Conclusion

It’s funny, as I went for a walk that night, I was praying about stuff that I was dealing with, and lo and behold, some girl stuff came up. And you know what? I was really at a loss at what to do. So that forced the question, “if I can’t even deal with my own drama, what right do I have to tell anyone else what to do?”

I don’t know that the purpose of this was necessarily to solve problems, but to help people to re-evaluate the way the look at dating and the opposite sex, and themselves. You know what? It may even make things more complicated and difficult for a while. But being a man or woman of noble character is never simple. It requires struggle, some anxiety, and above all submission to God and His infinitely superior ways. The best, most loving thing God can do for us is to remind us that we need Jesus Christ, because if we forget, we are basically doomed to spend the rest of our lives messing around in the mud-puddle of our petty desires, when the vast, beautiful ocean of God is waiting for us to enjoy (Lewis, Mere Christianity). On the other hand, the worst thing God can do is let us think we can handle life by ourselves, that we are in control of everything that happens to us, and the greatest freedom is to do whatever you feel like doing, whenever you feel like doing it.

So I guess the point of this, if anything else, is to remind us that we don’t have it all together. We have all done stupid, hurtful things that are totally our faults in the way we’ve dealt with the opposite sex. They stem from not having God in the right place in our lives: in the place of God. We can try and be perfect in our relationships, but it will never happen. We need forgiveness, guidance, and for some of us, to forgive.

Love you guys. God Bless.

Part V: Why God Made Women Beautiful

The usual disclaimer about this being mostly (but not all!) directed at Christians applies here, just go to the last entry if you want to see it.

A woman’s beauty is a powerful thing. Sometimes I even think it is more powerful and complicated then girls themselves realize. I think everyone knows in some capacity the power a woman’s beauty has over men. That will be addressed here, but I think that the more under discussed issue is how much power a woman’s beauty, or perceived lack thereof, has over themselves. The two are very intertwined, so I don’t think I will be able to differentiate the two here.

Now we are all selfish with the things we have. With all selfishness, the person who is ultimately hurt the most is the selfish party. It is no different with women and their beauty. You see, most women use their beauty to direct people to themselves. Remember how we talked about guys getting close to girls in order to score points rather than seeing relationships with girls as a responsibility? Males do that because of their insecurity, we are trying to feel more manly. Same problem with girls. They are unsure of their beauty, so they use it to attract guys to themselves. It’s a simple formula. The more males I can attract = the more beautiful I am. The problem is, when they make themselves the end goal, everyone loses. Let me explain.

First of all, let me paraphrase the central theme of Captivating, a great book.

Women need to seek the affirmation of their beauty from God, since men will always, always fail them. Men will say something, act a certain way, treat women a certain way that will shout out to them: “You are not beautiful!” If a women does not take that question: “am I beautiful?” to God, she will take it somewhere else, and insecurity will ensue. That “somewhere else” is often men.

To avoid this, we need to answer the title question, why are women beautiful? Women are given beauty by God to inspire people to Him; so that He is praised for the beauty that He created. But when men are directed to women as the ultimate goal; when women try to be God to men, (and look around, plenty of women worship going on with men) the men heap unrealistic expectations on the woman. Then the woman, when she cannot meet those expectations, is left empty, thinking once again, “I am not beautiful”.

The answer is for women to use their beauty to guide men to Jesus. Then when men see Jesus, they will have the strength, courage, and the example to love a woman like a man should. In the words of Natasha Bedingfeild, they will, “know how to love you without being told…” Jesus is God so He can handle the expectation of being God. Jesus loved the church so perfectly, and He died for the church. If women lead men to Jesus with their beauty, their man will become that kind of man: The man that would die for His wife. The man that will fight for her His whole life, He will fight for her beauty, because He sees Jesus doing that. He will have the strength because it comes from the unlimited strength of God. He will have the wisdom because it comes from His unlimited wisdom. You get the idea.

Here’s a way to NOT inspire a man to Jesus who is slacking. Start dating him. If you start dating a guy that has “potential” you just ruined it. A guy will not fight for a woman anymore once you let him in. Here’s how the story will go. You see a guy with lots of potential. You see him start getting better (because your beauty inspires him). You decide to start dating him. He starts to do even better, stepping up, being a leader, motivated, passionate (because your beauty inspires him) but once the honeymoon period is over, he will fall back into his old ways, because he doesn’t need to fight anymore, he has you. So you threaten to break up with him, you may give him some juice for a bit. But ultimately, if you marry him, you will be dragging the family to church every Sunday, and he’ll be on the couch watching football. Is that the kind of future you want?

