On Love and Dating

A little back story: Last November, a friend of mine asked what I wanted to be loved for, and I gave him this long and rambling answer about generosity, but since then, the question has been rolling around in my head. So the other night, I wrote this letter to him. It's kind of in two parts. The first is the real thing I want people to love me for and the second is an explanation of my views on dating (sort of). I'm sharing it here because it's part of this whole stumbling and standing thing.

Something’s been running around in my head almost since you asked last November what it is I want to be loved for, and I finally found the time and words to write it. What I wrote before didn’t really get at what I was trying to say and what I really want to be loved for. The generosity is a part of it, yes, but it grows out of something much more powerful and much more significant than generosity alone (and particularly my own meager human generosity alone). I want people to love me because they see Jesus in me. That’s why I’m so willing to give of myself. What I have is not my own, not time or money or possessions; it all belongs to God. So if I can share Christ with the people who cross my path by sharing of that with which God has blessed me, that I will do.

Not that I am always good at this. I fail constantly at living the love that Christ gave me. My flesh gets in the way, but that’s part of being a flawed human. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) At the same time, God is always calling me back to him, back into the fold. He doesn’t want me to fail; he wants me to stand strong in faithfulness, despite the temptations that may come my way. “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

One of the most difficult parts of following Christ is in dating (or not dating, as it happens). I am just as guilty as anyone else of regarding my constant state of singlehood as a curse, rather than a blessing, especially when it seems like half of my friends are married or engaged or at least dating someone (and I’m sure that’s only multiplied as you get older). Still, a season of singleness provides the time to prepare for marriage, from managing a budget to keeping house to cooking to learning to rely on God rather than a mate for fulfillment. Right now, I’m relishing this time that I have to spend studying the word of God without the responsibilities of a husband and children. I do want those things, but I know that at this point in my life, I’m not ready to make that kind of commitment.

My eyes wander far too much, along with my mind, playing house in my imagination with half a dozen of my guy friends, depending on my mood and the day. Getting married wouldn’t automatically make my eyes stop wandering, wouldn’t reign in my imagination. Sure, I’d have someone on whom to concentrate my romantic fantasies, but what if he didn’t fulfill them? What if he wasn’t the prince charming I’d made him up to be and I got discontent and impatient waiting for him to become that pretend character (which he certainly isn’t going to miraculously become overnight, if at all)? What then? We’re married and that’s it. Or what if his eyes wander and then his feet and I’m at home with the kids while he’s gallivanting all over the place?

A season of singleness creates time to reign in wandering eyes and wandering hearts and wandering feet. It gives us the opportunity to devote ourselves fully to serving God rather than ourselves. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 7:32-35, “But I want you to be free from concern. One who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord; but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and his interests are divided. The woman who is unmarried, and the virgin, is concerned about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and spirit; but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how she may please her husband. This I say for your own benefit; not to put a restraint upon you, but to promote what is appropriate and to secure undistracted devotion to the Lord.”

So that’s what’s been running around my head. That’s who I am (or who I am hopefully becoming). I don’t know where you stand with God or what you believe about him or what kind of relationship you have with Jesus Christ, so maybe I sound completely crazy. Maybe I’d sound completely crazy anyway, but that’s a risk that comes with following Christ. Hope this letter finds you well, wherever it finds you.