Thanks for your response... I have a few thoughts I'll put in bold...
My other friend (an attorney, married before, now divorced) sent me a multi-page email basically saying that she feels her focus needs to be on the Lord and how the Lord is guiding her and giving her comfort about the timing of her spouse and focusing on the (other) things in her life and this very intimate relationship she has with the Lord and how she feels that she should stay focused on that....
Maybe because of her divorce, she does not yet feel ready to pursue marriage again. That's understandable... you, however, are in a different situation. Maybe it's just me, but I am not all that receptive when someone who was once married and/or has children attempts to advise me on "focusing on the Lord" and not marriage.
Here was part of my response to her:
I confess that I feel a little silly at even asking now.... it's like everyone else knows a secret about singleness and marriage that has yet to reach my consciousness. And yet I refuse to believe or accept or allow bad feelings to arise in me about this idea. This suggestion came on the heels of avoiding a very poor choice that I could have made recently. Sigh.... And yet, I feel like I made this suggestion out of a place of empowerment, not desperation. (Hopefully those last two sentences are not contradictory). I can still love, praise, honor, worship, serve my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and have full disclosure about my heart's desire on this. Maybe my problem is that I'm misdirecting my energies with human beings...pouring out my concerns on humans when they either can't or won't help me deal with this. We (Christian) human beings are supposed to help each other, I thought.... I'm not a needy person like that and if such a thing was brought to my attention, I would make emphatic moves to ensure that that would never happen again."
And what I bolded might indeed be the key to all of this. Everyone will have a different interpretation about this issue... and what God has in store for your friend does not mean that the same applies to you or vice-versa. You might need to seek your own answers on this one!
She did challenge me about my conversations being about affirmations about marriage versus specific scriptures I'm standing on with regard to God's will for my life concerning marriage. This challenge startled me. I know it is the Lord's will for me to be married. What scriptures do I have to back that up? Which scripture(s) fit/are good enough?
I've never been an expert at finding the right scripture, but I believe that the creation story is the end-all, be-all of backing up God's will that we are to marry.
Genesis 2:18 "It is not good for man to be alone."
Bam! That's good enough for me right there! Adam had God all to himself, and if that was all that Adam needed, then why would God bother to make Eve? Yet people today try to convince us that if we truly desire the Lord, then it wouldn't matter if we were married or not. That totally goes against anything written in the Bible... maybe you can challenge your friend to point out scripture that states that marriage is NOT God's will for most people? What scriptures back that up, besides the open-for-interpretation 1 Corinthians 7?
She followed up with the point that the Lord may direct my attention to some other area of my life that He wants me to focus on while the mate situation is being worked on (by Him). I do know that right now my priority is school...and yes, it is much better that I am responsibility-free while I finish this degree. Can I get this degree while I'm married? Sure. But it's even better to have the freedom to devote to this now as a single.
Again, I think that this is another well-meaning, but bad example of turning modern ideas into Biblical wisdom, when they aren't at all. PLENTY of people are married and pursuing Ph.Ds... the idea that it's better to be single so that one can devote more time to X, Y, Z is not a Biblical idea and shouldn't be used as justification for one's singleness.
Long answer to your short question, Bunny.... Maybe my (fleshly) desires for physical fulfillment got the best of me at the moment. Maybe my anxiety about my age is getting to me. That may be the underlying cause of this right now....
Sigh....
Welp... this is another argument for the importance of marriage. The desire for sex in and of itself is NOT a bad thing. We know that God created us for that and the outlet should be in marriage. So what sense does it make for churches to promote prolonged singleness with pithy cliches and then turn around and say, "But no premarital sex!!!"
Wha??? Maybe we wouldn't feel pressured into making the wrong choices if we had the proper outlet for our physical desires. A minister in England noted that Christians who choose to wait are basically being punished by their own churches if said churches don't also help those people get married... so when he preaches about abstinence, a STRONG promotion of marriage goes hand-in-hand with that sermon.
I think that you hit the nail on the head with what you said above about looking to other humans about this subject. I think most mean well, but unfortunately, they are downplaying your very REAL, HONEST and most importantly, LEGITIMATE feelings with non-Biblical cliches that push you away from the God-given desires of your heart.