So how do you avoid this? FIND OUT WHAT HE’S DOING WHEN YOU MEET HIM! I’ve got a secret for you. If a guy is a bum when you meet him, he’s not going to change when you start dating him. That’s Hollywood bull crap. Movies make women gods. The women in movies inspire men to do amazing things. It’s garbage, you know it. He has to change on his own. As much as I’d like it to be, you will not inspire him forever. Women do have the power to inspire men though. But inspire him from afar! Don’t commit to him. Don’t let him see that he has you. See what he does on his own. Then you will know what he will be like when all those lovey-dovey feelings go away. If a man’s not fighting for his first love when you meet him, he won’t fight for his love when he’s married. Bottom line, and you all know it. If you in anyway commit to a man hoping that your commitment will change him, you not only enter the relationship with wrong motives, you will in the end be disappointed, and both of you will be worse off then when you started.

To all the ladies that I know who read this, I truly care for you. That's my motivation for writing this. Don't settle.

Part IV: The Other Sex As a Savior

As with all the other blogs in this series, I hope that those who don’t profess faith in Jesus would consider my perspective, and whether what I say has any bearing on their lives. However my main problem is with those who do profess faith, yet have the exact same heart issues as those who don’t. What’s the heart issue this week? Making that ideal relationship into such a big deal, that we actually believe that it will solve most, if not all, of our emotional and other problems.

Again, while I recognize that my tone may suggest I’ve never had this happen to me or that I’m over it, I’m not, and it is only from within the struggle that I speak to you. So that’s a long enough intro.

Again, I need the participation of the audience to honestly evaluate themselves as they answer my questions, it is easy enough to deny that you’ve done any of the following:

Found yourself thinking or even saying, “if only I could find that guy/girl, then I wouldn’t be so _____________ (lonely, insecure, miserable, etc.)”. Or maybe you’ve thought that once you find that person, life really gets started. The funny thing is, once you get into the relationship, you end up being, “if only my significant other would stop doing __________, or start doing _______, then I wouldn’t be so ___________ (lonely, miserable, grouchy, etc.)

Sorry about all the blanks.

The point is if we really think about it, no person of the opposite sex is going to save us from our selves or our negative feelings, and chances are we will be in the same state or worse once we get into a relationship. The biggest difference is, now we have all the other person’s problems as well. Ha ha. Kind of a cruel joke, but in the words of radio head, “you do it to yourself”.

To the Girls: all guys are going to fail and disappoint you in some way!

To the Guys: all girls are going to fail and disappoint you in some way!

Why? Because they are not God.

So what is it about not having that person in our lives that makes us so miserable? I can tell you what it is for me. Maybe I feel like I’m missing out. Maybe I feel like I lost something of such great value, that I can never ever find it anywhere else. Yeah, I think that last one is the biggest one. That’s what happened to me this summer. That’s why it hurt so much. I had already imagined how life would be like with that other person in my life, and when it turned out… well, when they got engaged… I felt like I lost something irreplaceable, something I will never ever find again.

But for those who know Jesus, there’s where have to snap out of it. Why? Because He created all people! Male and Female! Think about it. God created people from His IMAGINATION!. Everything we have ever liked about someone: how they look, what their voice sounds like, their sense of humor, their taste in movies, HOW THEY MAKE US FEEL… that was all invented by God, and therefore He will inevitably be the highest concentration of all that good stuff – all the stuff we “love” or love. Everything we love in the opposite sex came from God. Think about this one for a second.

Genesis 1:26 & 27:

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

So what we are to God what a photograph is to us. Why would you fall in love with a picture when you can have the real thing? I think Scott Brown says it best,

“We desire other people so much because they are the closest thing to God without getting God.”

So maybe you’ll join me in recognizing my foolish belief that the opposite sex will save me, and start filling my mind with the truth: That only Jesus saves. Because all this time, He is what we really wanted, and when all that we see fades away, He is all that will matter.

