Dating Opportunities

First of all, let me state up front that I cannot imagine anyone who wants to be in healthy romantic relationship that leads to marriage more than me. This is important to remember as you read the remainder of this post.

As Christian singles, I think many of us put the cart before the horse. This analogy is helpful because how silly and impractical would it be for us to expect the cart to pull the horse? If we saw someone trying to do this, we would remind him or her they need to put things in the proper order. That only makes sense, doesn’t it?

There have been many instances where people have told me that whatever activities I am involved with are great opportunities to find a date:

• Attending service at my home church where so many so-called eligible and “good” women worship
• Hosting a book-signing event
• Helping out periodically with Children’s Church
• Going to a restaurant alone with a book in hand to read while I am eating
• Making entries into my blog
  

These are but a few of the “dating opportunities” I supposedly encounter from time to time.

Am I missing something or what? Using the examples above let me share with you what I am thinking:

• Attending church - I am going to get the Word and to fellow with fellow Christians
• Book-signing event - I am trying to market my book and to share my message
• Children’s Church - I like kids and want to help shape them
• Eating out alone - I enjoy eating at restaurants while reading a good book
• Blog - I want to establish a dialog with other Christian singles about being single from a spiritual perspective
  
  

When I do the things I do, I do them with the hope of being consistent with what God’s will and purpose is for me. I help people when I can. I try to share encouraging words when people need to be uplifted. I desire to perform various acts of community service. I try to treat people in ways that God would approve and say things that I believe He would want me to say. As I interact with people in all kinds of situations, I try to keep my personal objectives on the back burner. All of us need the support, prayers and encouragement of each other and my opinion is we should not mess things up by trying to make “dating opportunities” out of “ministering opportunities”.

Getting back to the statement in my first paragraph, I want to find a good woman for me. I cannot and feel no reason to try and deny that. But, my major focus is on doing what I believe God wants me to do. My belief is that if I am faithful to Him, He will honor my request to find a Godly woman as a mate that is right for me. So while it may appear that I am blowing “dating opportunities”, I am putting all of my eggs of hopefulness into God’s faithfulness. To me, having that kind of perspective is like putting the horse before the cart!! I am convinced that this is the way it is supposed to be.

Bad Signs

Last week, while participating in a local march honoring the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I saw some signs held by some people protesting this march. While the marchers were celebrating Dr. King’s legacy of peace and equality for all, the protesters were spreading their anti-Dr. King views. Their presence seemed so out of place and very much not consistent with what I understand Dr. King to have stood for.

At first, the appearance of these protesters took away from my celebratory spirit honoring a true American hero. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that a few bad signs should not deter me from treasuring the special people and accomplishment in our lives.

For Christian singles, how often have we allowed a few “bad signs” to spoil our moments of celebration and stunt our opportunities of growth? In our interactions with each other, sometimes we spend too much time on a person’s negatives that we miss out on the chance to highlight and even enjoy their good points. No one of us is perfect, yet we seem to harp on each other’s imperfections.

Just like I had to take a second to refocus my thoughts on the positive achievements of Dr. King and divert them away from falling into the trap of negative attitudes being laid by the protesters, single Christians need to learn the art of taking a “spiritual breath.” Some of our parents used to tell us to count to ten before we said something we might regret or cause some damage that could not be reversed. For the sake of our relationships and our spiritual sanity, we need to recognize more of God in each other and be less quick to point out the devilish tendencies we all possess. All of our relationships will be better off if we learn how to pause before we react or say anything.

This is not to say that we walk around ignoring the bad things people do and over-emphasize their good qualities, but it just seems like if we are going to err, it should be on the side of nurturing and encouraging each other’s spiritual attributes.

Dr. Martin Luther said on several occasions that there is some good in the worst of us and some bad in the best of us. Accepting that fact, let’s focus more on building healthy platonic, family and romantic relationships based on our positive qualities. If God can look beyond our faults and still love us and not hold us hostage to our pasts, the least we can do is walk past the bad signs on our march to celebrate the Godly spirit in those we relate to.

Not Just A Rusty Old Pot!

Every day presents growth and learning opportunities. Given that fact, it is shameful that we are not smarter nor wiser than what we are. I wonder if God looks at us and just shakes His head because we don’t know what we should know and we often act like we don’t know what we do know. Often, we look at Catholic priests or wily politicians or professional athletes or even our romantic partners and we say, “You should know better!” Well, let’s stop condemning them and take a good look in the mirror because there are some things we do that we should know better than to do. What a shame, a crying shame!

I just finished talking with my oldest brother and he was telling me about a beat up old blue pot our family used to carry in the car as we were traveling. Why in the world did we carry that rusty old pot? The short version of this family history lesson is that as African-Americans, there were places we could not go and facilities we were not allowed to use. What this meant was we had to bring our own food to eat during the trip because we could not stop at many of the restaurants we saw on the roads we traveled. Because we could not stop to use the restrooms, we carried this pot as our version of a portable potty. I, being the next to youngest of my siblings, do not remember the pot or the reasons for its existence for our family, but that does not mean it did not exist. The same is true of our respective histories.

