Hey again!
The purpose of this post will be to elaborate on the previous post, as I had mentioned I hoped to do. The time has now come.
Let me start by addressing you, the reader, directly with a series of questions. (Now would be a good time to go back and reacquaint yourself with my previous post so you're grounded with the topics I'll be addressing here and now.) I want you to take your time answering these questions for yourself, evaluating and weighing them so as to benefit yourself and your understanding of your current inner standing.
- What is your relational focus right now? Concerning both God and people - how are your relationships being focused? What is their driving force on your end?
- If your relational focus when it comes to people involves a romantic relationship (girlfriend, boyfriend, fiancée, spouse), take a moment to examine the exisiting relationship - are the same motivations you have for it the ones you had going into it? What has changed, if anything? Whether there have been changes or not, can there be improvements? What can be improved?
- Take a moment to run a quick Task Manager on your most active and influential relationships; who features at the top? Top 5? Who's running on the most juice and consuming the most data? Does anyone need to switch places on the roster in terms of prioritization, God included?
Once you've answered these questions for yourself - and please, take the time to do so before you keep reading - you may want to write them down to compare your standing in the future with them to see what growth you've (hopefully) undergone.
Moving on the meat of the matter:
If a romantic relationship has featured on your life's personal radar with the series of questions I had you answer, and in answering the questions you determined that you did not initiate the relationship with the intent of marriage, and in answering the questions you determined that the present state of the relationship has no need for such a base intent, I would highly suggest that you re-evaluate that. Any romantic relationship that is not founded with the intent to develop and become a union of a man and his wife through marriage with the express intent of bringing Glory to God upon this earth is not blessed to succeed until such an intent be its foundation. That may not necessarily mean that it is doomed to fail (it might pay to open a discussion to draw a conclusion concerning whether the two are mutually exclusive or not, a blessed success or a doomed failure), but from a Biblical standpoint, this is the conclusion I am led to draw. I know it can sound severe to the ears, but it seems sound to me from where God has spoken, thus severity is very much rendered inconsequential at that point, for me, at least.
If you are not in the midst of starting or cultivating a romantic relationship, but have the hope and aspiration to, whether in the future near or far: again, I highly suggest you ensure that your evaluation on the matter be centered from start to finish with the Biblical purpose of marriage firmly in mind.
Now, no matter what point you're at when it comes to romantic relationships - whether you're in a steady one or just starting one or wanting to but haven't entered one or have no desire for one at all - I want you to ask yourself two questions, for your own sake:
- Should you be seeking to enter a relationship like that right now in your life?
- Should you be seeking to enter a relationship like that at all?
I know this question can sound severe, or crazy, particularly with the strident voice of society calling into question my grounds for such a request in a day and age where it sounds so off compared to what "everyone's doing" - but that's kind of all the more reason for me to ask, then.
And I want you to answer the questions for yourself from a Biblical and God-influenced standpoint. If the answers are not coming to you right now, or if they're not easy to handle, or even if they are easy to answer and/or you do have them - pray. Pray to God about these things.
Remember, I'm leading back to the topic of my last post - that marriage/family is not necessarily the route for everyone as according to God's plan and purpose for their lives in His service. (And I'm not the first to raise such a topic; the apostle Paul beat me to it a long time ago in his first letter to the Corinthians).
So my real intent in combining this topic with you, the reader, is for YOU to, with God, determine what it is that YOU should be doing as according to HIM.
I would also like to draw attention to the (perceived?) fact that, even (or perhaps particularly) within the church, there is an implicit (and often enough explicit) call to marry and avoid singlehood at all costs running as an undercurrent and commentary to a lot of what we do (at least in my experience and general observation).
Similar to last time, I feel as though I still have a bit of a jumble of thoughts in a knot in my brain to get out, but my brain is quite fried at this point to keep on writing.
I hope I have not confused you too much, but have at least pointed you in the right direction towards some clarity regarding this in your own life.
If I touch on this again perhaps I will do so by relating these things personally, to which I made small mention in the first post.
No comments:
Post a Comment