Part III: Pursuing God - Beyond Life skills

Okay, so your a Christian guy, and your supposed to do this stuff that doesn't sound like much fun. Read your Bible, pray, go to these churchy things... not only that but they're not cool either.

So you want true love though? You want to find a girl and marry her one day, and be her hero. You want to raise a family and lead them as well? But what are the obstacles to that? I mean, there are so many divorces and broken families out there, maybe you come from one.

Okay, maybe I can't speak from a lot of experience, but I dare you to ask someone who is married if I'm wrong. But one of the best things you can do is fight for your wife in your mind. Constantly be reminding yourself about why you love her, the things you like about her. You need to talk to her, learn more stuff about her, spend time with her. If you don't actively do this, you will naturally fall into negative thoughts about her and living patterns, and other people and things will begin to seem more attractive then your wife. So go ahead, ask a married couple that you respect if I'm wrong here. Ask them if they just always are "in love," or if it is a struggle some days.

Wait... what the heck does this have to do with God?

What if I told you that everything... EVERYTHING you love is really something you love about God? You love nice cars? Your attracted to power and beauty. Who is more powerful and beautiful than anything? God. You like hanging out with friends and chilling at the beach? Your attracted to fulfilling relationships and rest. God promised those things and is more fulfilling than any relationship... BECAUSE HE INVENTED RELATIONSHIPS AND REST!

Now everything around is going to try and get you to forget about Jesus, forget about who He is, what He has done (check out 2 Corinthians 10:15). Namely created everything good and beautiful as a gift, sacrificed Himself so that you could connect to God again. So we fight that that might not happen. That we might not forget.

How do we do that? We listen to Him (read our Bible) and talk to Him (pray) and do things with Him and for Him (churchy) stuff. Of course it won't sound attractive, that's where faith comes in.

I'll tell you a little secret. If you cannot cultivate a love and a passion for the God of the Universe, Jesus Christ who is perfect in every way, how well do you think you are going to do at your flawed, yet beautiful and lovely wife one day? That's right. Those honeymoon feelings will fade, and all those skills that you could have been developing when you were single, those skills of loving and cherishing, those are all but useless, and so you set yourself up for a rough marriage.

So what are you waiting for? There are a million things that promise happiness, satisfaction, joy, but only One who is able to give it. You know, you've tried the other stuff. I hope this makes sense to y'all.

Part II: Protector or Predator - what kind of man are you?

"Wild at Heart" has been a huge thing, at least in the Christian community lately. It's call for boys to be men, it's declaration that all the longings for beauty and battle in men are God given and to be honored and embraced. But how does that translate to our culture of latte's and LCD TV's? I have a few hints. But first lets start at the place that gets me going... What really ticks me off.

boys. We treat girls like hockey cards, like we're racking up masculinity points. Take a minute and evaluate your behavior around girls and I'm sure many of you will have seen, if not taken part in this kind of behavior.
The more attractive girls that we have around us, the more of a man we are. If you have one, really good looking girl hanging around you, that trumps the other guys two not-so-good looking girls that hang around him. And on and on we go.

This is the first kind of guy: The predator. He prowls around preying on the feeling of his female friends, trying to get them as attached to him as possible so that he can lay claim to the most "man points". So he'll do things like have long talks, spend one on one time, flirt excessively - all so that he can have the strongest attachment with the girl, but not a boyfriend/girlfriend attachment! No way! That would imply commitment. And when the ball drops, and it turns out that the girl had feeling for him, it goes like this, "Oh, what? We're just friends? I can't believe you thought that, I had no idea!!" How do I know this? Because I participated, and on some level will probably always participate in this evil little game. It comes from getting your needs met in the opposite sex instead of God. Your needs for confidence and masculinity. But I aspire to be a protector. And some days I do better than others.

The protector sees girls not as points, but as responsibilities. Each young lady that is your friend puts you in the place of responsibility to fight and protect her heart. That means you watch what you say, you don't imply more than you want out of the relationship. That means you watch how flirty you are, you don't imply more than you want out of the relationship. And it means you are wiling to have the DTR talk (define the relationship) as often as it takes to make sure that your coming across the way you intend: as a loving brother. YOU PROTECT HER HEART!

