Tag Archives: sin

Take Advantage Of Your Singleness – What Does That Even Mean?

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I ran into a guy I hadn’t seen in a while a couple of weeks ago.  He had heard about my recent engagement (you read that right). He said, “I always thought that you felt called to singleness.”  I said that while I have prayed about it at different times I’ve never felt that call.  He said, “Man, that sucks”.  What he meant was that since I was 40 that’s a long time to not feel called to singleness.  He’d be right. Ha.

I had another friend tell me once, “We were talking about you the other day and wondering if you really would ever get married.  I mean you take such advantage of your singleness.”

We are told all the time to take advantage of our singleness.  I’ve always kind of been bothered by this idea.  I mean I get it.  When you get married stuff changes.  In many ways you have less freedom to do what you want, when you want.  You aren’t making decisions on your own (not that you should be doing that anyway).  Then when you throw in kids, you have even more immediate responsibility.

But we have to be careful with this line of thinking. Taking advantage of your singleness could lead to a couple traps we as singles can fall into.  

For starters taking advantage of your singleness shouldn’t turn into, “live it up now because when you are married the fun is over.”  This creates a bad idea of marriage. When you get married you don’t die (you will have to die to yourself in places – but again you should be learning to do that anyway).  You’re not dead – you’re married.  This is so critical.  Marriage does require sacrifice and compromise.  But it should be fun.  Marriage should be a new place to live life to the full – just in a different context.

The idea of living it up now – can also become an excuse for sin.  In other words I can just do what I want regardless.  This can lead to sexual sin, partying or other hard living.  Or along with this – why not play video games or whatever all the time.  The list goes on.  This is all stuff that gets in the way of becoming married and more importantly it is not what we are called to by Jesus.

Secondly, taking advantage of your singleness shouldn’t turn into, “Throw yourself into your work and build your career.”  There are way too many people finding their identity in their work.  This is a huge trap for single folks.  I mean if I’m free to work more, shouldn’t I?  When I started out in my career I would sometimes work 80 hours a week.  That was stupid.  But who was gonna tell me that?  No one.  When work becomes our identity it also becomes a place to hide from the hard parts of our singleness. In other words, if I’m focussed on work, then I don’t have to face my insecurities in other areas. Plus if my identity is in my work, and then I get married I’m going to be in trouble – both at work and at home.

Then the church comes into play.  You’re single, so take advantage of your singleness or in other words “You should do more ministry than a married person.”  This is bad on a couple of levels.  It again sets marriage up as an end to doing good ministry.  I know for a fact that this isn’t true because I’ve watched lots of married people be just as effective as me at ministry.  But if we build that into singles’ heads then when they get married they will think that they should not do ministry.  I’ve also seen that happen lots of times.  Don’t get me wrong, marriage will change HOW you do ministry, but it doesn’t change that you should be doing ministry.

Here is what I came to several years ago.  The key is to live life as best you can to the full.  In other words, take advantage of life regardless of the context you are in.  What is Jesus leading me to do from where I’m at?  That is for sure going to look different married vs. single.  But you know what, it also looks different at 40 than it did at 25.  I’m not who I was at 25.  My role in God’s story is different.  I’m counting on that being different 10 years from now.  Don’t take advantage of singleness (and don’t be defined by it) – live your life to the full regardless of context.  Engage Jesus and the people and world around you.  Don’t miss that.

Are you engaged in your context?  Are you taking advantage of the now? Or are you missing it by hiding?  What is your identity in?

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.

Quit Beating Yourself Up

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I don’t get mad super easily.  It’s a gift from my family, as my parents are the same way.  I can get pretty fired up and intense (those who know me are laughing) but in my heart it takes a lot to make me actually mad at another person – with the exception of the guy who cut me off in traffic, but that’s a whole other problem – Ha.

But when it comes to myself, it takes very, very little for me to get mad.  I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the fact that we are mad at God.  This is true for basically everyone but as singles it is very easy for us to become bitter towards God because He hasn’t “delivered” a spouse.  But the second person who I’m most mad at, if I’m honest, is me.

Now I’ve spent a lot of time on this blog challenging us to look at our crap and deal with our sin.  I’ve said we spend too much time over spiritualizing singleness, marriage and dating and it keeps us from dealing with reality and our shortcomings.  I’ve said a lot of the reason that we are single is us.  I absolutely, 100% stand by all of that.  But today I want to flip the script a little.

