Last week, I talked about whether social media bought us closer or pushed us apart. During, the article the need for intimacy and appropriate vulnerability was highlighted. On Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs intimacy, friendship and belonging come in at #3. Our generation, I believe has had a unique experience concerning this need. We are the generation with 50% singles not necessarily because we want to be, but because many of us have to be. We simply have not met someone yet who meets the standard for our lives.
Let’s be thankful however for having a standard. I do believe that there are some benefits and perks to our generation in that knowledge is everywhere. There is really no excuse not to know something. Because knowledge is everywhere; we simply do not have to make the same mistakes our parents or their parents may have made. We can wait until someone has the same understanding and value system as us and then form the unbreakable bond of marriage.
Thus, the disclaimer that there is nothing wrong with being single. However, sometimes, we can get to an age and stage in life where we desire to settle down and to have a spouse and possibly a family. This is a dream that far too many have not been able to reach. There is a longing desire for intimacy and vulnerability that also at times daunts the believer who wants to also please God with his or her life.
From the outside looking in, some would think this is an easy fix, but it’s really an obstacle course that will require lots of faith. So, I recently released the Wholeness Action Plan book that I’ve been intentionally following to build healthy community which would lead to healthy friendships and hopefully a spouse.
However, my experience like many, has been good and disappointing, but because of an expectation of the good, I continue to press. Practically, we know that it’s easy to find someone to be intimate or vulnerable with as singles desiring marriage, but it’s not easy to find someone to be intimate and vulnerable with who also desires to please God.
Because of the above, I’ve had to pass up good men in hopes of a godly man and I’m sure brothers have had to do the same with some women, but the more discouraging part is being intentional with those who appear to be godly, but just aren’t interested.
I don’t know if religion has made some men feel it is unholy to talk to an attractive Christian woman, the brothers are pursuing someone else, or I’m simply not their type, but the consistent lack of welcoming to begin a friendship that can lead to whatever can easily cause anxiety and fear. This is part of the discomfort our generation faces in desiring intimacy and vulnerability that has gone unfulfilled.
I’ve come to the resolve however that I have to simply press through the anxiety. Anxiety is a form of fear that seeks to get us stuck. It seeks to cause us to stop moving by faith, but instead to begin putting forward protective mechanisms to avoid the fear and anxiety of things not panning out again.
I was recently encouraged to keep moving forward in faith showing myself friendly because one day the right person will respond who also wants to please God. I was reading a portion of my book from the chapter case studies from brokenness to wholeness & rest.
I shared how the woman with the issue of blood had spent all she had moving by faith from one doctor to the next and none of them panned out to her healing and wholeness. She could have failed to continue moving in faith when she had the opportunity to reach out to Jesus. She could have allowed anxiety to paralyze her saying to herself she wants to avoid the discomfort of not seeing what she expected to pane out once again, but she took a chance in faith and kept moving.
Jesus responded to her need healing her.
I want to encourage my fellow Millennials, Gen Xers and all of the above that there is someone out there qualified to respond to your need. However, you cannot allow anxiety to paralyze you from moving forward in faith. You have to press through the discomfort of anxiety by faith in God’s word.
God’s word is what allows you to remain at rest and settled in what he’s said concerning you. God’s word will do the work of keeping and protecting you until your God connection is made. None of those other doctors or healers worked for the woman because it wasn’t the connection God had set aside for her to answer her need.
If God has said he’s got someone for you; believe it. Continue in faith until you get the right response.
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