18. If I compare myself with others, I will cease to be satisfied in Christ and will probably become covetous. He really is all-satisfying, and I really do see Him as all-sufficient, if I run after Him like a horse wearing blinders. Covetousness, on the other hand, is at the root of all kinds of sin, not the least of which is discontentment with what God has given me. If I balk at losing a courtship, how would I handle real suffering for the name of Christ?
19. There is no magic reset button that erases my memory of the courtship and helps me feel much better. And I don't want that. I don't regret meeting her. I was expecting that a recent church camp and conference in May would cure me of the pain that I have felt as a result of this courtship ending. But I continue to think about it every day; it enters my mind whenever my mind is idle, and even when I am trying to read or worship. Thoughts about her and the other characters in this story haunt me. Healing takes however long it takes, and I cannot draw a deadline for it.
20. I must rejoice with those who rejoice regardless of whether I have received the same blessings. Recently, one of my good friends got married. He is in his mid-30s and had never been on a date until about 2 years ago. Their wedding, in May between the church camp and the conference, was hard for me to bear. This was the first wedding I had attended since my courtship ended. I was happy for them, but during the ceremony my expression was a blank stare. One of my friends noticed that. Ignoring another person's happiness is actually disobeying Scripture.
21. People in the theological rarefied air of Reformed Christianity tend to have less faith than people who embrace false doctrine. Her family firmly believes that God will turn the Philippines into a Christian nation with an all-Christian government and no political corruption, if only they pray and fast enough. They were also quite convinced for a while that God would give them good things and that I was "the man for her". Meanwhile, I would sit in my collection of books and podcasts, trying to deconstruct the myth of "the one" for them and explain how God promises that Christians are going to suffer and you should feel fortunate if God gives you anything good on this earth. And my conclusion is that maybe I have gone too far in this. I am believing the right things, but it has led me to a general lack of faith and a doubt when I pray for God to bless me or to work in the lives of others. And that shouldn't be. My God is bigger than the god of the health and wealth gospel, because He saves me from my sin, not my lack of self-esteem, and He keeps me regardless of me.
22. I am still trying to rebuild a prayer life that was formerly much better than it became during the courtship. Before the courtship started, I was praying radically for the nations, especially for the Philippines. On the way to work, I would pray through tears for members of the New People's Army and the Abu Sayyaf, the two most major terrorist organizations in the Philippines, that God would tear out their hearts of stone, which exist in every man, woman, and child, not only in criminals, and replace them with a heart of flesh that can respond to Him - that He would pour clean water on them and they would be clean, for His glory. During the courtship, my prayers turned mostly toward her, that she would be right for me, that she would make much of Christ and grow in Christlikeness and knowledge of and about Him. As the courtship went on and I realized that she and I did not share the same vision, my prayers about her got more and more desperate until I realized, months later, that I just needed to submit to the Lord and let her go. But now that I don't have her to pray about, I am praying more for myself and others to be able to sustain their spiritual and emotional highs that we get at camps and conferences.
23. Much of what I looked for and prayed for in a wife does not really matter. I was focused too much on outward appearance and background. Just because I have a covenant with my eyes regarding how I look at women, that I will only look at their faces, does not mean at all that I don't have idolatry regarding "what is the perfect face"! Even if I do not focus my prayers toward the... er... non-facial attributes of a woman's appearance, I still spent a lot of time before I met her telling God, "Lord, I want her to be exactly this cute!" After a while, He answered that prayer and showed me over time that I should not have prayed for that.
24. The above raises a question: why are my prayers so focused on her outward appearance? A large part of it is the pride that I will feel if I outdo other members of my family or my friends by marrying someone who looks very beautiful. I have never been popular, but being able to be the ugly half of the world's cutest couple gives me status among my friends. Having cute children in the future increases that status. During my courtship, I felt much more confident than I did before or do now. Another reason is fear. I know several men who more well-read in theology than I am, quite close to Christ, quite a lot more well-prepared for marriage than most of the "men" I know who actually get married - and yet they do not marry until later in life than most. I have fear that it is my fate to stay single for life or for a while, when I am too weak to stay unmarried intentionally for an extended time, and then settle for a woman who takes care of herself spiritually but not physically. (Speaking of which, I have a very disciplined workout routine and took a break from my workout for this morning to write this. I took a break since I have the time and energy to write right now. :-) ) Yet God's grace is enough.
25. The other half of that question is "... when God looks at the heart?" - both her heart and mine. The pool of available candidates becomes much smaller when I narrow it to only women who are not Sunday Christians, but who have a radical vision to make much of Christ. And having a common vision is not about wanting to have a bunch of cute kids and raising them just so, because that can be done in a way that does not make much of Him. Rather, it is a question of where her ambitions lie. Does she realize the seriousness and urgency of Christ's kingdom and seek to live in a war? Does she know how to be alone with the Lord and delight in Him? Does she desire to sit under sound preaching and be convicted by the Word of God? Does she know how to be an intercessor, not for health and wealth, but for redemptive history to move forward, for Christ to be supreme locally and among the nations? Does she have a heart to draw others closer to Christ? Does she love the body of Christ sacrificially? Can it truly be said that this world is not worthy of her? All of this is what matters, and not her perfection in each point but her making progress toward it. As a man, I must be able to lead this kind of woman spiritually. To do that, I must not be a Sunday Christian either. This also intensifies my own drive to spiritual maturity. When I do meet her (probably another "her" now), I must also be the kind of person that desires to make God's name great in my own life, in my local church, and among the nations.
These and the lessons I listed in the two previous posts are just 25 of the lessons that I have learned in the first 3 months since my courtship ended. I am sure the Lord will continue to teach me about this as time goes on. My courtship was not recreational dating, so going through this has felt like going through a divorce. For now, I still think about her and what might have been every day. But I am starting to move past it, by the grace of God.
In the next post, God willing, I would like to make exhortations to my fellow singles in the body of Christ who sense a calling to marriage but are still waiting to meet their future spouse.
No comments:
Post a Comment