Let's take a step back

A topic to write about finally hit me today.

To family or not to family? THAT is the question.




I'm young - in my early twenties - and so I'm writing from that perspective.

For a number of reasons, it is becoming more and more evident to me how a lot of people my age and older (think 20's-30's) are focused and driven, in many different ways and degrees, to forming a family. A wonderful prospect, certainly.

But is it the right one?

I know people who have gotten married and had kids in their teens. I also know people who are getting married bearing the title of a movie: as 40 year-old virgins. Neither approach is necessarily wrong, sans context, and both have the potential to produce the same beautiful outcome.

The purpose of my writing, however, is this: I would warn against what I seem to be observing as a growing trend in our society in the younger demographics, perhaps even globally - people are seeking spouses and families before they're seeking God. And anything to take priority over God will inevitably fail (that is NOT code for divorce, note).

So many people are seeking to connect with other people, to form relationships, to envision pre-packaged family units. But a lot of those people are sometimes, or in some way, doing so to not be alone, to push for what everyone's told them they must do, and to make sure they don't get "left behind." I think a lot of young folk are using insecurities as a motivating factor in seeking to start marriages and families. And that doesn't sit right with me.

In an effort to fill an emptiness or a space within us, we'll easily and readily turn to our fellow man - but God designed us to be filled with Him first, before anyone else enters the equation.

In some ways this topic has been a very real struggle with me lately. So it's not like I'm speaking from a concept foreign to me.

There is much I would like to elaborate on but the daily rigors call me away for now. Perhaps I can and will expound in another post soon.

(I mostly just wanted to get my sentiment onto some platform lest I should forget it.)

I invite my blogging brothers to enter the discussion of this with me.

'Til then,
God be with us.