I wrote about the fact that every guy asks the question am I good in bed?  How we answer that question is critical to our core confidence as a man.  We can wish it wasn’t that way.  We can try to over spiritualize it.  We can blow it off with joking and hiding.  But it’s still going to be there.  We question our sexual prowess as a man and we in the Christian community MUST have an answer.

At first glance it seems that as a “Christian” that there is no way that I could answer that until I’m married because I’m not supposed to have sex.  Often because we are so worried about sex outside of marriage and the costs that come with it, we end up telling men that they should just table the question and then “presto” answer it on their wedding night.  But in my opinion that is not good enough.  That might have worked a couple of generations ago when people got married by 25 but it won’t work now.

It’s a good thing to direct people to wait until marriage to have sex but it is not ok to wait until then to help them answer their question about sexual prowess.  They are going to answer it somehow.

We need to stop answering the sexual prowess question with a sexual ethics answer.  We need a different conversation.  Sexual prowess and sexual experience are not the same thing.  Thinking they are the same leads to men that are either having sex to answer the question or men that are living with lack of intimacy, touch and confidence in their ability to deliver.  Neither of those are acceptable.  The ironic thing is that our Christian theology actually does answer the sexual prowess question.

The first thing we have to do is realize that God has ultimately created us as sexual beings. It only takes one chapter in the bible for God to bring up sex.  We all have the tools, and I don’t just mean that we have the right “equipment”.

If we believe in a God that created us good, then we must start with the premise that God’s answer to do I have what it takes sexually is yes.  Let that sink in for a minute.  God says, “I have given you what you need here.  You can do this.  You have what it takes because I gave it to you.”

This is core.  Yes we are messed up because of sin. Yes we may have been wounded in this area in even horrible ways.  But at the core of who we are as a man, at the very center of it, we are created with sexual prowess.  It’s there, somewhere, no matter what our experience tells us.

The problem is we take sex out of context and turn it into it’s own question.  It becomes about performance which just kills us as men.  We fear failure.  We fear that we won’t be able to come through and when we make the act of sex the scorecard we are in trouble – even if we are “good” at it.

The act of sex was never intended to be that.  God did not create sex in it’s own context.  Sex is a part of a larger question.

Sex is not intended to be about performance.  It’s about loving another person.  It’s about trust, strength, intimacy and passion. It’s about giving and receiving. It’s about being a good lover, not about being a good performer.  This is why married sex (even in secular research) is described as the best sex.

If I try to answer the sexual prowess question without answering the intimacy question then I’m in trouble – even if I’m married.  Sex is not the goal.  In a sense it’s one of the means to the goal within the context of marriage.  As a stand alone thing, sex will not satisfy.  It will never answer the question.

If you are a good lover, you will be “good in bed”, or at least you’ll figure out how to be.  If you love well, the sex part will be there because there will be the context of trust, intimacy and passion to work on it.

The question we need to be asking is, “am I a good lover?”  It’s actually a lot harder question. If we need the woman’s approval we can’t be a good lover.  If we can’t be strong enough to be vulnerable, then we can’t be a good lover.  This is why women at their core are attracted to strength.

It’s a huge issue for us as men.  Becoming a lover is actually a stage of development just like learning to be a warrior.  Hence the wise saying, “Never give a man a sword who can’t dance.”

The good news is that we can work on all of this without having sex.  We can become lovers.  We can work on how to have intimacy and good physical touch (I’ll say more about how to do this soon).

Here’s the bottom line.  As a man growing in Christ, my sexual prowess should be growing because my identity and confidence in Him grows along with my capacity to give and receive love.   If I’m truly confident in Christ then I’ll have the freedom and strength to be a good lover – and as a part of that to be “good in bed.”

Are You Good In Bed?

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Earlier this week I shared about three questions that all men wrestle with in some way.  “Are you good looking or not?” “What is the worst thing you’ve ever done?” and “Do you have a small or big penis?” All of us have answered these questions in our head, but almost no one has answered them out loud – at least not in any meaningful way.

And yet how we answer them affects many aspects of our lives, none more so than how we interact with women.  This is because all of these answers affect the core confidence we need that in order to pursue, attract, and eventually love a woman.

These questions have to do with three areas of our life – our self image, our shame, and our sexual prowess.  I’ve written a lot about our self image, and I wrote this week about our shame.  Today I want to talk about the third question.  So buckle up men.

The issue of having confidence sexually is gigantic in how we feel about ourselves as men and therefore how we interact with women.

First, let’s just admit that this is true.  Men are about performance.  This is why everywhere you turn you see sexual enhancement drugs, workouts, and techniques.  A man’s greatest fear is failure.  As Eldrege says, every man is asking, “Do I have what it takes?”  No where is this more true, or more scary and vulnerable, than sex.  Nowhere!

Every guy is asking the question do I have what it takes to be good sexually with a woman. In simple terms – “Am I Good In Bed?”  Every Guy.  Our answers are all jacked up.

