A couple of days ago I announced to my friend Ashley that I'm going on a dating hiatus. She and I fasted from boys for a month last January. She actually challenged me to a whole year, to which I responded by laughing at her. We compromised for a month. Needless to say, she's on board with my new resolution. I explained it to her using the same reasoning that a guy friend of mine (who will remain nameless) used to explain himself. When I realized that I only wanted a boyfriend for the benefits I could get from it...I decided it was probably not a good idea for me to even go there. To avoid simply using someone, I'm just going to avoid relationships altogether. A wise choice, if I do say so myself.
Actually, I'd never really considered singleness anything other than Godly and wise. In fact, my youth leaders back in Junior High and High School were very adamant in their caution against dating relationships that would only distract from a relationship with God. You can imagine my surprise when those web articles seemed to suggest that there are a lot of people who look down on what they are now calling "protracted singleness." Maybe I get it--the thought of 40 year old men still living with their mommies...I guess you could harp on that as a lack of responsibility or something...but if we are talking about a bunch of career minded, successful, single people, well that can't be bad...right? Without the worries of a boyfriend or husband, don't I have more time to be concerned with other important ministry stuff? Paul says he wishes we could all be single like him, which makes it sound like marriage is weakness. Only for people who can't control their sex-drive. Speaking of...the human sex drive is probably so strong because otherwise we'd never pair off and procreate. It might explain the reasoning for the oppression of women too--because if we weren't told for all those years that giving birth makes us valuable...we probably wouldn't do it!
Ok...that might be my cynicism going a bit too far. Don't quote me there. But I will venture to say that the Biblical command to abstain from sex before marriage does make me think twice about wanting to do it (getting married, I mean). I wonder sometimes if I would bother with marriage at all if I had no qualms about sex before it. Why commit to someone for "better or worse" when you could commit to "till something better comes along"?
I asked my dad this while I was at home this summer. My parents have been married for over 25 years now, through both better and worse, so I figured he'd have some insight--is it really worth it? He says it is. Not that I expected him to say anything different, but according to my dad, there's something about that level of commitment that makes it worth it to get married. I do like the idea that our earthly marriages are supposed to mirror God's relationship with the church. If God made us to desire a committed relationship to him, then it seems natural that we would desire those relationships with each other. The Bible says that God is more faithful to us than we could ever reciprocate, but it also promises that our faithfulness to God is the route to deeper and deeper intimacy with him. So it goes, I guess, in marriage. The more committed we are to one another, the deeper our relationship can go. And that seems worth it. After all, who hasn't felt all alone at one time or another? Or at more times than others? Maybe what we need in life is less dating and more genuine commitment. More hands to hold on to as we walk through life and less surface level encounters.
I'm willing to bet that part of my aversion to relationships lately has been a defense mechanism against feeling sad about my circumstantial not having one (or at least that sounds like what the current psychobabble would say). Now that I'm happier alone for the moment, I have to go and analyze again why I should prefer to be married. Way to go me. Now I feel bad for not wanting what I've just convinced myself I should want. But maybe there's a simpler solution: really what I think I've just proven, or theorized...or whatever...is that people were created for relationships--for commitment that leads to intimacy. Not a foreign idea, and not foreign in a practical sense in my own life. I totally have that kind of intimacy. I mean, not as much lately--but I know why--how often do I wake up and think about the commitment I have made to my friends? To love and serve and encourage my church family at Shoreline? I've heard that marriages go bad when you start looking at them as something to fill your needs--like when I go to church because I like how it "fires me up" or how the people make me feel good about myself--when I really should view the people in my life in light of the commitment I've made to them. Friends come and go when you rate them according to how much they do for you. But friends that you commit yourself to--well you don't let those friends go because you made a commitment not to. It's the same reason I'm so close to my family--because we are bound by that blood affiliation, a tie which we (at least in my family) respect enough to fight for, even when things get messy. I guess I view blood as the deepest of commitments--one that maybe I didn't willingly make, but I still wholeheartedly honor. And it's definitely had its benefits. If I could view all the relationships in my life as equally predestined, maybe they could all go just as deep and be just as powerful as the few that I am most committed to.
Any sin in singleness? Probably not in a lot of cases--but there is certainly shame in it. A shame that we don't take more advantage of ALL the people God has blessed our lives with. A shame that we don't view our lives in light of the unique opportunities of each stage.
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"Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing." James 1:21-25
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