There is an issue which I have often thought about simply because it is an issue that presses hard upon every young man when he must transition from living as a single man to living as a married man. It is of course, as you have certainly guessed , the issue of relationships, dating, marriage, and so forth. Maybe I should simply call it, Romance!
What I would like to say about this issue is simple. Listen closely. I don’t think this is too difficult to grasp. For all you young men, get this: life is bigger than you and her. (And for all you young women, life is bigger than you and him.) And most of you are missing the point of life.
It is a sad situation when people believe their purpose in life (i.e. their fulfillment) is in another human being. I remember having a conversation a few years ago with a good friend of mine back home. The context for the conversation was sharing the Gospel of our Lord. So at some point in time I asked her what she thought her purpose in life was, or why she thought God has put her into this world. Her response was concise and deeply tragic. She said this: “My purpose in life is to find my soul mate (i.e. my husband).” I can already hear some of you scoffing now. But don’t. It is something to grieve over, not laugh at. There are certainly millions if not billions of people who imagine that life is about the romance between men and women, that it is, about finding the “one,” the “soulmate”, the “life partener” and subsequently living happily ever after with them until their dying day. As sad and as pitiful as all this sounds, I would propose that the majority of those in our circles, that is believers in College fellowship (and certainly Highschool and Junior High fellowships), often think the same way. But mind you, of course, we would never confess such a thing! hah! pitiful! right?
But you think it, and if you don’t say it, you live it. You wake up in the morning and God has to compete over girls for your attention. You turn the page in your Bible in the middle of your morning devotion and before you start reading the next paragraph of Holy Scripture, you think of some possible relationship you might pursue or the future of the relationship you are already in. What a tragedy. The lesser romance has overshadowed the greater. Life no longer revolves around the Lord and our love for Him, but around humans and our love for them and the relationships we have with them.
You know it’s true. Inside we twist and turn and bellyache and whine and throw fits and groan when things with our respective significant others just aren’t going our way. We sometimes go days if not weeks just pondering over marriage and turning endless pages of possible outcomes for our future marital status. We get mad, jealous, and down right sassy when things get sticky over who likes who or who doesn’t like who or who will end up with who. When we walk to class or when we study we take the time to listen to some heart-fluttering tunes which makes us even more enamored with the lesser romance. When we start dating it is as though something within us awakens to life but when we break up it is as though our breath has been cut off and we are left gasping for comfort. Believe it, many of you have begun to think that this is what life is about, that it is about stepping foot into the wide ocean of relationships and finding a ship that won’t sink. This is not what life is about. We are dreaming about somethign that is not worth dreaming over. Life is a mosaic the size of the sky, and romantic relationships are just a hazy patch of clouds over to the right somewhere.
It is as though you were assigned to read a 300 pg book and you just got stuck reading the first few chapters over and over again. Or it can be compared to climbing a latter halfway and then just sitting there on that middle step when the point is to get to the top and up onto the roof. As lame as those illlustrations are, they don’t come close to describing the destitution of our condition.
That said, I have been tellign myself over and over again especially these days when my emotions are heightened and my dreams more vivid, to Get a life! I need to get a life.
Think about it, we bellyache over heartbreak or unrequited like and get mental ulcers just being unsure of if we’ll ever get married. You know it’s true, and most likely you do it too.
But let me tell you, there are things worth bellyaching over. There is a God greater than the mind of man can imagine. Before the mountains were brought forth or the earth and the world itself was even made, from everlasting to everlasting, God has been God. Life is about the Divine Majesty. The infinitely abundant soul satisfier. There is a global glory. There are nations that do not know the Lord. They are the sheep that are not of this fold and He must bring them also. There will come a day when the glory of the Lord will fill the earth even as the oceans cover the earth. And the Greater Romance will make itself fully known as Greatest.
so here is my concluding sigh. Life is bigger than you. Life is bigger than you AND her. (girls make the proper adjustments) Why don’t you get your mind off of you for once and set it above where Christ is seated, where your life is hidden to be revealed at the great coming of our Lord.