There’s so many directions I could take this but let’s start with a couple of key points.  First off it’s important to realize that we are not the only actor on the stage.  In our current Christian Culture we often act like the whole thing is about us and God and that only the two of us are in the story.  This is so bad on so many levels theologically, philosophically, and practically.  But it is also bad in our context of singleness.  It assumes that either I or God is to blame for everything that goes into me being single.

This can lead to a inaccurate view of the truth.  There are other players in the game.  For example, when you ask someone out, you have no idea what is going on in her world. Maybe her saying no has nothing to do with you.  The other person is on the stage.  I mean there’s been times when I think I’ve missed on someone I should have pursued – someone could make a mistake with you.

Even when it comes to dealing with our own brokenness we need to be careful.  Let’s say I struggle with passivity towards women.  Well being mad at myself for being passive isn’t going to help.  I need to dive into where that comes and while that will include my own sin, most of the time it will also include healing from wounds inflicted by . . . you guessed it. . . other people.

All of this doesn’t even take into account the fact that we have an enemy.

Usually what I do is first I get mad at God, then realize how stupid that kind of is, and start being mad at myself.  It’s very easy to just start pummeling myself – usually pouring salt into the wounds I’ve faced.  “I’m just not good enough” “Why did I say that to her – I’m so stupid.” “If I had my stuff more together” “I’m pathetic (worthless, ugly, a screwup, etc.)”. By the way this all get’s turned up a notch if I think there is only THE ONE and I’m scared of blowing it.

Making matters worse is that often the Church accidentally pours it on.  In attempt to remind us that we don’t earn salvation we often seem to define ourselves as just sinners.  I get the point but man we have to be careful.  All bad stuff comes from sin, but not everything that happens comes from my sin.  It’s not all my fault but I’m a part of the problem.

Worst of all what we usually do is get it backwards.  We view how we got wounded as somehow our fault and then we excuse our sinful reactions to it.  Holy smokes that’s bad.  We HAVE to reverse that.

Dealing with our sin, wounds, and shortcomings is critical.  But beating the crap out of ourselves adds to that.  That is not from God.  It is not humility.  In addition when it comes to dating it will never, never be attractive.  Never, not even a little.

When I’m mad at myself, I need to stop and ask what is going on underneath.  (For me personally it’s a huge check engine light – time to get under the hood).  I need to stop and get an accurate view of what is going on (community is key here), and then if it is something that has to do with me, I need to take that to Jesus and go about figuring out how to change it.

Where in the context of Singleness do you beat yourself up?  Do you only see you and God on the stage?

Insecurity Is A Sin

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I have a friend who says that most men are afraid of their wives.  My joke has always been that I’m afraid of my wife and I’m not even married to her yet. Ha.

Men, even though we like to act tough and hide it, often get all wuss like when we are around someone we like.  We act differently.  We become too nice or desperate.  This is bad for many reasons but one thing for sure, as long as you are afraid of the girl, she will not be attracted to you.

Women are constantly subconsciously testing men.  Do they feel safe with you?  Can you take care of them?  Can you stand up to them and therefore stand up for them?  If you fail the test, you will not be attractive.

This is why we need to face the our insecurities with women.

Insecurity leads to all sorts of bad actions.  Defensiveness, nervous movements, bad jokes, talking too excitedly, being sarcastic, talking about ourselves all the time to prove ourselves, or acting tough just to name a few.  These things make us appear desperate – because we are.

Now obviously dealing with the opposite sex is not the only place that we face insecurity, far from it.  But it is one place that almost all of us at some point experience it.

Here’s a harsh truth.  More than making us unattractive or keeping us from a full dating life, insecurity is a sin. It’s not some type of humility.  Humility is having a right view of who I am in comparison to God and relation to others.  It means being not self focused.  That’s not insecurity.

Insecurity means that I am looking for my security and identity in someone other than Jesus.  If I’m insecure around a woman that means I need her approval.  I’ve given her the power to define me and how I feel about myself.  This is totally wrong, a form of idolatry, and it’s not attractive.

Insecurity is also a sin because it is fear based.  Fear of rejection, or fear of what others think of me.  Fear is never from God.  The truth is, every decision we make, we make either out of love or out of fear. There’s not much in between.

