Why do singles hate Valentine's Day?
We say its overly commercialized, a Hallmark holiday. We say that the expectations are too much, the romance too contrived, too arbitrary, too influenced by the companies peddling their wares.
In reality we hate it because we feel like there is nothing for us on this day. The proof that those other reasons are mere fronts for our real feelings? While a single may rail about these evils year after year, once their first Valentine's day with someone they love arrives, those objections are long forgotten as they are caught in the bliss and celebration of a love they finally found, or have perhaps recovered.
On one level, there is nothing wrong with that. If in fact there is nothing for single people on Valentine's day, then a certain amount of bitterness is justified. Why should the people who have celebrate in the face of those who have not? If we see an image of the ultra rich reveling on the streets in front of those in poverty, throwing money away because they can in front of those who don't have enough to survive, we feel a sense of injustice, and rightly so.
So is this what Valentine's day is? Is it us against them? The haves and the have not's?
If we feel this way, we are believing a lie.
We have believed that marriage is ultimate. We have believed that marriage is the greatest expression of love on the earth and since we don't have it, we are missing out. If we do have it, we have accomplished or have experienced the greatest thing this side of heaven.
This lie is not a product of our culture, of our money hungry companies out there to tell us anything they can to make a quick buck. This lie is a product of our own hearts. The Jews in the times of Jesus also believed this. In speaking to the Pharisees, Jesus puts human marriage in its rightful place.
"But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven." Matthew 22:29-30.
We like the fairy tales and the romance novels. "We will be together forever." It is romantic and sensational. We look into the eyes of one who loves us for who we are, not what we have done (hopefully) and we know we don't ever want to be apart from that. We want that for as long as we exist, well into the depths of eternity. We can't imagine that anyone else will love us that way. We see this as ultimate and nothing could be better.
Paul says in Ephesians 5:31-32
"'Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church."
What the Bible tells us that the ultimate expression of love is Christ, his incarnation, his life, his death, his resurrection. Nothing is greater. It says marriage refers to this. Marriage is a taste of this. And as great of a taste it is, it is not THE taste, it is A taste.
Marriage is not ultimate. So there is no "missing out". There should be no "us" and "them", the "haves" and the "have nots". If we have been adopted as his sons and daughters we all have, and we all have it equally.
The applications are many. First, singles, let us celebrate along with our married friends. Don't make them walk on eggshells, afraid to remind us of what we "don't have". They experience an amazing picture of God's love and it is worth celebrating.
Second, let us celebrate what we do have. We get tastes of this same love as well, for the basis of that taste is our adoption as sons and daughters of God. Knowing this for ourselves, leading others to it, sharing in the experience of adoption with others. We see these as less of an experience because we have built up the other too high in our own minds.
Third, if marriage is a taste of Christ, then there are in fact "have nots". Not singles but those who are without Christ. Let us not forget them. Is that not what St Valentine was doing anyway? Loving those who needed it, sharing the gospel with those who had not heard?
I am desperately thirsty and I want everything that God has for me. I want to taste and see that the Lord is good. I want to experience all the fullness of all the glory of God's love through Christ. He is helping me realize that marriage is not THE way he does this. He fills me with promises, making me remember that heaven will be the same, whether I marry on earth or not. He tells me, "You already know this love, go share it." He adopts me as his son, not because of what I have done but because of who he is and what he has created me to be. I know this love and will gladly celebrate it today.
Happy Valentine's day.
Showing posts with label singleness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label singleness. Show all posts
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Friday, January 13, 2012
Greater Blessings
I mentioned this before and if you know me, I have never been otherwise.
I am single. I like long walks on the beach, sunsets, poetry, moonlit walks in the woods in the snow...oh wait...that was for my E-Hamony profile, not here...sorry. Though all of these things are true ; )
I have noticed something and it gets stronger every year I remain single. People around me want me to get married. This is all well and good. They want me to be happy. They want what they have for me.
The problem is, I start to want it.
I am desperately thirsty. There is much beauty and much grace and much growth in marriage. It is God's illustration to us of Christ and his church. There is much that marriage makes real to us: our sinful nature, a practical realization of how much God loves us, a close look into the design that God has for us as humans that function in one body. I get thirsty for that and at times will fix my mind on it.
The problem is, if its not God's time, this want leads me down the wrong path, a path of false intimacy, of depression, of utter distraction and bad stewardship of the gifts and skills God has given me. No amount of "God has a plan," or "The perfect person is waiting for you just around the corner," will satisfy my thirst.
Thank God that he is a generous and giving God. He does not expect me to give up everything for nothing in return. He faithfully gives everything to those who will give up anything.
"Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely separate me from his people”; and let not the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.” For thus says the Lord: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off." Isaiah 56:3-5
"Sing, O barren one, who did not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married,’ says the Lord” Isaiah 54:1
John Piper says this in his exegisis of this passage.
"Take heed here lest you minimize what I am saying and do not hear how radical it really is. I am not sentimentalizing singleness to make the unmarried feel good. I am declaring the temporary and secondary nature of marriage and family over against the eternal and primary nature of the church. Marriage and family are temporary for this age; the church is forever. I am declaring the radical biblical truth that being in a human family is no sign of eternal blessing, but being in God’s family means being eternally blessed. Relationships based on family are temporary. Relationships based on union with Christ are eternal."
In prophesying the coming of Christ and the New Covenant, Isaiah is pointing to a radical shift in culture, that the offspring that God cares about are not phyiscal offspring, but spiritual offspring. This is emphasized in his prophesy of Christ in Isaiah 53, “It was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.” (quoted and emphasized by Piper in the same sermon).