Most of us began to have the question answered when we were very young.  There are so many factors.  Do you have a father that even broaches the subject?  What happens in the boys restroom in elementary school?  What are you comparing yourself to?  The guy next to you?  The guy who developed before you?  The guy in the porn video? (Average age a male sees internet porn for the first time is now 11).  It can also be affected by our view of sex, abuse, being emasculated by peers or parents or both.

Sometimes the answer is that we are “small” and that we don’t have what it takes.  Often we get no answer at all.  Almost never do we get a positive answer in the right way.

So we of course go and try to answer it.  We might dominate women or become extremely sexual to prove our prowess.  This is the guy who lives for sex and is always out to, “get some”.  We might seek to control the answer by fantasizing or looking at porn.  But this usually just brings about shame, and can undermine the question once again.

And in the Christian culture, for the most part, we are told to bury it, kill it, or starve it.  In fact, we are told basically, “Don’t look, don’t touch, don’t explore, but don’t worry you’ll magically know what to do when you get married.”  It’s like there is supposed to be a Christian switch when it comes to sexual prowess.  Don’t have any, and then man up and have it.  Really?!

It seems to me that most Christian guys end up in one of two camps.  Be a Christian but have sex anyway which leads to the obvious problems.  Or, we go without touch, without intimacy and therefore end up freaking out when we get to it. Sex becomes this taboo thing. We end up having fear and passivity around women, especially a woman we are really attracted to.  We don’t know what to do, partly because we aren’t sure we could do it – as in literally “do it”.

We live in a culture in which the average guy gets married at  28-29 years old.  What that means is that in the Church we are asking a guy to go about 15 years of his life (during the most crucial time when he is answering all of his life’s questions – including this one – for the first time) to not have sex.  My contention is this:  We can ask him to not have sex, but we CAN NOT ask him to not have an answer to this question.  Because he WILL answer it.

While this affects how we interact with women, its much bigger than that.  This answer affects how I do other things in my life.  It affects how I relate to other men, how I relate to my own body and self image and even how I interact at work and play.  This question matters.  I would submit that even if I’m called to celibacy in the kingdom, I’d still better have an answer to this question. It’s crucial no matter what.

In my next post I’m going to take a stab at what I think the Christian community can do to help guys answer it.  But before we can get help, we need to check what our answer is to the question right now.

Do you have what it takes to be good sexually with a woman?  Where does that answer come from? How have you tried to answer it?

Shame Crushes Confidence

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I know of a wise older gentleman who asks men that visit him three questions: “Are you good looking or not?” “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” and “Do you have a big or small penis?”

It’s kind of funny. It’s sort of offensive.  It’s for sure brilliant.

How a guy answers those questions is everything.  Does he answer honestly – even with himself?  Where does the answer to each question come from? They are all relative questions – what is it that guy comparing his answer to?  When was the first time he answered each of those questions?  What answer has the world, his dad, his God given him?  Every guy has answered those questions in his head – just not out loud.

Most men spend their life affected by their deep seeded answers.  They either run from it, avoid it, cover it up, or rail against it with anger.  The kicker is most of us have the wrong answer, or at least the wrong idea of what the answer means.  Very few of us own our answers.

They are the type of questions that haunt our confidence in who we are as men.  We often look for the answers from women.  It’s why single men don’t act  and why married men are afraid of their wives.

The kicker is this, most women don’t really care that much about any of those questions. But how you answer them will affect everything you do with women – whether you are married or single.

These three questions (or similar ones) get at the heart of three areas of our life that we are insecure about.  Our self image, our shame, and our sexual prowess.

I’ve written a lot about our self image, including when it comes to how we view our looks. Later this week I’ll write about the sexual prowess question.  But today, I want to focus on the second question.  What is the worst thing you’ve ever done?

This question has to do with shame which flies in the face of the gospel.  For some there is fear of being found out, for others the fear of being disqualified.  Many have been carrying it as a secret for a long time.

The funny thing about the worst thing you’ve done question is there’s a good chance it’s not actually the worst thing you’ve done.  It is however, what you are most of ashamed of.  But most of us have never actually said this out loud, to anyone.  Many have not even said it to God. Shame is a powerful tool of the enemy.  Shame means we are unreconciled with God. Think about that.

Shame causes us to look away when we shouldn’t.  It causes us to withdraw, back down or act out when we think it might be exposed.  What we hide in the dark, makes us afraid of the light – and freedom (as well as confidence) is in the light.  Worst of all, it holds us back with Jesus because He brings light to everything.  As a secondary problem it holds us back with people – including the opposite sex.

Shame crushes confidence.

The only way to crush shame is to bring it out into the light and deal with it.  It’s the only way to know which parts of it are our fault (so we can repent) and which parts aren’t (so we can heal).

We have to start with the truth that Jesus is serious about both forgiveness and healing.  If we don’t believe that then we will spend our whole lives in the dark.

You see the follow up question to what is the worst thing you’ve ever done is this, “Do you know that you are forgiven for that?”

Either the cross took care of every sin or took care of none of it.  There really can’t be any in between.  So if I think that Jesus, who knew no sin, became sin for us, then I have to figure out how to believe that I’m forgiven for the worst thing I’ve ever done.  We know it intellectually and biblically. But most of us don’t live out of it at all.

