Day 36 – Next Steps

I look back over these truths from these past weeks and I see more of who God wants me to be and how I can honor Him in my singleness and in my relationships. Through it, I have realized my failures, my unhealthy patterns, and a standard that I could never possibly live up to but a love that loves me regardless. I have realized that while it is hard to trust a guy with my heart, that I can always trust God with my heart and that He will be there and guide me whether it leads to the greatest love I have ever known or the greatest heartbreak I can imagine. God does work all things out for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. When we seek Him, He will take care of us, even when we get off track or let Him down.

Through this journey, God has taught me compassion, how to really feel for others. He has taught me what it means to really love, to make those intentional choices to respond in love, even in the midst of pain… and how impossible that is apart from Him. It is because of His love for me, that it becomes possible for me to love others, romantically but also and perhaps more importantly others around me, family, friends, co-workers. His love is a transforming love, a powerful love, an active love.

As I look at these truths and look at my life, I think about how I am going to put together the pieces. During these next two weeks, I want to shift to thinking about that, how to live out these truths. I know God still has a lot to show me along the way, but I want to start making decisions and start living these truths out in my everyday life. I want to cultivate that contentment, to live out integrity, to reach out in love to those around me.

So many times when I am seeking God’s will, I get caught up in what He wants me to do next. When that happens, I go back to one particular verse, one that says exactly what I need to be doing to find God’s peace and His will, Philippians 4:10. “Do what you have learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.” How can God show me the next steps before I learn to do what He has already shown me? He has revealed so many truths to me over the last few weeks, and as I go forward my task is to keep remembering those truths and to actively and continuously apply them to my life and my relationships.

Day 32 – Single-minded

During the past month, I have focused a lot on relationships. I want my dating life to glorify God; I want to get married one day; I want to choose to love another person in the way that God chooses to love me. I want the freedom of spending the rest of my life with someone who knows me, who cares about me, who wants the best for me. I want all of that and more.

But I am serious about wanting God to write the script in my life. I give those desires to Him. I was talking to one of my friends the other day, sharing with him about all the great lessons that God has been teaching me. And I value those, and I know that through those God is preparing me to be the woman He created me to be. But my friend’s response resonated with me. He said, all that sounds good, but I guess I’m content being single.

I used to be content being single. I used to not think about dating much, because I didn’t date much. Now, I’ve lost a lot of that contentment and shifted my focus so much to relationships, that I’m in danger of missing the One who created me for relationship. I’ve spent so much time trying to figure out who I need to be in a relationship, that I’ve forgotten that God wants to use me right now, where I am, a single person free from family obligations and soon to be free from school obligations. He wants to use me now... to love others, to serve Him, to grow in faith, to minister to others.

1 Corinthians 8 says that there is much value in being single… that when we’re single, we can devote ourselves to God without distraction. When we’re married (and I think it applies also to relationships) our attention is divided. We can so easily get distracted because then we have to take another person into account.

I’m thankful for what God has taught me about relationships. I want to learn to be that woman of integrity, to make wise decisions, to love, to forgive, to choose peace… I want those, and I want God to continue to teach me and to prepare me to be the woman He created me to be. But I also want to be single-minded towards Him. I want Him to be the focus of life, for Him to write the script, for Him to use me and to grow me, and for Him to glorified in my life, now as I am single, and in the future, whatever that holds. I want to focus on serving Him, on ministering to others, on worshipping Him, and fulfilling His will for my life.

I say that I am on a dating fast… that is changing. I am turning in my dating desires, to give them to Him entirely, not just until May 8th, but until His timing, and only if He writes the script and builds the house. My focus instead is on Christ and glorifying Him.

Day 29 - Writing the Script

I’ve been fortunate to be in some good relationships, even with solid Christian guys with good hearts, guys that at the end of the day I could say even though the relationship didn’t work out, I was glad to have had them in my life. But I’m learning that finding a good guy isn’t enough; finding that rare combination of Godly character, compatibility, and chemistry is not enough; praying and seeking God’s will strangely is not enough. That something is missing, something that is challenging the whole way I think about dating.