And this leads to perhaps the biggest reason insecurity is sin.  Insecurity gets in the way of loving others.  Think about it.  If I “like” this girl and am desperate for her to like me, then there is no way I can really love her.  You can’t love someone when you are more worried about what they think of you than what is best for them.  It’s impossible.  As long as you are focused on attaining or keeping their approval you aren’t free to love them.  As long as you are being insecure, the focus is on you not them.

This gets in the way of all sorts of ministry and it for sure gets in the way of loving those closest to us.  It also keeps us from allowing others to love us because we are constantly putting up different subconscious walls to “protect” ourselves.

You can’t have insecurity and intimacy.  Intimacy requires safety and safety requires security.

Jesus was never insecure.  In fact no one has ever been more secure in who he was than Jesus.  This is one of the reasons that so many people were drawn to Him and why so many people hated him.

He was comfortable and confident.  Therefore when you had a conversation with Him He could be fully engaged.  He was completely free to love each person He encountered precisely because He didn’t need them to like Him.  It’s not that He didn’t want people to like him – heck He invited people to follow Him for heaven’s sake, but His identity did not depend (and by the way doesn’t now) on whether you followed Him or not.  He is who He is, regardless of what anybody else does.

This is why the more I find my identity in Christ the less insecure I will be.  The more that I know how loved and secure I am in Him the less I have to fear. I can’t just know about Jesus and His truth –  I have to figure out how to actually live out of it.

Mostly what we do instead is try to cover up and hide our insecurities.  We pick only the challenges that we can win.  And in dating we only pursue people we know will like us, or we stumble around unsuccessfully chasing the women that we really want or we pursue no one.

Christian men should be the most confident attractive men that a woman can run into.  But are we?  Not from what I’ve seen.

We have to face our insecurities.  So, when are you insecure?  Where does that come from for you?  What in your story has made you that way?  Do you live more out of your fear or your identity in Christ?

40 Year Old Virgin

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This weekend I turn 40.  I have never had sex.  That’s right.  I will be the 40 year old virgin.  Now that stirs something in you. Some might think I’m some sort of hero.  Some might think I’m a wuss or haven’t really lived, or that I can’t get a date.  Some will wonder how the heck I haven’t exploded.  Still others might feel guilty of their own sin.

The truth is, I’m neither proud or ashamed of it.

On the one hand I’m glad that I haven’t had sex outside of marriage.  I know that’s not what God would want.  On the other hand I’ve given into sexual immorality in other ways. At some point in the last 25 years I’ve struggled with having lustful thoughts,  viewing porn,  fantasizing about women, and masturbation.  I’ve gone “too far” with women here and there.

I’ve also messed up dating.  Part of the reason I’m a virgin is I’m not married. Ha!  What I mean is if I’d dated better or learned what the heck I was doing maybe I would have gotten married sooner.  I could have been less selfish or arrogant at times.  Other times I shouldn’t have been passive or afraid.  I’ve helped make myself single many times.

So I’m not here to say “yeah me”.  I’m not here to beat myself up either.  I’m here to say that just because you are single doesn’t mean you have to give in to sexual immorality.

The last couple of blogs I’ve talked a lot about principles we need to hold.  We need to have the right view of sex, we need to have the right view of desire, and we need to desire Jesus most of all. These are all essential.

But today I want to talk about some things that have helped me over the last 20 plus years practically speaking.  These are not THE answers necessarily, but as I look back and think about how I ended up not having sex or being completely dominated by the drive to, these are some keys.

I‘ve read the Bible.  Being in the scriptures makes us love God more – which fills us up. It also shaped my view of sex.  As a new believer at 17 we read in a small group about fleeing from immorality and why.  I had never heard it before and it shaped my view at an early age.  What we take into our minds and hearts helps to shape our desires.  We need to take in scripture and worship etc.

I’ve never seriously dated anyone who didn’t know Jesus.  Its not that I never wanted to.  I just knew I couldn’t.  This is so huge. It means both people might at least try to abstain.  I can’t count the people I know who have had their walk shaken by dating someone who isn’t following Jesus.  If you are the only one who is going to say no, you’re in trouble.

Along those lines, I’ve always predetermined that I would say no.  Sometimes this has meant literally avoiding certain situations.  But this is what Paul means when he says flee. Stay the heck out of the scenario to begin with.

