If You Are Single ...
If I could sit down with single people one on one and just offer them one piece of advice it would be…
Desperation In Dating Always Leads To Destruction!
How do you know you are desperate?
◦You are compromising! (And…if you are compromising you KNOW you are doing so!)
◦You are listening to your friends more than you are listening to Jesus.
◦You have placed your value in whether or not he calls and asks you out for a second date (or whether she says yes to a second date!)
◦You view yourself as "damaged goods" and believe that you are not worth very much.
◦You believe the myth that "I am miserable because I am single" and believe that marriage will solve all of your problems.
◦You are pretending to be someone you are not because you fear if you were who you really are the person you are dating would not like you!
◦You are with a person who is leading you away from Jesus, not closer to Him.
Desperate people rarely make good decisions and reality is that some singles reading this may be pursuing a relationship that has warning signs all over it…but instead of paying attention to that you believe that if you push through that eventually the other person will become who you want them to be!
But…the book of Proverbs says, "The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty." (Proverbs 22:3) In other words…if we see danger in something (like maybe our dating relationships) and we pursue them anyway then we are clearly told there is a penalty to pay.
Desperate people hardly ever make great decisions. The worse thing that you could do for your future spouse and children is become desperate and grab on to whomever just happens to be in front of you.
Desperation in dating always leads to destruction. My prayer is that if you are wrestling with this that you would turn your desperation for a date into a desperation to hear the voice of the Lord (Jeremiah 29:13) and allow Him to shape your view of dating and marriage more so than the culture we are living in.
The ONE THING I know about the Lord is that HE IS GOOD…and if HE IS GOOD then so are HIS WAYS! AND…whenever HIS WAYS and my ways are not the same it is I who need to adjust my thinking (Isaiah 55:8) because in doing so there is hope, life and freedom! We should NOT be desperate when there is a God in heaven who wants greater things for us than we could ever imagine!