Skip to main content

The Pressure is On!

The pressure is on! If you don’t have a boy/girlfriend there must be something wrong with you so get with the program, date someone, anyone, and be happy for the rest of your life! Or something like that…
A Lie
A lie has crept into our churches and it’s a lie many people believe. For some reason we think the only way to find true happiness is if everyone is nicely matched off with someone else, gets married, has a few kids, and lives happily ever after. You can’t possibly be the person God wanted you to be unless you share your life with someone else. That’s why every time you come back from a youth conference where you learned how awesome God is no one asks you what you learned about God, rather, they ask you who was there and if you met anyone.
The Problem with Pressure
The problem with this kind of pressure is that now, if any young person talks to a member of the opposite gender someone right away assumes they either like each other or are dating. This makes having communion among brothers and sisters in Christ rather awkward. I’m sure other young people have experienced this. It’s hard to be a good sister when others are trying to make you into a good wife and it’s hard to be a good brother when others are trying to make you a good husband.
The Truth
While the lie tells us we can never be happy without a spouse the Bible doesn’t point us in this direction at all. Now, before you quit reading and say “she has no idea what she’s talking about…she must be a feminist!” let me explain. The man with the most wives in the Bible, Solomon, was not content with his God and eventually turned away from Him. The man in the Bible who didn’t have a wife, Paul, learned to be content in every circumstance. He trusted his Savour and loved Him. Though getting married will, hopefully, not lead you away from Christ, if you are consumed with the desire to get married you aren’t being consumed with the desire to serve God in everything, are you?
A Word from the Catechism
The Catechism asks, “What is the Chief end of man?” and the answer, “To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” God is the reason we were made and the reason we live and move and have our being. We are to glorify Him and marriage is just one of the ways by which we can glorify Him. I believe marriage is a good thing, but it’s not the best thing. The best thing is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. If you cannot glorify God and enjoy Him outside of marriage or dating, you will not be able to glorify Him or enjoy Him inside those bonds.
God Is Good
Ps. 37 tells us God will give us the desires of our heart. Ps. 40 says to wait on the Lord and then it continues to say that He has things planned for us which are too wonderful for even us to imagine. God is good. He is from everlasting to everlasting, King of Kings and Lord of Lords and we are fearfully and wonderfully made in His image.  
A Request
Here is my request; while I believe marriage is a wonderful gift, may we not forget Who gave it to us. May we live for His end and not for the goal to be wed. To our older, wiser family members in Christ we, the young people, ask that you would “spur us on to love and good deeds” (Heb. 10:24) and that you would encourage us to love our Heavenly Father first. We covet your prayers to not give in to the lie that the only way to happiness is for us to find a spouse. We also ask that you pray we will be content with our God.
An Encouragement
To my fellow young people I encourage you to think on God and His promises. God is great and He has your life planned out perfectly. This verse has given me great comfort. Hide it in your hearts and trust the Lord.
Ps. 40:5 “Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders You have done. The things You have planned for us no one can recount to You; were I to speak and tell of them, they would be too many to declare.”

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What Is Your Purpose?

 A couple weeks ago, a young woman asked me, "what is your purpose?" it kind of threw me off. Ok, it really threw me off. It seemed a bit touché to say "to glorify God and enjoy Him forever" when she was looking for specifics. And I get why she's asking. My life does seem pretty random. Thirty-two years old, working on my BA, teaching music part time, working at a coffee shop part time, and living at least an hour from my closest family member. On paper it looks...well...it looks random. I get it. Kind of hard to pull a purpose out of the randomness.  I was talking to the Lord about it because sometimes, even for myself, the person living this life, it's hard to find a specific purpose in the randomness. Sometimes I wonder,  when I get to Heaven if I'm  going to have anything to offer God, if while other people show up with their kids, I'm going to hold out empty hands and say "it's just me." I mean, if He wants soldiers to defeat spiri...
Post a Comment
Read more

Body Image (1)

Contentedly situated in lawn chairs with our toes in the sand and the baby playing on a blanket at our feet, my friend and I watch her girls digging holes or running between the beach and the lake. Periodically, the girls run up to us to display the shells and rocks they've found. At one point, as the girls surround us, one of us adults comments on the baby being chubby (which she is, as a baby should be) after which one of the girls looks at me and says, "you're kind of chubby." She wasn't trying to be rude or smart, she was just being bluntly observant as children are. As I looked at I her and considered an answer, I thought of the baggage of body image that women have carried for generations, and I thought, I don't want her to carry this baggage too. I want better for her.   I replied, "you know, being a little chubby is actually a good thing. Our bodies function better and it helps keep us warm." This deep lesson was probably lost on her as she s...
Post a Comment
Read more

Wasted Gifts? Wasted Time?

You know how you can read the Bible twice, ten times, a hundred times and yet there's still something you haven't noticed or thought about before? That's basically my relationship with 1 Samuel 16:12-23. This is where Samuel anoints David to be king (first he had to meet all David's other brothers because David was the youngest so he was out taking care of the sheep). After the family dinner with Samuel, the text shifts back to King Saul. Because King Saul had disobeyed God, God had removed His Spirit from Saul and sent an evil spirit to terrorize him. In order to sooth the king's suffering soul, Saul's servants go out looking for someone who can play music to make him feel better.  There's a lot to think about in these short verses but the verse that struck me is verse 18.  Then one of the young men said, "Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite who is a skillful musician, a might man of valor, a warrior, one prudent in speech, and a handso...
Post a Comment
Read more