To further that thought, for almost as long as I’ve had a computer, I’ve had Covenant Eyes.  This service sends everything I look at online to a friend.  I think this is by far the best approach.  I would say every guy should have this. Why not?

I’ve chosen to have people in my life who know everything I’m doing.  They have permission to ask me anything.  Here is a trustworthy saying.  If it’s secret it’s wrong. Even if it’s not technically wrong.

All of the above have helped me but as I’ve thought about this the number one helpful thing is that long ago I realized that it’s not just about me.

From early on I’ve been doing ministry.  I don’t mean that I’ve been in full time ministry although for much of it I have been.  What I mean is that when you are trying to show others Jesus and leading people, what you do matters more.  Others are looking at me.  I can’t count the times that this has stopped me.

Times when I would have gone to the strip club, or met someone at a bar and had a one night stand.  There were other’s hearts at stake.  I remember early in my career someone said that is not very good accountability.  I would submit that it’s actually damn good accountability.  If it’s just about me or “saving myself for marriage” then I might be willing to compromise. If it’s about God and His kingdom, that’s a whole other thing.

Jesus said the most important thing is to love God and love others. Sexual immorality gets in the way of that.  I truly believe if our focus is ourselves, or even our own little life with Jesus, we are screwed.  But if we are focused on loving Jesus and loving others, we have a chance.

Desiring Jesus More Than Sex

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Have you ever tried to fight weeds in your yard?  You go out and spray them or pull them. It’s a constant battle.  But here’s the truth about the process.  The best defense against weeds is more grass.  I can pull weeds every year but if I don’t get grass to grow in those spots, next year (or next week) weeds will grow there.

I share this because I think it is a key principle for dealing with sexual immorality and the desire we have that leads us to it.  As I shared last week, we first have to  have a right view of sex and a right view of desire.  But even then we have to figure out how to grow the right desires.  In other words we have to let our desire for God trump all other desires.  The good news is that we were created for that.  The bad news is, it’s a freaking battle.

We can’t get completely focussed on the sin.  This is especially true with sexual immorality (fulfilling sexual desire outside the context of marriage).  Often we focus on the all of the “don’ts”.  Don’t be naked, don’t look at porn, don’t have lustful thoughts, don’t. . . .  While we do need to fight this stuff we can’t let our focus be here.  Our focus needs to be on Jesus.

I’ve heard it said a lot that, “we as guys will always struggle with lust”.  I think that’s a lie straight from hell.

Now if you want to say that I’m always capable of struggling with it, I wholeheartedly agree. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have victory in this area of my life.  It’s probably going to be a fight and process (as with most of the sanctification process) but to just surrender to it seems like a terrible idea.

Sexual immorality is a strong, strong temptation. God created sex with the power to help bind two people together for life.  God was not playing around here.  It is the only sin that Paul literally says to flee from.  In other words, don’t play around with it or tough it out – just get the heck away from it.  He says all other sin a man commits outside his body, but sexual immorality is against his own body.  Paul is saying it affects us in huge ways.

In my opinion there are two principles we have to keep here in order to let the practical stuff work.

First we need to focus on the Lord and his mission.  To be honest, when I struggle the least in this area is when I’m focussed on God and mission.  When I’m outward focussed, I’m typically not desiring the wrong stuff.  When I’m focussed on me and what I feel that day, that’s when I’m in trouble.  This by the way is part of (emphasis on part of) what Paul is saying about the call to singleness.  It’s not a call to not get married, it’s a call to be so focussed on mission that you are not focussed on sex (which is NOT to say that you won’t ever desire sex).

The second thing we have to do is flee – which means do whatever it takes to not fall into sexual immorality.  I’m going to talk about some things that have helped me later this week.

Here’s another way to look at it.  In the Odyssey, Odysseus is warned about the dangers of the sirens.  These were beautiful creatures (think hot models with wings) that sang incredibly powerful and beautiful songs.  So much so that sailors followed them to their death on the rocks.

Odysseus comes up with a plan.  He gives all his oarsmen wax to put in their ears so that they can’t hear the sirens.  He wants to hear it, so he doesn’t use wax, but he has them tie him to the mast.  When the boat passes the sirens do their thing.  Odysseus goes crazy, demanding that the men cut him free.  Following his original orders they don’t and they pass through unharmed.