As Christian singles, there are many lessons to learn concerning that “dingy old pot”.

• We all have a history and it influences us in ways in which we are not always aware. However, what we don’t know about ourselves, it is imperative we learn. If we ask ourselves questions like, “Why do I like to do certain things in certain ways?” or “Why is this subject so important to me?” or “Why do I get so angry when certain things happen?” we can start down the road to learning more about our past and how it makes us tick.
• Because each of us have a history, we must learn each other’s history if we are going to relate to each other in healthy ways. There used to be a time that our parents would forbid us from hanging out with members of certain families because of their reputations and histories. Well, there are some people with whom we should not interact because of the incompatibilities of their histories with ours. Conversely, there are some folks we should readily hang out with because of the potentially positive impact they can have on us.
• God has the capacity and the willingness to help us to use our respective histories to enhance us and strengthen our relationships. Because He knows us and He knows those with whom we intermingle, He alone is qualified to direct us to those people who will be good for us and to divert us away from those people who can harm us. This is the gift of discernment.

My prayer for Christian singles everywhere is that we will learn all that we can about the “rusty old pots” in our respective lives. As we discover our nuggets of history, I pray that our increased self-knowledge will help us to be better friends, romantic partners, co-workers and family members. It is my hope that we will grow to appreciate the valuable lessons to be learned from the “dented old pots” from our past.

How YOU Got Over!

Most of us are familiar with the phrase, “My soul looks back and wonders how I got over.” Isn’t it nice to reflect on our journey and take note of how far we have come? Thank God, we are not as bad off as we used to be. We don’t succumb as easily to certain temptations. We don’t fall as quickly for certain lines. We don’t get weak in the knees as readily when that certain someone comes into view. We don’t use those four letter words as often. But even more profoundly, God still has blessed us despite our moments of inconsistencies and our times of unfaithfulness. Instead of giving us what we have deserved, He has chosen to grant us GRACE! Truly we can look back and wonder how is it that we are so much smarter, kinder, stronger, more lovable, more patient, more trustworthy and more spiritually committed. But in the midst of our wonderment, we also recognize that God gets all of the credit for our growth and positive change.

Are we just as happy for someone else when they “make it over”?

I ran into a friend who I had not spoken with for over a year. (For the record, I tried to keep in touch, but she did not keep up her end of the communication. But that is not the point of this post!!) After catching up and some small talk, I learned that she is on track to graduate with a Ph.D and she has a new job with more responsibilities and more money. To top it all off, she is engaged to be married to a man that when she talks about him, her face glows with the radiant flush of blissfulness of being in love. Praise God that she has gotten over!

She is experiencing what so many of us Christian singles are hoping and praying and waiting for. As her friend, I know some of the struggles she had to endure and some of the bad choices she made. I remember conversations where her life was full of questions to which she did not know the answers. But now, she is sitting on top of the world.

To my friend, I say, “Praise God for how He has favored you. Because I know a little about what you have come through, I swell with pride and joy in knowing that your prayers have been answered and that your tears of yesterday are now just relics of a distant past. Because God has blessed you, I know that others’ lives will be enriched because of how He is going to use you. My soul looks back and truly wonders and gives God all of the credit for how you got over.”

When BEING RIGHT Is All Wrong

Yesterday we talked about the problems with “keeping it real”. Today we are going to look at the misguided pursuit of “being right”. At first glance, it would seem that Christian singles should try to be right. When the alternative of “being wrong” is taken into account, the obvious conclusion to draw is that the path to being right is the correct path for us to choose. So what is the problem here?

Have you ever been involved in or listened to a debate where it becomes apparent that one or both parties are not listening to each other? Rather, what appears to be listening is really a strategic pause to formulate their next plan of attack. In the same vein, there are people who have held negative feelings toward others for so long that they do not remember the real reason why they have those feelings. In both cases, the person in question is more intent on “being right” than on pursuing righteousness.

For Christian singles, the pursuit of righteousness should result in the starting and maintaining of healthy relationships of all types with like-minded people. When our focus is more on proclaiming the truth (See “Keeping It Real?” from January 11, 2007) than on winning at someone else’s expense, we are positioned to enjoy the kinds of positive relationships that God wants us to have.

In most cases, whenever a relationship ends or never proceeds past the “get to know each other phase”, it is because of either our fears or our egos or both. This fact is not something that we will admit to, but an honest assessment of why many of our relationships fail will reveal our fears and/or our egos as the culprits.