What do you believe? Is life bigger than you and her/him? or not?
piercingly well stated
preach.
good entry. i needed it.
Marriage points to Christ. Man was not meant to be alone as we see in the historical narrative, Genesis.
I don’t think it’s the idea of ‘marriage’ that is the problem of why todays Christians are missing the bigger picture in life–that our lives are part of the bigger story of God ushering in His Kingdom. I think the problem is churches with preachers up on the pulpit missing the point of what God has revealed in His Scripture, that he has redeemed sinners from the fall through the life and death of Jesus Christ. (not preaching the Gospel)/
I’m tired of moralism, anti-intellectualism, and Christians asking me if I did not my quiet time/devotion as if my salvation depended upon it.
I believe that the Christian faith in todays culture and time need to go back to the truths of the Christian, taking a serious look at sin, and with that comes a serious hearing of the Gospel.
Let’s stop bandaging.
Well said and very convicting.
I think Steve has the perfect word for this: poned! Oh, how I so often take something as a relationship that God has meant to grow my relationship with Him, and, instead, in some way, use it to chip away at my relationship with the Almighty. No girl can bring satisfaction like God. In tweaking the words of Jon Rourke: “Girls are not awesome. Girls are marginally above average. GOD IS AWESOME!”
i’m doing theology over the internet, it should be done in person and in the church, but here I am doing it on the internet.
not here to attack, but to give some insight and maybe even bring about fruitful discussion. It’s from a book by Michael Horton titled “Where In The World is the Church?” These quotes might be in left field from the article that was written, but quotes taken from the book might have some relation to this topic of marriage/relationships/girls–culture.
Martin Luther knew that understanding that the acceptance of the sinner before a holy God was the result of an “alien righteousness” would necessarily lead to revolutions in human relations. Released from the inward focus, the believer was free to embrace the world as a spiritual and godly activitiy, instead of separating from it with the misunderstanding that he was thereby separating from sinfulness. “For even in the monk’s cell,” Luther recalled, “I still had that rascal (his own sinful self) right in t here with me.” When common laypeople discovered the Gospel, they were so revolutionized by it that they wanted to do everything they could to promote it. Far from leading to moral laxity, it inspired zeal where there had been apathy. In fact, a cobbler asked Luther what he should now do since he had embraced the Gospel. What should his calling now be? Just as for the hypothetical lawyer I mentioned at the beginning who wanted to serve the Lord, this was an obvious question for a medieval person who had been trained to think that a great spiritual experience required special devotion in terms of a sacred calling. The Reformers reponse was as surprising to the cobbler as it might be to some of us today: “Make a good show and sell it at a fair price.” When asked what he would do if he knew Christ were coming back tommorow Luther replied, “I would plant a tree.” In other words, God is so pleased with our ordinary, faithful activity in this world that Luther no longer felt that he had to be found in prayer or in “spiritual” exercises when Christ returned in order to receive His blessing (20).
It was secular, mundane, common, and, therefore, the most devout Christians would separate themselves from such worldly concerns and concentrate on their own personal spiritual ascent up the ladder of Christian experience and piety. Sexual intercourse was considered a necessary evil for procreative purposes, but Luther and the other Reformers caused no small scandal when they declared that it was a meant also for pleasure and communion in the marital relationship. The vignettes of Luther’s home life are filled with portraits of a family sitting around the table praying, reading Scripture, and also singing, playing instruments, and playing games (21).
In Scripture, spiritual warfare takes place on earth, as Satan attempts to confuse or undermine the believer’s confidence in Christ and His imputed righteousness as sufficient for salvation. In other words, it is a battle for hearts and minds, and it has to do with truth versus error, belief versus unbelief, faith in Christ versus faith in something or someone else. It does not focus on “power encounters” and exorcisms, but on the “strong man” being driven out by a “stronger man” who takes his place (17).
sorry, that’s make a good shoe and sell it for a good price…