Now this is great but contrast that with the story of Orpheus and the Argonauts.  The Argonauts faced the same danger from the sirens.  But Orpheus was a powerful musician who played the most beautiful music possible.  When the Argonauts passed by the sirens Orpheus played his music.  It was so strong and powerful that it drowned out the songs of the sirens.  The Argonauts were able to pass through without the aid of the wax.

Ultimately our desire for God has to trump all other desires.  

It is better to tie ourselves to the mast than die on the rocks, but the goal should be to grow so close to Jesus that we are not swayed by the siren’s music.

Submitting Sexual Desire To The Lord

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Last week I wrote about our view of sex.  The main two points were that sex was created by God and therefore desire for sex isn’t bad in and of itself.  Secondly was that this desire was to be fulfilled so to speak, only in the context of marriage.  In the Bible sex is always talked about either in marriage or in sin.   A pretty fair definition of sexual immorality is the fulfillment of sexual desire outside the context of marriage.

But this leaves singles in a very tough spot.  We have a desire that is good but no “good” way to fulfill it.

Now some married friends have wisely pointed out that you can be married and still struggle with sexual immorality.  There is no doubt that this is true. There are all sorts of ways that married people can struggle with this.  Single people need to get a clue that marriage doesn’t instantly solve all of this.  But at the same time, married people need to think about what it would be like to have no fulfillment of that desire . . . ever.

So, what are we as single people supposed to do with this?

Well all of this raises a bunch of questions actually.  What is the point of desires that God gives us?  What are we supposed to do with unfulfilled desires?  What should we do with sexual desire?  When does desire become sin?  What do we do practically to deal with sexual desire in a culture that says, “Just Do It”.  We need more than “Just Say No”.

Let’s tackle a couple of these today and then we’ll tackle some more next week.

At the end of the day I believe the number one thing we desire is to know that we are loved.  Now this desire can get messed up quickly.  It can become the desire for approval from people. It is also one of the main emotional drives for sex.  Sex was created to bond us to the other person so it feels like a lot like love.  But at the truth is our desire to be loved can only be totally fulfilled by God.

What our desires show us is that something is going on in our heart.  They are the voice of our heart.  When I have a strong desire I need to ask what is going on inside.  Where is that coming from?

I don’t believe that desire itself is sin.  Paul is clear that even temptation (which plays on desire) is not sin.  Giving in to it is.  Now we can have desires that come from our sin.  In other words the more I live in (abide in) disobedience, the more I will desire the wrong stuff. This is then compounded when I fulfill that desire in a sinful way.

Psalms 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”  This scripture is misapplied all the time.  Often people assume it means that if I delight or abide in the Lord that I will get what I want, as if to say, first I want something, I go delight in God, and He gives it to me.  That would be wrong.

What it means is that first I delight in the Lord.  When I do that He gives me my core value and love and then my desires (remember they are the voice of my heart) start coming from Him.  He literally gives me my desires – my desires become His desires.  The point is that depending on where my heart is at, my desires will follow.

Just because I have a desire doesn’t mean I should fulfill it. I mean I have good and bad desires all the time.  But I can’t be mastered by my desires.  Instead I need to submit them to the Lord.  I need to let my desires (most of which at some level come back to the desire to be loved) drive me to the Lord.  Sexual desire is no different.

Now all this sounds really nice.  But let’s put it in context.  If I’m going to have any chance of handling my sexual desire as a single (or married for that matter) I’m going to have to be walking closely with the Lord.  This is true of every desire but I do think sexual desire is a little different.  Sex is one of the most powerful forces in our world and we shouldn’t discount that fact.  It was made that way on purpose.

Monday I will dive into what we can do practically to deal with it.  But none of that will matter if I’m not going to allow it to drive me towards Jesus.  Without Him it will be like putting bandaids on gaping wounds.

Is This God’s Best For Me?

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A few weeks ago I was listening to a sermon a friend sent me on singleness.  It was actually pretty good which was a pleasant surprise.  The pastor had humility and admitted he was on thin ice because he had never really been single.  He then went on to actually preach on what Paul said about singleness.  You read that right – he actually talked about it.  Over all this guy had a lot of great things to say.

But of course he had to toss out something “comforting” at the end.  He said essentially, “If you are single right now, you need to recognize that God has you there.  It is God’s best for you right now.”  Really?!