The desire to “be right” at all costs results from the elevation of our false sense of pride or our submission to our usually unfounded fears. Try as we may to hide it, we have been hurt and other negative experiences have caused us to accumulate some emotional scars and bruises. We are not really as tough as we claim to be and it is hard to accept that it is okay to be vulnerable and less than perfect. (See “We Bad, Ain’t We?” on September 13, 2006) Our pride tells us to act like we are not limping through life and our fears tell us to erect barriers against people so we will not be hurt again. When our pride and fears control us like that, we do whatever we can to “be right” even when we are dead wrong and when our relationships fade away.

God has placed a premium on how we relate to each other. He ignores our declarations of love for Him when we cannot love or sustain healthy interactions with people. Can you imagine how empty our defense will appear in the Day of Judgment as we face the charges of destroying our relationships when we proclaim, “But Lord, I was trying to be right”? That will be as empty a phrase as “I am just keeping it real!”

I pray that we will do a better job of valuing our relationships with each other before it is too late. “Being right” is not worth burning the bridges to healthy and nurturing interactions. What good is “being right” when the only person who is close enough to know that is ourselves?

Keeping It Real?

“Hey, I am just keeping it real.” Have you ever heard anyone say that? For some reason, people place a high value on “keeping it real”, but what do they really mean? In most cases, this statement precedes a rude act or hurtful words. This phrase is then said as a way to remove their responsibility for the pain they just inflicted. Well, this is not “real” and it is not right! Christian singles should not strive to be “real” and they should be careful about being “right”. (More about being right tomorrow.)

The implied notion behind “keeping it real” is that whatever was said or done was expressed in the name of truth. But, who are we trying to fool here? Truth is relative. My “truth” may be quite different from your “truth”. In fact, what we state as facts most often is really our opinion. If truth is our true goal, let’s start here; Jesus is our Lord and Savior. Now for Christian singles, this is not an opinion, but the undeniable truth. When it comes to what I think about you or what you feel about someone else, that is not “truth”, but our version of it.

Accepting the fact that Jesus is our Lord and Savior, how should that affect our perceptions, words and actions? Hopefully, we are striving to be more like Him. Jesus did not spend a lot of time voicing His opinions. Rather He spoke truths based on His relationship with His heavenly father. In our relationships, let’s be mindful that people do not need our opinions. What will really help them is the truth. So, let’s speak truths to people. Put another way; let’s “speak” Jesus to those we interact with. This can be accomplished through our words and deeds as guided by the Holy Ghost.

Let’s stop hiding behind the myth of “keeping it real” when we say or do hurtful things. Where in the Bible are we called to be real? Our divine mandate is to spread the good news (also known as the truth), not tainted opinions that only end up hurting and causing confusion.

Tomorrow, we will discuss the problems with always trying to be “right” at the expense of our relationships.

A Quickie!

It has been said that good things come to those who wait, but sometimes waiting is the last thing we want to do. Let’s admit it, there are times that we want what we want and we want it now, if not before. Besides, the only one who has all the time in the world is God. With eternity as His reality, He can afford to be patient. But for us, the clock is ticking and patience is not always a virtue, is it?

We look back over our lives and we see some mistakes we have made, some bad choices, some mismatched relationships and some ill-timed words. None of our paths are completely clear of the debris of missed opportunities, failed relationships, moments of sadness and periods of frustration. All of this leads to our current feelings of emptiness and a gnawing sense of being unfulfilled.

Hopefully, we are smarter, wiser, more spiritual, more discerning and more of all the good qualities that God wants us to have. But with all of this BETTER and MORE, what has that brought us? We still feel lonely at times. We still desire someone special in our lives. We mourn the loss of the “good one” that got away. We accept that we are not all that we could be.

“Lord, I thought I was becoming more of what you want me to be. But, why do I still struggle with bouts of uncertainty? You said you were going to bless me. When? Is there something that you are not telling me?”

God answers us in ways that we sometimes are not willing to accept. The word of encouragement from a pal. An unexpected email from a long-lost friend. A hint of interest from a prospective romantic partner. A sermon that seemed to be directed only to you. A phrase in a book or a line in a movie. An apology from the last person you thought would do such a thing. A song that captures what you have been thinking and feeling all along. Can the voice of God be found in these things?

Just when we are about to give up on the dreams we have clung to when everything about our lives urged us to let it go, our faith in God begins to take shape. What we wanted and the very thing we hoped for begins to look like a very real possibility. Thank God we did not give up and praise Him for not allowing us to give in.

If your today is still in the expectation stage, know that your tomorrow will be one of fulfillment. While waiting for God’s deliverance may seem like a long time, when He finally comes through, it will feel just like a quickie. When the dream becomes real and God manifests His YES in your life, you will sense that His blessing was there all the time. That’s how God is, when He moves in your life, it is so GOOD, that it is definitely worth the wait.

To all of the Christian singles who have had their moments of doubt and impatience, my prayer is that you will hang in there long enough for God to bless you with a QUICKIE!