The verse that is on my mind today is Psalm 127:1 - “Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain.” That’s it…. Sometimes, often times, I go into a relationship thinking about what I need to do and who I need to be. I think about a checklist of priorities or traits that I’m looking for in someone and then I think about how I can make it work, even when things get tough. But what God is showing me is that I can’t build the relationship. Even me and the other person, the two of us together can’t build that relationship into what it needs to be, even if we clothe it in prayer and godly intentions. God has to not only be in the relationship, He has to build the relationship – His way, in His timing, and according to His will.

I have had times where I really thought God was in it, where both me and the guy were truly seeking God’s will. Now, though, I can look back at some of those relationships and see that God wasn’t writing the script; we were writing it, according to what we thought was His will and then prayerfully submitting it for His approval.

Honestly, I don’t know what it looks like to let God write the script in my relationships, anymore than I know what it looks like to let Him write the script for my life. So many times I come with my desires, my requests and submit them for His approval instead of seeking Him, knowing Him, gaining clarity into the direction He wants me to head. He cares about me. He wants me to have abundant life in Him, so why can I not trust Him to lead me to His best? (Psalm 23) Why do I try to pick up a pen, when He has already written a beautiful story for my life, better than anything I could think or imagine? (Jeremiah 29:11)

Day 27 – Making Tough Decisions

I have talked a lot about integrity – responding in love, seeing the full picture, acting with intentionality, making the right decisions. Sometimes, though, honestly I get stuck. I want to do the right thing, but I don’t really know what the right thing is. What then? I posed this question on my Facebook page and asked some of my trusted Christian friends as well. Then, I spent some time looking at some verses.

Here are some principles from 1 Peter 3: 8-17, that I found particularly helpful to my decision-making dilemna:

• Live in harmony with others. (v8)
• When that fails, repay others with a blessing. (v9)
• Speak well of others (v10)
• Do good (v11)
• Seek peace and pursue it (v11)
• Focus on God, not on myself and not on my situation (v12)
• Pray, knowing He is listening (v12)
• Develop and keep a clear conscience about what to do based on previous steps (v16)
• Act without fear (v14)
• Act with gentleness and respect (v15)
• Leave the results to God (v13)

As I moved down this list with my decision, I was led to really question my actions, my motives, and my focus. As I shifted my focus away from me to Him, as I really prayed about it and sought His wisdom and His clarity, my heart changed. What I needed to do changed; the decision itself changed. And I gained a whole new sense of what was right in the situation and a whole new sense of what I needed to do. Now that’s pretty cool, if I say so myself.

Day 24 – The Missing Piece

Love… do I really know how to love someone? I know how to be in a relationship with someone. I know how to care about someone. I know how to let someone into my life. But I’m not really sure I know how to love someone. And it doesn’t matter what else I bring to the table, or whatever other good is there, without love, it is useless. (1 Corinthians 13: 1-3).

I’m talking about real love, sacrificial love – a love that is patient, that is kind, a love that does not envy, and is not prideful; a love that is considerate, putting the other first, and love that is not selfish, is not about seeking self gain; a love that doesn’t respond in anger, even when blind-sided or hurt; a love that forgives instead of keeping a tally of faults or failures; a love that is honest and true, even when the truth hurts, and a love that is actively protecting, and hoping, and working for the best (1 Corinthians 13: 4-7).

The truth is even when I start out genuinely caring about the other person, when things get tough, it is too easy to become impatient and selfish, too tempting to keep track of the wrongs, the embarrassment, the pain; too risky to not be selfish; too dangerous to continue to hope.

The only hope for learning to love like the picture in 1 Corinthians is to be perfected by God’s love for me, to let His love radiate through me and change my heart and my mind, to change my natural responses from one of selfishness to selflessness, to develop a new capacity to love based on His love, His patience, His grace that He has shown me. He is the one that is slow to anger and quick to forgive. He doesn’t keep track of our sins and He is always there even when we hurt him or grieve Him. He sets the example for me to follow, for us to follow, to show us how to love each other in a radically different way, with a life-changing kind of love.

Perhaps love is not just the missing piece in my life, but also the missing piece in our society, the piece that keeps us from moving beyond selfishness to building intentional connections and community, to really sharing life with each other and really caring about the other people around us. Ah, that sounds like another topic for another day. What do you think?