Often in an attempt to respect God’s sovereignty, we end up assigning things to God that we need not.  This idea that where I’m at is God’s best for me can be really, really tricky.

First of all, I personally choose against God’s best for me every day.  Even though I am a saved person, I still struggle with sin. I do not choose God’s best every time.  So unless you want to blame God for my sin, I’m not always doing God’s best.

Secondly this sets us up to assign all struggle to God.  This can lead to terrible conclusions about God, myself and others.  In an extreme example let’s take the Penn State story. Was that God’s best for those kids?  Just because it is happening does not make it’s God’s best or God’s fault.  There are consequences to sin – mine and others.  This doesn’t even include the fact that we have an enemy (heaven forbid that we actually discuss that from the pulpit – but I digress).

My point here is not to get into a theological debate per se.  My point in this context is that me being single doesn’t necessarily mean that God “has me there” or that this is God’s best for me.

Now as I’ve said many times, God may well have you single right now.  He may even call you to a life of singleness (I want to say more about that later but it is more a call to a vow of ministry than a call to not be married – you are called in the positive to serve in that way, not the negative to focus on what you will not do – that is get married).  If that is true then that truly is awesome and right.  It is God’s best for you.

But if you don’t feel that call then I think it is risky to say that singleness is God’s best for you.  This leads to us being mad at God when maybe it’s not really Him holding out on us, or keeping us single at all.  Maybe it’s my own sin or other’s sin.  Maybe it’s the reality that we live in a broken world and a culture that values marriage less.  Maybe my singleness is driven by my fear and woundedness.  If I just chalk it up as God’s best for me then why would I choose to engage all of that.  Assigning it all to God can keep me from facing my own sin and hurt.

Here’s what we do know.  God loves us right where we are.  He has not abandoned us. He is not holding out on us.  It may well be that He wants to walk us though some stuff so that we are better able to pursue marriage but that is different than saying that He has us right where He wants us.

Maybe instead of saying, “God, why are doing this to me?” (man I spent a lot of time there), we ought to be asking Him what He wants to do in me right now.  In the context I’m in, what does He want me to do next.

God’s will can be hard to determine – not that it’s bad to try necessarily.  We need to be careful with assuming that just because I am somewhere that means that is where He wants me.  To do that ignores sin and brokenness.  Instead we need to lean into Him and start to work through that sin and brokenness.  Whether that leads to marriage or not is somewhat irrelevant.

Let’s say I get married in the next year.  Am I to assume that God has willed me to wait until 40 to get married?  Was that His best for me? Maybe it has been his plan all along or maybe not?  Does it really matter? What I do know is that regardless of my marital status when I turn to Him, He is constantly willing to lead me to the best He has for me.  And that should lead me to be thankful in all circumstances – including singleness.

Is It God’s Fault I’m Single?

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So I’ve read a lot of online profiles.  I mean a lot.  I don’t even want to think about the number.  Here is one of my least favorite lines, “I know that everything happens for a reason.”  This usually follows (or is followed by) some sort of statement about not knowing why they still haven’t found “the one”.  I hate this line.  I call it Oprah theology.

A lot of Christians put their own sort of twists on it.  “I know God has a plan” or “God made this happen for a reason” or “I don’t know why but God does” or “God has His reasons” and so on.  I don’t really like those much better.  Especially when it comes to marriage and singleness.

I can’t count the times someone has asked me why God has me single, or “encouraged” me by saying that God has a plan, therefore implying that me being single right now is because God wants that.  Worst of all is when single people use it to hide from dealing with their sin, insecurity, and hurt.  Or they use it to keep from engaging the opposite sex. “It’s God’s deal so I don’t have to do anything.”  That’s convenient.

First of all this is not the point of God’s sovereignty.  God’s sovereignty should be a launching pad not a hiding place.  If God is sovereign then I am free to deal with all of this stuff.  I’m free to deal with my sin.  I’m free to face my insecurity.  I’m free to deal with my pain and loneliness.  If I feel called to marriage, I’m free to actually pursue that.  Because if God’s got it, then I can go for it.

Now maybe you are reading this and thinking, “I really believe God wants me to be single right now.”  That is great.  If you’ve been engaged with God (preferably in community) and that is what you feel He is telling you, I absolutely affirm that.  Sometimes we are called to singleness for a season. Or maybe you are called to be single for good.  That is awesome. If you are following His call to singleness that is right on. In fact I think it is essential that we ask Him these questions so that’s not what I’m talking about here.

