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Today I was driving home from a date that I had with my fiancee with the tears in my eyes. It's been not even four months that we are officially dating from a time when she said yes. The tears that filled my eyes were not the tear of happiness or satisfaction that I am dating this beautiful gorgeous godly loving girl. But a tears of guild and shame for the conclusions that I came when I was still single.
I was remembering my single life, the moments when I was in my deepest pain, thinking that there would be little chance for me to love someone and be loved by someone. I am twenty six now, and most of my friends are married. I've gain new friends (to my advantage) but their are five to six year younger by me, but still friends—I was able to develop a good and solid biblical relationship with them. But still, I was different then they. What I mean is that I was older, and that puts me in a spotlight for a discussion among the community that I live at. A question that I was always asked: "when are you going to marry?"
See, the culture defined the time and boundary for that dating question. Not because bible says that it's good and wise to marry before the age twenty five (which how most of the people at my church think), but because they themselves married young, and that defined the timing for others in when should they marry.
When I was asked the question, I notice that it's easier to respond with a joke, then to say something else, to actually talk about it on a serous level. And my usual respond is: "uhhh, I'll never get married" followed with a laugh, usually got away with that. My heart was getting harder and harder every time someone would ask me that question, inside I was building a defensive wall. I wanted to protect my self from breaking down, which was a typical response to that, and no one knew that that time I would be driving home weeping and asking God the questions. However, the older I was getting, the less sensitive I was to this subject.
From a perspective, these people were right. As they said, after the age of twenty five, it's difficult to take that step. I did had a different view on marriage when I was twenty six then I was twenty. But still, I was shaping my mind according to the scripture: "Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain,
but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised" (Proverbs 31:30). I was telling myself that this lady was a lady who needed to love God; in the background I knew that the beauty is temporal but the character will be till our death.
There were times when I was upset and mad. I literally had to speak to my self out loud, people call this preaching to yourself. Rehearsing biblical verses that I knew to get my nervous mind under control. Because at that age I was still single, and it was abnormal to be single after the age of twenty five. I question myself now, is that really abnormal?
And now I am driving home after a beautiful non forgettable evening with my fiancee, remembering my behavior when I had an untrustable and foolish mind toward this subject. A moment of humility for me was that moment; thinking about God as He is faithful even when I was thinking He was not.
Maybe you are going through this stage now. I don't know how you are responding to this. Maybe you are trying to show others that everything is alright, but in reality only God know if it's alright or not. Maybe you are smiling and making joke like I was when someone asks me the marriage question. But if you would of asked me: "Paul, if you had to go back and start all over again, would you choose that rout?" I would defiantly say "YES." I did not understood at that time why I was still single but now I am praising God for what He has and still doing in my life.
God is faithful even in those moments when we think He is not. Moses rights this about God: The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he" (Deu 32:4). God is not like us who forget things when we promise. So we should not look at God from a perspective how humans treat others. Earlier in Deuteronomy we read this: "Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations. . ." (7:9)
The best way to deal with a single life is to put the trust in the character of God, who does not changes but always the same. God who was in the Old and New Testament is still the same now in our times. Remember Abraham, a man of faith. God came down to him and promised him that he would have a child. What happen next? Nothing, it was twenty five years later when he acutely had a son from Sarah. God kept his promise because He is a faithful God. And this is what he says to his children:
I am getting married on December 17, 2011. It's a new chapter of my life, but it also a step that proved to me that He is faithful. I am not a wise, smart, strong, handsome person that somehow plaid a roll in why she said yes to marring me. God's providence is the key in why that happened. A fool would say, "look me, it was I who chose her and picked her to be my wife, all praises to me." Because in reality that is a deceitful thought. The correct response should be: "For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen" (Rom 11:36). As I look at this step now, a step that reflects God's faithfulness, I remember those moments when I doubted Him, when my sinful mind took advantage of a situation to creating a wrong thought, conclusion toward God where it was easily received by me. Those moments that I would love to reverse back, but no, that would always be my past.