Day 21 – Looking Through the Glass Dimly

I need new glasses. I am near-sighted in one eye and far-sighted in the other, so without my glasses I have a hard time getting any sense of depth perception or sanity. But because each eye is good at something, I can manage for a short time without any glasses at all. I may not have the most accurate picture or the complete picture but I can usually make do fairly well over a short period of time.

I just got new windshield wipers, thankfully. Who knew how essential these were for living in Columbia, not just for dealing with rain, but to get rid of the yellow sheet of pollen on my windshield every morning.

Over the last few weeks as I have been on this fast, I am beginning to see just how often I get used to looking through the glass dimly (1 Corinthians 13:12) – of course I am not just talking about a dirty windshield or adjusting my eyesight without the right glasses. So many times, I get used to seeing situations, people, relationships through my limited perspective. Instead of seeing how things really are, I see what I want to see, or what I expect to see. It may not be the most accurate or complete picture, but I make do and fill in the rest with my best guess.

Even my best attempts and best guesses are often well off the mark. Here is a good example. I really struggled when I left my full-time job to go back to grad school full-time. Everyone else seemed to be at a different place in their lives and I didn’t seem to fit the mold. The other night, though, as I was celebrating my less than a month to go graduation with some friends, one of them talked about how hard it was for her in grad school; this was someone that I completely thought fit the mold and had an easier time of it than most. All I could see was how hard it was for me… and it never occurred to me that it was that hard for her too. I was seeing through the glass dimly.

At other times, where I have seen hostility, there has really been hurt. Where I have seen aloofness in coworkers or colleagues, it has been their loneliness and need for true friendship. Instead of hearing what someone is saying, sometimes I assume I know what it on their mind or heart. Instead of praying and seeking God’s will, I assume I can figure it out on my own. So many times I miss what is really there or what God is trying to show me, because I become content with my dim picture.

Then I think about the Chris Tomlin song, “Give Me Your Eyes.” Oh, how I want to see as God sees. How I want to have His compassion to see the hurt and needs of others. I want to have His perspective – “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways, my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9).

I may never be able to see the full picture, but I want to see through His lenses, His love and His truth. The lenses that see us as we are, imperfect, clumsy, flawed people but that choose to view that through His incomprehensible and perfect love.

Day 17 – Speaking with Intentionality

As I ponder the integrity question, I realize that it really is a mind and heart question, both changing the way I think as well as the way I feel. I look to the book of James to start my thinking. I think integrity encompasses a lot of things, but it starts with “letting your yes, be yes and your no, be no” (James 5:12)– meaning what you say and speaking with intentionality.

This is something I struggle with and here are a couple of ready examples from the weekend. Let’s start small… sometimes I am just completely mindless in conversation. The guy behind the counter at the gym tells me to have a great workout, and I respond with “you, too” even though he is not working out, merely because I responded to what I thought he was going to say instead of actually listening to what he really had to say. It’s a small thing, but listening counts. Did I mean what I said? No, what I said didn’t even make sense.

Or the time last week in class when one of my classmates made a comment about an exam question. Instead of listening and responding to what she said, I immediately react without thinking, with my frustration at something entirely different. Speaking mindlessly.

Other times, I speak mindlessly and it has a lot more serious ramifications, disconnecting my words from the impact they will have or how I want them to be interpreted. I speak mindlessly and I hurt people that I care about, or I offend people without knowing that I have done so. I get so caught up in expressing myself that I miss what they are trying to say or I become oblivious to the hurt that I have inflicted.

Somehow, I need to pause intentionally, choose to really listen to the other person, and then respond in a way that shows I care, that I am listening to them, and that gives me an opportunity to convey the meaning that I actually want to convey. I need to speak with purpose, and to let my words match my meaning. I need to let my yes, mean my yes, and my no, mean my no.

All I can say is that kind of mindfulness is new and is much harder for me. It’s going to take discipline and practice to learn new habits, to change my mindset, to really connect with others in my conversations, so that they can trust my words and my heart.