What I’m talking about is blaming God or hiding behind God.  I’m talking about assuming that it’s God’s fault that I’m single.  What if it’s my fault?  What if at different times it’s been other’s fault? What if it’s because I don’t know how to get married? Heck, what if it’s spiritual warfare (you know that thing that we say exists but never actually live like is happening)?  Do you think there might be a battle over your love life?

There are a lot of reasons that we are single (we each have an unique story) but we need to be careful before we start assigning it all to God.  For one thing, if it is all God’s fault then it is also God’s fault that 49% of Americans are single.  It would mean that back in the day God wanted everyone to be married early but then about 25 years ago He changed His mind.  He said, “You know I’m tired of everyone being married, lets change it up.”

Look, I’m not pretending to know God’s will. But really who does? What we do know for sure is that His grace is big enough to redeem and use any situation for good.  We know that He can use our singleness or marriage (or any other situation) to bring us closer to Him.  That is the whole point – that is the one thing we know He wants.

Passivity Is Killing Us

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So yesterday was father’s day and that made me think of men and the struggles we often face.  One of the areas we really struggle in is our passivity.  It’s pretty much an epidemic really.  We so often fail to engage where we should.  Sometimes that comes from laziness but often times it comes from fear, and our number one fear is failure.

We are all passive in different places, mainly the places we don’t feel confident (which is a lot of places for most of us).  We of course try to only operate in the places we feel confident but that usually fails at some point.  When we don’t know what to do or are afraid to fail, we go passive.

One place that most men are passive though is in relationships with women. This goes all the way back to the garden.  In Genesis, Adam and Eve are in the garden when Satan tempts Eve to eat the fruit.  I’m not going to go into the female part of this here but I want to touch on Adam’s part.  Adam was literally right next to Eve as this is going on.  It’s not like she calls him over and says, “Hey come check out this fruit”.  No, Adam is “with her” and in the Hebrew it says he was literally with her, right at her side.

Adam is there and he does nothing.  He doesn’t lead, doesn’t confront, doesn’t rescue Eve, doesn’t stand up and say, “Hey go back to Hell.  We are following God”.  He goes passive.  Ever thought about why? I’ll tell you why.  He was more afraid of Eve than God.  I have a mentor that says most men are afraid of their wives.  I like to joke that I’m afraid of my wife and I’m not even married yet.

This leads to all sorts of trouble in marriage.  Husbands can become passive and then aggressive to make up for it.  They hide in work.  They can fail to lead their family.  Mainly there are just whole areas where they check out. But this is also extremely important as a single.

As a single person I think it is much easier to keep ourselves in situations that we feel confident without facing our fears.  There is often no reason bigger than ourselves to face them so we just don’t.  This is why having people that know your story, including where you are passive, is so huge.

And when it comes to how we approach women, it just creates one mess after another.  It can keep us from pursuing women that we really want to.  If we do pursue, it can lead to doing it in a nice guy, aw shucks kind of way at best, or make us creepy at worst.  We end up chasing instead of pursuing and that is not where you want to be – trust me I’ve spent way to much time there.

If we don’t deal with passivity as a single guy, one of two things is going to happen.  Either we are not going to get married or probably worse, we are going to marry someone we don’t really want to or someone who is controlling us.  In both cases we end up with a situation where they are leading us.  We end up in a marriage that is all backwards where we are emasculated or where eventually we grow a pair and it all blows up in our face.  All of this is bad, really bad.

Passivity kills masculinity because it steals our confidence and leads to sin. So we need to face it head on. Here are a couple of things that have been helping me.  First of all when you are passive in a situation, don’t spend time beating yourself up over it.  This accomplishes nothing good and in fact will probably drive you to more passivity.  Instead, ask yourself where are you passive?  What situations do you shrink back from?  A way I like to ask it to myself is where do I feel like a 5 year old?  Then ask God, where does that come from?  In other words what are you afraid of and where does that fear originate?  It will probably not be the first thing that comes to mind so engage your heart, and God.

So how about it guys?  Does this resonate?  Where are you passive?  What has it cost you?  How have you responded to your passivity?  Ladies feel free to chime in as well.