My prayer is that to those who read this, could be comforted by our God and his faithfulness; knowing that in the tunnel of singleness their is light.
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil” (Prov 3:5-7).
I was remembering my single life, the moments when I was in my deepest pain, thinking that there would be little chance for me to love someone and be loved by someone. I am twenty six now, and most of my friends are married. I've gain new friends (to my advantage) but their are five to six year younger by me, but still friends—I was able to develop a good and solid biblical relationship with them. But still, I was different then they. What I mean is that I was older, and that puts me in a spotlight for a discussion among the community that I live at. A question that I was always asked: "when are you going to marry?"
See, the culture defined the time and boundary for that dating question. Not because bible says that it's good and wise to marry before the age twenty five (which how most of the people at my church think), but because they themselves married young, and that defined the timing for others in when should they marry.
When I was asked the question, I notice that it's easier to respond with a joke, then to say something else, to actually talk about it on a serous level. And my usual respond is: "uhhh, I'll never get married" followed with a laugh, usually got away with that. My heart was getting harder and harder every time someone would ask me that question, inside I was building a defensive wall. I wanted to protect my self from breaking down, which was a typical response to that, and no one knew that that time I would be driving home weeping and asking God the questions. However, the older I was getting, the less sensitive I was to this subject.
From a perspective, these people were right. As they said, after the age of twenty five, it's difficult to take that step. I did had a different view on marriage when I was twenty six then I was twenty. But still, I was shaping my mind according to the scripture: "Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain,
but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised" (Proverbs 31:30). I was telling myself that this lady was a lady who needed to love God; in the background I knew that the beauty is temporal but the character will be till our death.
There were times when I was upset and mad. I literally had to speak to my self out loud, people call this preaching to yourself. Rehearsing biblical verses that I knew to get my nervous mind under control. Because at that age I was still single, and it was abnormal to be single after the age of twenty five. I question myself now, is that really abnormal?
And now I am driving home after a beautiful non forgettable evening with my fiancee, remembering my behavior when I had an untrustable and foolish mind toward this subject. A moment of humility for me was that moment; thinking about God as He is faithful even when I was thinking He was not.
Maybe you are going through this stage now. I don't know how you are responding to this. Maybe you are trying to show others that everything is alright, but in reality only God know if it's alright or not. Maybe you are smiling and making joke like I was when someone asks me the marriage question. But if you would of asked me: "Paul, if you had to go back and start all over again, would you choose that rout?" I would defiantly say "YES." I did not understood at that time why I was still single but now I am praising God for what He has and still doing in my life.
God is faithful even in those moments when we think He is not. Moses rights this about God: The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he" (Deu 32:4). God is not like us who forget things when we promise. So we should not look at God from a perspective how humans treat others. Earlier in Deuteronomy we read this: "Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations. . ." (7:9)
The best way to deal with a single life is to put the trust in the character of God, who does not changes but always the same. God who was in the Old and New Testament is still the same now in our times. Remember Abraham, a man of faith. God came down to him and promised him that he would have a child. What happen next? Nothing, it was twenty five years later when he acutely had a son from Sarah. God kept his promise because He is a faithful God. And this is what he says to his children:
"Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?" (Matthew 26:25-30)
I am getting married on December 17, 2011. It's a new chapter of my life, but it also a step that proved to me that He is faithful. I am not a wise, smart, strong, handsome person that somehow plaid a roll in why she said yes to marring me. God's providence is the key in why that happened. A fool would say, "look me, it was I who chose her and picked her to be my wife, all praises to me." Because in reality that is a deceitful thought. The correct response should be: "For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen" (Rom 11:36). As I look at this step now, a step that reflects God's faithfulness, I remember those moments when I doubted Him, when my sinful mind took advantage of a situation to creating a wrong thought, conclusion toward God where it was easily received by me. Those moments that I would love to reverse back, but no, that would always be my past.
My prayer is that to those who read this, could be comforted by our God and his faithfulness; knowing that in the tunnel of singleness their is light.
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil” (Prov 3:5-7).
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