singleness

I Believe, I Believe. It’s Silly, But I Believe

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I love the little girl in Miracle on 34th Street. She’s like me and so many others who really and truly want to believe but seem to be running low on faith.

Sometimes, faith IS believing in things when common sense tells you not to. Faith really is the art of believing still even after circumstances and life events haven’t gone your way.

Maybe you’re single with no hope of a spouse in sight, yet you cling tenaciously to a slender thread of faith.

Maybe you’re married to an unbelieving spouse and it’s all you can do to mouth the words ” All things are possible” when it comes to your mate’s salvation.

Maybe it’s a wayward prodigal child or an illness that lingerd. Maybe it’s a dead end job that makes you feel like you’re living a dead end life. Maybe it’s just a general sense of hopelessness and despair.

There’s wisdom in that little girl’s mantra. Good things come to those who keep waiting and hoping. God’s best comes to those who refuse to quit despite everyone else telling them to give up.

I don’t know your specifics or your situation, but I do know God. He hasn’t broken a promise yet or failed to keep His Word. Ever.

Faith isn’t so much holding on to God, but being firmly convinced that He’s holding on to you with everything He’s got and He won’t let go.

We believe, Lord. Help our unbelief.

Amen.

Hello, My Name Is . . . More of What Jesus Wants to Say to Every Woman

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I felt like I had to revisit this because there’s so much more that I felt needs to be said. So much I feel like Jesus wants to communicate to women, both single and married. So here goes:

“My Precious Daughter,

Why are you so concerned about the future? Do you think by worrying you can hasten its arrival or change one iota of your destiny?

If you are single, be single. Regardless of whether I’ve called you to be single for life or not, I have called you to be single today. Embrace this stage as a gift and especially embrace all the lessons and wisdom that you can only gain from this part of your life.

If you are married, remember I am your identity now. Not your husband, not your children, not your job. All these things belong to Me.

Your marriage is not yours. It’s Mine. So is your husband. I expect you to give him back to me better than when I first gave him to you– more like Me.

Your children do not belong to you. They are Mine and I have entrusted them to your care for such a short time. They will form their opinions of Me much more by watching your daily actions and habits and lifestyle than by listening to your words. Live what you profess to believe.

Make time to find rest in Me. Notice I did not say to take time. In your hectic schedule, you will never have time for Me unless you make time for Me. And you will always make time for what really matters to to you.

Remember, whenever you hear the voices reminding you of your past, your shortcomings, your faults, and your mistakes, speak My name aloud. Do not dwell on such things, but rebuke them in My name.

Your feelings will lie to you. Your woman’s intuition will lie to you. Your mind and heart will deceive you. I will always tell you the truth, for I am the Truth. Trust me.

Let My love for you captivate and enthrall your heart tonight. Repeat the phrase, “Abba Father, I belong to you” over and over until the thought becomes as ingrained as breathing.

I love you just as you are right now but I will not let you stay that way. I am far from finished from the masterpiece I am making out of you.

Ramen Noodle Nights

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We had a special promotional handout to give to the good people at Kairos tonight. To raise awareness of Belmont Move-In Day on August 17, we handed out packages of ramen noodles (not to be confused with Roman numerals). For me, seeing one of those brought back so many memories.

For those of you who are sadly uninformed about these marvels, Ramen noodles are a super-cheap food source primarily consumed by the college freshman. Notice I said food source. I did not say food. I’m fairly certain no actual food ingredients are in these noodles. It’s entirely preservatives and GMOs and MSGs and all those other products that are really supposed to be bad for you. The upside is that if you eat these consistently, you probably won’t need botox any time soon.

Sometimes, you want more than Ramen noodles. I’m sure no one ever turned down a porterhouse steak for Ramen noodles. But Ramen noodles do beat nothing. Barely.

Sometimes, you might wish you had a better job and a better living situation. You might dream of driving a newer car that doesn’t have as many quirky noises and “character” i.e. scratches, dents, holes, missing parts, etc.

The upside is that you have a job. You have a place to live. You have a car that gets you places, even though it may not be in style. Part of the eucharisteo lifestyle of thanksgiving and gratitude with joy that I’ve been writing and talking about lately is being thankful for what you do have. Being out of a job for a long period of time makes any job seem better and I am more consciously grateful for the job I have now.

Ramen noodles aren’t something you eat at every meal for the rest of your life. They get you through until you can afford real food. That’s the same for parts of your life. Your time of singleness may seem like it will never end, but it’s just a season where God molds you into the husband or wife who can best serve and cherish and love the spouse He has for you.

Your job and living situation may not be ideal, but God is teaching you to be faithful and diligent in the small things before He will entrust you with more. And remember you woke up today. You got out of bed and walked. You were able to dress yourself and think rationally. There are so many things you take for granted that once you start giving thanks for will open your eyes to how blessed you really are.

I just may have to buy me some Ramen noodles soon. I wonder if they’re still 4 for $1.

 

Sometimes

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I really, really hate to admit this after all my talk of how God has healed me in the past. It feels like I’m pulling a fast one on you after I’ve announced to everyone how God has been delivering me from my fears. But here it is.