Here’s the truth.  Because of the cross, you are forgiven for everything you’ve ever done, everything you’re doing, and everything you ever will do.  That’s either true or we are screwed.

There are also some of us who are carrying shame because of something that happened to us that we have falsely interpreted as our fault.  Again, the only way to get at this is to bring it into the light.  Once it’s in the light, we need to know that Jesus, through the power of the resurrection makes all things new.  There is nothing that can’t be made new – nothing.

What does it mean to bring something into the light and deal with it?  I think it means bringing it before God and someone else.  I think to own it means to share it with someone. This can obviously be dangerous.  But we have to take the risk. If we don’t have community, pay a few bucks and see a Christian counselor – hey married people do it.

If we don’t then we will continue to shrink back.  Shame will keep us dating no one (or the wrong people), fearing commitment, or if we do somehow get married, insidiously impact our marriage.

What is the worst thing you’ve ever done?  Who have you told?  Do you know you are forgiven? Really forgiven?

The Marriage Is Hard Movement

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The other day over lunch a young friend said, “I think it’s the trendy thing in the Christian world to make sure that everyone knows that marriage is hard.”  Haha – Amen.  For sure in the hipster Christian world it is.  In fact it’s so trendy that if your marriage isn’t “hard” then you aren’t cool, must not get it, and are probably heading for disaster.  Man we have over thought this thing.

To begin with it seems sort of counter productive to keep telling this to a group of people (those aged 18-29) that aren’t getting married.  Only 20% of them are married.  So if the goal is to warn people – well then – good job!  Seems to be working.  No one is rushing into marriage.  In fact they are rushing away from it.

As the divorce rate rose in the late 20th century, the Church rightly reacted to re-estabish marriage as a covenant and not just a contract.  They wanted people to make sure they knew it was permanent and that even when it’s hard you hang in there – because less and less people were.  All good so far.

But I believe as an unintended consequence we’ve now got a Christian culture that has made an agreement with the enemy by accident.  They’ve made marriage out to be harder than singleness.  The words Marriage and Hard are now interchangeable in Christian culture.

It doesn’t help that a lot of this generation’s pastors bringing this message are generally kind of joyless to begin with. (For free – one thing the New-Calvinists and Emergent Church leaders have in common – They’re both mad).  These people want to make sure that everyone gets the seriousness of marriage, which is great.  But if we let that steal the joy of marriage then both the married and unmarried are screwed.

On top of this our generation whines a lot.  I’m a part of it.  Think about it.  My job is hard, my school is hard, singleness is hard, times are hard.  Everything seems to be hard and everyone wants to make sure you know that they are suffering just as much as you. Hardness is a badge of honor.  Joy isn’t even on the radar.  I’m dead serious.  There’s a spirit of complaining that is rampant in our world. Can you picture your grandparents sitting around talking about how hard any of those things are?

We spend more time complaining than doing something about it.  How many men’s “accountability” groups are really “share your problems” groups.  “Yeah Bro, that’s tough.” is about as much help as we offer each other.  We’re all about empathy and understanding, which are important.  But at some point, it’s time to actually deal with your stuff, not just have a great premium beer while talking about it.

Marriage is hard because dealing with our sin and woundedness is hard – and marriage forces the issue more than any other relationship.  But marriage isn’t the problem.  We are.  We don’t need to be afraid of marriage – we need to deal with our crap.

Over the years I’ve walked with a lot of people in tough marital situations.  What usually happens is this.  I listen to a guy for about half an hour pour out all that is wrong with his wife.  Then I ask a couple of questions.  And the next thing you know I’m saying something to the effect of, “This is really about you.  You need to deal with . . . ”

Now sometimes a guy has been sinned against or his wife is really going through something horrible and I’m not negating that type of thing.  But about 90% of the time when a guy says to me that marriage is hard what he really means is, “I don’t want to –  face this wound, deal with this sin, make this change or grow up in this way.”

The truth is that in the long run, marriage is not “harder” than singleness.  All research I’ve ever seen (almost all secular) says that married people are happier, have more and better sex, make more money, live longer and impact society more.  It’s a societal foundation. That’s not to say that being single is “wrong”.  Some are called to celibacy and some are single for other reasons.  My point is that a whole lot of this trendy “marriage is hard” stuff is more about sounding deep than actually dealing with deep stuff.

Maybe most importantly, we need to realize that hard and bad are not synonyms – even if our comfort culture tells us they are.  In the kingdom, hardness and joy are not opposites.  That fact is part of our witness.  But we lose our witness if we leave out the joy part.  Read that again.

As singles looking to be married we need to walk a line here.  We need to realize that marriage is not sex and romance on demand and it certainly won’t solve all of our problems. But we need to not give into the lie that it’s so hard that we probably can’t do it.  Don’t resign to it being bad.  It also would be good to start dealing with our sin and woundedness now.

I’d encourage married folks to think about what you mean when you say it’s hard.  What’s the point you’re really making?  Why are you making it?  As a warning?  As an excuse? Are you dealing with what is specifically making it hard right now?