Qs

You cannot dedicate someone else, but you can dedicate yourself. Similarly, you cannot surrender another's will, but you can surrender your own. You cannot make another person serve you with kindness of heart: This is something that God Himself saw as unethical and ineffective.

What I can do is see you as the treasure of God's heart--a treasure already owned--nay, a treasure predestined to be one with the heart of God. Say I am never to own it, still I can defend such a treasure with the utmost diligence, for it takes more strength to say "no" than it does to say "yes." I have to learn to see the another person as a treasure, but a treasure that has been found and is already claimed by my Savior: the treasure is not mine to do as I please, but one thing I can do is defend the purity of this treasure. The Question is how...

Slow Commitments

In order to be where you want to be you have to make a commitment to get there. You get what you give and you reap what you sow. If you're doing something you don't like doing, it's because you are committed to something other than what you "do" like doing (perhaps committed to a lack of commitment). These are practical realities that are true in any relationship you will ever enter into.

If you want to be friends with someone, you have to make a commitment to be friends with him or her no matter what. Legitimately, there are some people that you will never commit themselves to friendship, but Romans 12:18 and Hebrews 12:14 suggests that we should still try to live at peace with all men.

Here's the thought: be careful what you commit yourself to and honor your commitments. When you make a commitment, you enter into a covenant of sorts. You have a responsibility to honor a commitment; for example, in OT covenants, blessings came to those who honored their vows and curses were pronounced on those who broke the covenant. Specifically, as a Christian, every commitment we make to another person should first be a commitment to God. A value system should be established long before a commitment is made (that's why a child is under his or her parents' protection until he or she can enter a covenant his or herself--this is also a law in America, not just ancient Israel). A commitment is a big deal! Taking it slow--it's also honoring to the person whom you're making the commitment with, because it shows that you care enough about the person to establish their worth in a strongly foundational bond.

i step left, you step right----practical

Earlier, I used the example again from dancing to explain how two people share a single life, a single dance. I talked about how God should be the one to define the steps you take. In dance class, I am a lousy leader without the instructor's guidance. They were the ones who told both my partner and me: "you step left and she'll step right." It was the most natural movement when eventually we got it down.

The reason I said, you shouldn't care about the “success” of a relationship is because when you do, you end up doing things that will manipulate him or her! In dancing, you cannot be five or six moves ahead mentally or you'll mix up the obvious steps to come. When you are thinking about the triple twirl you're going to lead her in at the refrain, you may pull her too hard, trip, and miss the refrain altogether.

I am thoroughly convinced that the only thing that must be done in any and every relationship is the cultivating of good soil so that God can cause growth (I'll explain what I mean by growth). Perhaps you are familiar with the parable of the sower found in Matthew 13. Seeds are planted but it's God who grows the plant (if the conditions for growth are right). It's the same here: if soil of tenderness, openness, honesty, compassion, selflessness, joy, and overall integrity (to name a few) are the ground in which you plant; if you carefully till the soil; and water the soil; then God will cause growth. But how do we know already what that growth should look like?

Here's my main point: you don't know if that seed will be friendship or marriage… or if you were just meant to help one another find new jobs! If you assume it's always romance, you'll miss out on friendship (which is also an institute of love, just a different kind of it).

You can take slow steps towards unity, but not irreversible ones; the irreversible ones exist under the covenant of marriage for a reason; one reason is because after an unhealthy relationship is terminated, there is heart break; in sex, you give away part of yourself; even after a simple kiss, you've become bonded to the other person in an emotional way that will be heart-wrenching if separated.

i step left, you step right

What does it truly mean to not care about the "success" of a relationship?

I don't think “dating” and “relationship” are synonymous. Two people are in a relationship simply by knowing and interacting with one another, wheras dating is more specific than that. Now to answer the question: let me explain just what I mean. I think it means that when you take things slow, the definition of “success” becomes redefined. It means that if you grant God the ability to grow the relationship, then the thing that He wants to happen will happen—and don't get confused into thinking that you want something that He doesn't want you to have (cf. Prov. 21:30).

To not care about the “success” of a relationship is not the same as "not wanting the best" for the relationship / other person; it's quite the opposite, actually. A "successful" relationship isn't one that plays out the way the two parties initially wanted or thought it would; it's the one that brings about the most growth in both parties, individually. In other words, it focuses less on the foreseen end (e.g. marriage, being parents, growing old together) and more on the means (i.e. making the relationship a growing experience).

Now to flip my example on its head: to care about the “success” of a relationship is, by very nature, to assume. It is to think you are the best thing in the world for the growth of the other (growth spiritually, characteristically, etc.), when in fact you could be robbing the other person of someone else or something else that God wants for him or her.

I'm learning not to be selfish and learning to think without bias. One reason that two people come together is so they can have a companion whom they can be fearlessly united to in confession and sacrifice. Think about that. It's less about "me" and more about "us." The sad fact is that most people come together because the other person makes him or her feel good in one way or another. That's not about growth; that's a stagnant, leisurely activity.