Sometimes at night when I’m tired, I get overwhelmed for a moment by fears.

I fear that this time I really have said or done the absolute stupid and wrong thing and a particular friend is gone for good. He or she has un-friended me and taped a picture of me to a dartboard for target practice.

I fear that I will always be single because no girl will ever find me attractive or desirable and I will always be left with this unfulfilled longing inside of me.

I fear that I’m really not good at anything and really won’t ever find a career that really makes me come alive to who God created me to be.

I think the difference this time is that I can name these thoughts as lies. It may not completely take away the panic and the pain, but it helps when I see these thoughts for what they are and their true origin from the father of lies.

I know now that most of the time a good night’s sleep will help these fears go away. Sometimes, it’s a glass of warm milk. Sometimes, it’s just practicing deep breathing. Sometimes, it’s saying, “Abba Father” over and over. Sometimes, it’s resting in the eternal Arms of my Abba Father and listening as He sings over me to calm my anxiety.

It’s okay for me to have setbacks and regressions, because they keep me grateful and thankful for the times when I am living out of faith and not fear. And those times are more and more prevalent.

There will always be something to fear. There will always be those moments when you give in to that fear. The question is: Can you name that fear for what it is and claim the promises of Jesus over it? Sometimes, you have to claim them out loud, but even when you don’t have a voice to speak them out, they are still powerful and true and for you.

Perfect love casts out all fear. In my case, perfect Love is casting out all fears, one at a time. I hope you find this to be true for you. Because the freedom is so much more than worth it.

Lessons From the Not Yet

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Maybe you remember back in high school and college when you wondered if that special someone who caught your eye reciprocated your interest. It would have been so much easier to have one of those grade school forms that went something like “Do you like me? Check Yes or No.”

Some of us are still there, in a perpetual state of singleness, wondering if the one we want to like us really does. It’s frustrating not knowing. Even a rejection would be easier to handle than the not knowing.

So many times, we want answers. Even answers we don’t like are better than no answers at all.

I really think that maybe being in a place where we’re waiting for answers is a good place. I think that’s where we learn the most precious and valuable lessons from God. That’s where we learn to really trust and rely on and cling to God.

I’ve heard it said that faith may not always know where it is being led, but it trusts the One leading. You may not know the outcome of what you long for and pray for, but you know that God still works all things together for good for those who love Him.

I think when we only want answers, we short-change ourselves. God is offering the opportunity for us to have all of Him and and to know Him and fellowship with Him. That’s so much better than the answers to a few questions.

Learning to trust in the absence of answers is hard. Learning to be still when every instinct in you is screaming to take the matter into your own hands is difficult.

Growing is painful and slow. Maturity doesn’t come microwave-style in a matter of minutes, but over months and years.

You will know your faith is mature when you realize that you will never get answers to some of your questions and you still choose to follow anyway.

Oswald Chambers once said, “Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One Who is leading.  It is a life of faith, not of intellect and reason, but a life of knowing Who makes us “go.”  The root of faith is the knowledge of a Person, and one of the biggest snares is the idea that God is sure to lead us to success.”

The endgame is not answers to your questions or even getting what you desire. It’s character. It’s becoming like Christ. It’s becoming every single part of who God made you to be– your deepest, truest self.

That, my friends, is worth waiting for.

The So-Called Greener Pasture

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“And don’t be wishing you were someplace else or with someone else. Where you are right now is God’s place for you. Live and obey and love and believe right there. God, not your marital status, defines your life” (1 Corinthians 7:17a).

The media tells you that you can’t be satisfied where you are. Our entire economy is based on the idea that for you to be completely satisfied, you just need a new car or a new house or a new 100-inch 3D plasma TV.

So many single people are so pre-occupied with getting married that they lose the beauty of being single. Some will get married to the first person who shows interest back and find out the hard way that being alone in a bad marriage is worse than being alone and single.

Even married people are tempted daily that what they have isn’t enough. There are myriad oppurtinities for you to find comfort and solace in someone who is not your spouse. No one starts out looking to wreck his or her marriage with an affair. It starts innocently enough with confiding in that co-worker and opening up emotionally to the friend of your spouse.

We miss so much of our lives waiting on the next big event. For single people, it’s marriage. For married people, it’s having children. For married people with children, it’s having the kids grow up and leave the house so they can go back to the way it was when they were first married.

Only you can’t ever go back. You can’t live in the future. The only life you have is now in the present and if you are so focused on what comes next, you will miss what God has for you right now.

God is outside of time and in every moment of your life. But He is only speaking to you in the present. You can only commune with Him in the now. If your mind is envisioning possible futures and rehearsing future conversations and imagining what 5 years from now will bring, you will miss the precious word that God is speaking to you right now.

The best place you can be is where you are right now. Where God has you is the perfect place for you to learn and grow and become the person who is ready for what God has for you in the future.

That’s where I want to be. I hope and pray that’s where you want to be, too.

So take a deep breath. Look around and smell some roses. Enjoy where you are. If it’s a difficult season of life, look for the proverbial silver lining.

The best thing you will find is God there, ready to speak a word into your soul that will change everything about the way you see yourself and your situation.

All that greener pasture? It’s not so green when you get there.