So where does this fight come in? Well, you have to fight yourself. You have to fight to keep your mind on who you are before God, because if you don't, you will feel insecure and will need to have your confidence boosted by your girl friends, and therefore become a predator instead of a protector.

If you don't believe in Jesus Christ, then step up! This is the cause you've been waiting for! The fight to make a difference for eternity, when all the history books are gone! The fight against all the wishy washy nothingness that this world is offering people. You know it's crap! You'll never be perfect, but that's why He died, with everything you will ever do wrong, on His shoulders, taking down to hell and leaving it there.
Again! The ones who profess belief are just as bad at getting sucked in to the meaningless goals of career, sex, and money as those who don't. Yes, we've trading the One who thought of everything we love, for the stuff that He made. We do it often. But there are two ways to respond: take up the sword, or be taken captive.

More on that next week.

Intro: Why love without Jesus doesn't work.

An Intro. I am young. 25, soon 26. I am single, and I have had my share of relationships. I haven't written anything this focused or public because I want all the people I know to be able to read it, both those who profess faith in Jesus Christ and those who don't, and I honestly didn't know how to go about it. Until now. So if anyone finds this somewhere out there, please humbly explore these thoughts, my hope is that they will lead you to true love.

I can't think of a word that is more used, misused, and controversial than the word "love". However for the Bible believer it is laid out very simply:

Corinthians 13:4-8:4

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

I think the honest person, if they examine their lives and how they treated the ones they "loved," will admit that this is beyond their grasp. I know it is beyond mine alone.

Before I continue, I want people to honestly think about what it would be like to be loved like this. Maybe just take one part, " it is not self-seeking". To have someone love us so much that they do not care about the consequences to themselves, but only what is best for us. Who will take the risk of saying or doing something that will forever banish their love from their life, but will do it anyway for their love's joy. Not just when they are dating, or on their honeymoon, but ALWAYS. I will stop there, but I would seriously encourage further reflection.

Humans are like Nalgene's, we have to be filled and refilled with love. We cannot simply give love, we have to get it from somewhere. Some people find it in fairly common things, other people. Some people find it in things not so conventional like pets for example. So everybody enters a relationship with a need, both parties. Now, this creates a problem for the "never self-seeking" part of love. What if the person you love does not return the love? Well, then, you go somewhere else for it. But where? To another person that needs love. But see, if everybody is a Nalgene, then eventually, everyone will run out, and we need to go to the eternal fresh water glacier that is God.

That's right. The only way to pour from our Nalgene into others without getting anything back, is to go to God. So before we say, "Till death do we part," you need access to the glacier, or you will just be leeching from your partner, and you will never be able to love them the way you really do want to love them: without the need for anything back from them. Think about it, if we could love without needing anything back, what would happen to divorce? Now, I know some people have been walked out on, my condolences. But if two people went into a relationship with the intention of only giving to their spouse, divorce would be unheard of.

But to get there we need Jesus Christ. You see, we have screwed up. We have worshiped other gods, sinned. We have all sinned. God gave us every good thing you can imagine for His glory. Food, drink, laughter, sex, relationships, music, art, literature, sports, EVERYTHING GOOD. but we have turned and worshiped them instead. We have sacrificed time, money, and everything else we could get our hands on to pleasing these false god. Just look at your average infatuated girl or football fan. We are worshiping false gods. Not to mention that little incident in the garden of Eden with the fruit (Genesis 3).

As a result, God, being a just God must punish us. But because He loved us, He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, that the punishment that was due to us would fall on Him, so that we could be with Him again. We could talk to Him, walk with Him, and give our worship to Him, rather than sports cars, lite beer and naked people. After all, why wouldn't the Creator be more worthy than the things He created? So we confess that we have done wrong, and believe that Jesus Christ paid for everything we ever have or ever will do wrong, and we are hooked up with the eternal glacier.

Now, what's disappointing is those that have already claimed faith in Jesus Christ are just as bad as those who have not in the area of trying to be filled by other things than "the eternal freshwater glacier," but more on that later. So that is why loving people, TRULY loving your wife, your kids, your family, and your friends is impossible without Jesus Christ, in the most simple way I can explain it.

I hope to continue this, something of a series. So next time will be:

Protector or Predator: What kind of man are you?

(obviously more targeted at males, but girls, feel free to read!)