Day 15 -- True Freedom

My heart’s cry is to be a woman of integrity. I want to act honorably and sincerely in my relationships with other people, my work relationships, my dating relationships, my friendships. I want to be known as a woman of principle and a woman of my word. Sometimes, though, I miss the mark entirely.

The truth is, sometimes I don’t even know what integrity looks like. I don’t know what the right answer or right decision is. Sometimes I get lost in indecisiveness or just start drifting along with what feels right at the moment. One of my close friends had an honest conversation with me once about my patent unreliability and indecisiveness. Wow. That was hard to hear. But he was right, that’s not who I want to be.

“True freedom has more to do with following the North Star that with going whichever way the wind blows. Sometimes it seems like freedom is blowing with the winds of the day, but that kind of freedom is an illusion. It turns your boat in circles. Freedom is sailing toward your goals” (Mary Pipher, Reviving Ophelia)

There have been many times I have just drifted along; times I have been turned in circles, doing whatever fits at the moment, but not really getting anywhere. I don’t want that anymore. I want to be fixed on Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2) That is one of the reasons I am on this fast, to seek His will, to find clarity about the decisions that I need to make and who I need to be, in dating, in my career, in every aspect of my life. So many times, my life gets so busy with noise, that I forget to “be still and know He is God.”

As much as I want to be a woman of integrity, I can’t do that if I don’t know what it looks like. How can I be a woman of integrity if I don’t have a clear sense of the principles that I want to live by? How can I act with honor if I am constantly changing my mind? How can people trust my sincerity when it changes every day?

In the days and weeks ahead, I want to focus on discerning what integrity looks like. I have some ideas – noble character like Ruth, acting in love like 1 Corinthians 13, having true beauty that comes from within.

If you have suggestions for me as well, please share them. I welcome your comments and feedback. What does it means to act with integrity and honor? And how do we live it out when integrity is not always honored by those around us?

Day 13 - Dating, Jobs, and Tattoos

Over the past several years, fear is one thing I have struggled with constantly in relationships. I am a self-confessed commitment-phobe, afraid of getting too close, of getting hurt, of hurting someone else. I’m also afraid of dating the wrong person or making poor decisions or just screwing up my life. And you know, the more I think about it, it’s true for a lot more of my life than just dating – it’s true of careers, and ministry, and buying a house, or getting a tattoo. Commitment terrifies me. I steer clear of signing on the dotted line as much as possible.

God is showing me, though, that I don’t have to be fearful in any of those situations. 1 John 4:18 says “There is no fear in love. Perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears has not reached perfection in love.” I read that and at first, I was taken back. Punishment is not what I am afraid of… but maybe it is…. I’m afraid of the consequences that might come, the failure, the hurt, the bad decisions. But I don’t have to be. God wants to perfect us in His love… it’s not that the consequences won’t necessarily come – it’s that I can trust God regardless of what happens.

I’m learning that I can trust God with my heart. I can be open and not fearful in relationships because I know that He cares and He will take care of me whether a relationship leads to heart-break or an incredible love unlike any that I’ve ever known. I can trust Him with my career, because I know that He will take care of me whether I am in the same job for 35 years or whether I am laid off tomorrow. I can trust Him with whatever comes, good or bad, because He is in control AND He cares. His grace is sufficient for me and His strength is perfect when my strength is gone.

I still worry sometimes about those decisions, but then I read 1 Timothy 1:7. “God does not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind.” When we walk with Him, He gives us the wisdom to make the right decisions, He gives us the power to live the life He has called us to live, and He has given us a love that is constant and true, even when all else fails.

We, I, don't have to be afraid of commitment. I can approach situations boldly, knowing that He has equipped me to make wise decisions, to commit to the right things. Even when I get off track or when things don't work out the way I have planned, He'll be there in the aftermath, comforting me and using it for my good. I don't have to be afraid of relationships; I have to use Godly wisdom when it comes to relationships. I don't have to know what job I will be at tomorrow, or next year, or five years from now; I have to know the one that is preparing me for the role He wants me to play. I don't have to fear; I can live abundantly in Him and in His power, trusting Him whatever tomorrow brings.

Perfect love does drive out fear.