Now I am not trying to make an unfair judgement on married couples. The reward for spiritual offspring is for all of God's faithful. What the text says is that the blessings of spiritual offspring is better than the blessings of physical offpring, and that one who is barren physically but faithful spiritually can have more spiritual offspring in eternity than one who is married. The math is simple. Marraige takes a ton of time and raising children even more. Parents have to do both, raising phyiscal and spiritual offspring, a full time ministry if there ever was one, one that will have unique heavenly rewards. After all, there must be a next generation of parents and singles to carry on after we are gone right? Singles can take all that time and energy and pour it forth fully to the birthing and discipling of spiritual offspring and God promises to reward us handsomly for doing so.
So what does God do? He takes my thirst for something now and gives me a taste of something greater. In this wilderness, he tells me that singleness is not a space between times, a transition into "real life". He tells me "Come! See what I have for you! I will give you over and abundantly more than you can imagine. Now do my work." I taste and see that the Lord is good and it quenches my thirst.
So to all of those around me who inadvertantly and well-meaningly make me thirsty for something that God does not have for me now, ask me what I am doing, not who I am dating. Pray that I will win souls in my workplace, my ministries, my friendships, not that I will win the heart of a woman. Don't be disappointed when I am not seeing someone, be disappointed when I see a chance to share the Gospel and forgoe it. Whet my appetitie for heaven, not my appetite for intimacy. Make me thirsty for what God wants me to be thristy for and help me run to the fountain of living waters to be filled. I will be happier there than any other place, I promise.
And when the day and opportunity comes when I need the help of another in order to accomplish this call of God, there will be someone there, probably joining me on a beach watching a sunset. I hear the sand at Eagle Creek Resevoir is pretty nice.
Here is the link to John Piper's full sermon. http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/single-in-christ-a-name-better-than-sons-and-daughters
I am single. I like long walks on the beach, sunsets, poetry, moonlit walks in the woods in the snow...oh wait...that was for my E-Hamony profile, not here...sorry. Though all of these things are true ; )
I have noticed something and it gets stronger every year I remain single. People around me want me to get married. This is all well and good. They want me to be happy. They want what they have for me.
The problem is, I start to want it.
I am desperately thirsty. There is much beauty and much grace and much growth in marriage. It is God's illustration to us of Christ and his church. There is much that marriage makes real to us: our sinful nature, a practical realization of how much God loves us, a close look into the design that God has for us as humans that function in one body. I get thirsty for that and at times will fix my mind on it.
The problem is, if its not God's time, this want leads me down the wrong path, a path of false intimacy, of depression, of utter distraction and bad stewardship of the gifts and skills God has given me. No amount of "God has a plan," or "The perfect person is waiting for you just around the corner," will satisfy my thirst.
Thank God that he is a generous and giving God. He does not expect me to give up everything for nothing in return. He faithfully gives everything to those who will give up anything.
"Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely separate me from his people”; and let not the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.” For thus says the Lord: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off." Isaiah 56:3-5
"Sing, O barren one, who did not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married,’ says the Lord” Isaiah 54:1
John Piper says this in his exegisis of this passage.
"Take heed here lest you minimize what I am saying and do not hear how radical it really is. I am not sentimentalizing singleness to make the unmarried feel good. I am declaring the temporary and secondary nature of marriage and family over against the eternal and primary nature of the church. Marriage and family are temporary for this age; the church is forever. I am declaring the radical biblical truth that being in a human family is no sign of eternal blessing, but being in God’s family means being eternally blessed. Relationships based on family are temporary. Relationships based on union with Christ are eternal."
In prophesying the coming of Christ and the New Covenant, Isaiah is pointing to a radical shift in culture, that the offspring that God cares about are not phyiscal offspring, but spiritual offspring. This is emphasized in his prophesy of Christ in Isaiah 53, “It was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.” (quoted and emphasized by Piper in the same sermon).
Now I am not trying to make an unfair judgement on married couples. The reward for spiritual offspring is for all of God's faithful. What the text says is that the blessings of spiritual offspring is better than the blessings of physical offpring, and that one who is barren physically but faithful spiritually can have more spiritual offspring in eternity than one who is married. The math is simple. Marraige takes a ton of time and raising children even more. Parents have to do both, raising phyiscal and spiritual offspring, a full time ministry if there ever was one, one that will have unique heavenly rewards. After all, there must be a next generation of parents and singles to carry on after we are gone right? Singles can take all that time and energy and pour it forth fully to the birthing and discipling of spiritual offspring and God promises to reward us handsomly for doing so.
So what does God do? He takes my thirst for something now and gives me a taste of something greater. In this wilderness, he tells me that singleness is not a space between times, a transition into "real life". He tells me "Come! See what I have for you! I will give you over and abundantly more than you can imagine. Now do my work." I taste and see that the Lord is good and it quenches my thirst.
So to all of those around me who inadvertantly and well-meaningly make me thirsty for something that God does not have for me now, ask me what I am doing, not who I am dating. Pray that I will win souls in my workplace, my ministries, my friendships, not that I will win the heart of a woman. Don't be disappointed when I am not seeing someone, be disappointed when I see a chance to share the Gospel and forgoe it. Whet my appetitie for heaven, not my appetite for intimacy. Make me thirsty for what God wants me to be thristy for and help me run to the fountain of living waters to be filled. I will be happier there than any other place, I promise.
And when the day and opportunity comes when I need the help of another in order to accomplish this call of God, there will be someone there, probably joining me on a beach watching a sunset. I hear the sand at Eagle Creek Resevoir is pretty nice.
Here is the link to John Piper's full sermon. http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/single-in-christ-a-name-better-than-sons-and-daughters
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