David Bowden - "Citizen Journalists"

The Joys and Pains of Being Single

Singleness is a blessing.

Singleness is freedom.

Singleness is an opportunity to grow in Christ in ways we never could otherwise.

But so much of the time, singleness creates unhappiness in my life. And I know I'm not alone here. I can be perfectly content one day and then the next day feel the opposite. I've been asking myself why and this is what I've come up with. 

Bad Theology

We're taught in church that God has created someone for everyone. We get this idea in our heads that we have to get married. We're not taught to have an appreciation for singleness. We read in the Genesis account that God created Eve so Adam would have a help-mate, but then we skip over all of the single men and women in the New Testament. We're not taught about all of the saints in church history who lived a life of singleness - those who, because of their singleness, were able to do so much for the Kingdom of God. We don't look at someone like Mother Theresa and think, "She would have been so much happier in life if she would have just found the husband God created for her," but that's the way we look at our own lives. Because of this bad teaching and wrong emphasis, we grow up longing for and expecting marriage. Our focus turns to finding that person and away from finding God. 

Cultural Norms and Family Expectations

My parents were married right out of high school. Actually, I think my mom was still in high school. Their parents married at a young age, and most of their family married at a young age. In fact, most people they know got married at a young age. It's ingrained in their thinking that this is the norm and that this should be expected of me as well. It seems like every time I go home, someone asks me if I'm dating anyone yet. That's where their focus is, and that's where they think mine should be as well. Unintentionally, they put more and more pressure on me to find a wife, and to find her soon. There is absolutely no encouragement to spend this time of singleness seeking God and seeking His Kingdom.

Everyone's Getting Married
It seems like everyone around me is either in a serious relationship, engaged, or married. Friends, co-workers, family members. Everyone is getting married! It's incredibly hard to be content with singleness when "love is in the air." I want that. I want a girlfriend. I want to fall in love. I want a wife someday. I want the happiness that that kind of love brings. Seeing so many people being happy in their relationships just makes that desire so great that it becomes my focus. 

The Fear of Being An "Old" Bachelor

One thing that causes so much unhappiness for me is the fear of being 30 and still not married. I'm scared of waiting too long and not finding a wife. I'm scared of being a bachelor too long and not being able to adapt to married life easily. I'm scared of the idea of becoming Ted Mosby. This may seem dumb, but it's the truth. I don't want to be in my 30's and still be single. This fear has to be done away with. 

All of these things have made it so hard for me to be content with being single. They cloud my mind and shift my focus. They create restlessness and worry.

I don't think that God has called me to an entire life of singleness. Although, I think for some that is His calling. I have been assured that the direction of my life and the ministry that He is leading me towards includes finding a wife. And for that I am thankful. But when the idea of finding my future wife is the focus of my life, it becomes idolatry. I must trust in the fact that He provides all my needs, and when the time comes and I need her, He will bring us together. Until then, my focus must remain on being content in my singleness. I must spend this time of singleness focused on God and His Kingdom. Anything less than that is sin. 

Time. Reality. What is it?

I just want to clarify that this is just my working theory. This is not necessarily what I believe to be true. Right now, this is where I'm at, and this is just me attempting to organize my thoughts.

The way experience reality is moment by moment. Past, present, future. We keep track of these moments with things like watches or calendars. God has even given us day and night as a way of tracking this experience. One thing is certain: we live, or exist, moment to moment. We don't know how long a moment is, and that really isn't important. What is important is that we understand that this is how reality, for us, happens. We are constantly moving away from something (the past) and, at the same time, moving towards something (the future). We exist in the now (present).

We exist within the reality of our Creator. Sure, there are certainly limits that we have that He does not. But, nonetheless, we exist within Him. He impacts us and we impact Him. He is, by His own nature, relational and He has created us in this same existence. He wants us to experience His reality because He wants us to experience his Community. God can not step in and out of His reality any more than you or I can step in and out of existence. His reality just is, as He just is. There is no beginning to His reality and there is no ending either. Nothing exists outside of His reality.

Time for us, then, is the way we experience our existence within God's reality. I do not believe that God is outside of time in the sense that some might suggest (IE. C.S. Lewis). But I do believe there are laws of physics that govern time and space for us, and these laws do not apply to the Creator of the laws themselves. The law of physics that I want to focus on is the speed of light. According to Einstein's Theory of Relativity, time is relative to motion, and nothing can move at the speed of light. The faster you travel the more time is compressed.

Let's say we sent a man into space traveling at 160,000 miles per second and told him to return in 10 years. When he returned to earth, he would have aged 10 years. But we who were here would have aged 20 years. Time would have been compressed in half for the man traveling at that speed. Another example: Let's say we sent a man into space traveling at 170,000 miles per second. After 20 years went by on earth and the man returned, he would have only aged a single day. Twenty years of time would have been compressed into a single 24 hour day for the man traveling at that speed. One last example: even though according to Relativity this is impossible, let's just say that we sent a man into space traveling at 186,000 miles per second, or the speed of light. Time for that man will compress into an infinite or instantaneous moment.

For God, being able to surpass or at least exist at the speed of light, time would be compressed into an instantaneous or eternal moment. Each passing moment would be compressed into that eternal moment. So within that eternal moment, there is no time as we know it, or at least time seems to be nonexistent because it has become instantaneous. Every moment that comes into existence becomes a part of that eternal moment. This moment that is happening right now, this very second, our present existence, our present thought, is being compressed or becoming one with that eternal or instantaneous moment.

Something that I wonder is why does this even matter and why is it important that we understand it. I think when it comes to understanding Christ's death and the fact that He absorbed our sins on the cross it is extremely important. If we had not yet committed the sin, how could it be absorbed into Christ? And how does Christ die for the sins of all who believe in Him, if not all who will believe have believed yet, or even been born for that matter? I think this understanding of time and reality might answers these questions and so much more. Here's an example of how it would play out. Let's say I sin. After I am convicted, I repent of the sin and confess it to God. The sin that I confess is being absolved in Christ on the cross at that very moment because as the moment passed for me it became compressed into the eternal moment for God.

The future is not yet resolved, and therefore the sins of believers that will occur in the future have not yet been absorbed into Christ on the cross. Since that moment on the cross is now instantaneous, whenever someone in the future sins it will be absorbed in the same way that the sins of Moses were absorbed into Christ, at the same moment, and on the same cross.

If this is true, than when we quiet our mind and focus on Jesus, He can connect with us through time and space and He will absorb our sin in His body on the cross at the same moment that we are confessing it to him. For me, that is powerful image of our powerful God.