It is not good for man to be alone.... pt. 2

I've learned a few ultimate truths about what is necessary to consider before pursuing a relationship, and really that is the biggest thing going on right now in my thought. So due to many biological realities (Reticular Activating System, impact bios... to name a few) the reality of a relationship has crossed paths with me and I have naught to do but settle the tension (or more accurately, manage the tension). In Donald Miller's book Searching for God Knows What, there was a chapter that really ministered to me, speaking just what I needed to hear:


"Moses said God knew Adam was lonely or incomplete or however you want to say it, but God did not create Eve directly after He stated Adam was lonely.... a lot of times before the fall, I don't think of people going around lonely. But the thought also comforted me because I realized that loneliness in my own life doesn't mean I am a complete screw up, rather that God made me this way. You always picture the perfect human being as somebody who doesn't need anybody, like a guy on a horse out in Colorado or whatever. But here is Adam, the only perfect guy in the world, and he is going around wanting to be with somebody else, needing another person to fulfill a certain emptiness in his life. And as I said, when God saw this, He did not create Eve right away. He did not give Adam what he needed immediately. He waited. He told Adam to name the animals.
Now I had read this a thousand times, just glancing over it you know, but this time, reading it without looking for a magical formula , I actually thought about what would be involved in a job as big as naming the animals. In my mind this had been such an effortless action; Adam sits on a log with his land on his chin, God parades the animals by rather quickly, Adam calls out names under his breath: Buffalo, chimp, horse, mouse, lizard, buffalo... Uh, wait--did I already say buffalo? Um, well--how about cow; did I already say cow.
But could it really have been that effortless? .....I wondered how long it must have taken him to journey to the ocean to name the sea life, and whether God had them swim up close to the shore, so Adam only had to go in about waist-deep.
I looked up how many animals there are in the world, and it turns out there are between ten million and one hundred million different species around in the time of the Garden, and Adam, apparently, had to name all of them. And the entire time he was lonely.
I never thought of Adam the same again. The image of the man holding a fig leaf over his privates seemed nearly crude. Rather this was a man who, despite feeling a certain need for a companion, performed what must have been nearly one hundred years of work, naming and perhaps even categorizing the animals... The thing is when Adam had finished naming the animals, after all his work and effort, God put him to sleep, took a rib out of his side, and fashioned a woman. I had read that part a thousand times, too, but I don;t think I quite realized how beautiful this moment was....."


It continues on to talk about how in that hundred years (yes..... HUNDRED YEARS!) Adam could not communicate and exist like a companion with any of the animals he came into contact with. In these hundred years, families formed with the animals. The idea of another person never entered Adam's mind, but God surprised him with companion. They probably didn't fall in love right away, but in that moment, God had blessed his waiting and his faith. How often do we think of Adam as a man of faith? Never! I can't put words into that picture; it really speaks for itself. God is a good God and He blesses purity and entrusts his gifts to those who have remained pure. It's exciting!

It is not good for man to be alone.... pt. 1

Normally learned through my devotions, I've decided to share something I've thought about and reflected on each day in this blog (which I hope to be updated more often than my others). Some lessons are relearned over and over again and some may seem very obvious to you; however, these are the practical lessons, that is, things I'm putting into practice.


Here's an example: I was reading Proverbs 20 (because it's October 20th, lol) and a single verse stood out to me above the rest. It was v25, which reads, "It is a trap for a man to dedicate something rashly and only later to consider his vows." This connected to the verse I read Yesterday in ch19 v2, which states, "It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way."

As weird as this may seem, this verse really hit home while in Latin and Swing Dance Class. I noticed that it was only my poor leading that caused my partner to miss a step or have incorrect footing. It's really the guy's job/function in dancing to lead his partner. This is only to say how often we get excited about something and the excitement alone is enough to fuel us for a short period of time. For example, last year some students started a ministry called Consuming Fire Ministry on campus at my school. I was part of the worship and played guitar; I also prayed and came to some board meetings though I was never in a leadership position. We don't often realize what a commitment some things truly are, what it really means to lead and what it really means to be a leader who is not hasty in decision making (because so often I find that a leader is good at making rational decisions and it will satisfy his followers, but often people miss the way because they see an opportunity and jump on it). In reality the right decision is rarely missed because it is done prayerfully and carefully, weighing all options. Now, Consuming Fire is no more because it grew in way this board never anticipated.

It is a trap for a leader to dedicate something without being prepared to continue with the vow until its sanctions have dictated termination. e.g. marriage is until death do us part...


So, that middle section is really going to be how this blog is set up. It's just going to be filled with little truths that I can reflect on later, those who find can reflect on, etc. This blog really serves as a devotional journal for me. Thus I am not providing any links to this page due to its personal nature.