WARNING: THIS MAY COME ACROSS A LITTLE DEPRESSING INITIALLY...! PLS STICK WITH ME, I THINK YOU WILL END ENCOURAGED & SPURRED ON!!♥️
I have noticed over the years how much longer Christians are living a single life and then often noticeably panicking as they approach or pass 30! People are still dating, but research tells us that people are single for way, way longer than they used to be, nationally the average age of marriage is now 37 in the UK, that's a 10 year increase in the last 40 years! Christians still marry younger than average but the trend is the same.
Why does it matter, you may be asking?
Well, simply marriage and having kids are the best things that can happen for you personally, after giving your life to Jesus obvs. I think we need to be reminded of that. Yes you can have a great life while single, but it is not as good, especially for a Christian. There I said it 😆.
When we marry and share that love, bond, openness and excitement we can kick ourselves for not having it sooner. I don’t mean we will wish we married someone else before we met our partner. I mean that maximising the amount of years we can share with our husband or wife is something we will definitely want to have done. Practical little things like our bodies, they are at their prime in our 20s to make the most of adventures, backpacking across Europe, sex marathons, (running marathons too if thats your thing), doing up a house together and all that stuff. Sure you can do it all in 30s/40s/50s and beyond but I don’t think we want to be telling our spouse, ‘I wish you could have seen my body when it looked it’s best!’. On the subject of sex, you will (hopefully) want to have lots of it. Its great! So imagine how much sex we miss out on if we waste ten years… it’s worth a thought right! It is the same with everything else too, the holidays, the west end shows... all the memories we would love to have had with them.
Marriage is not the cherry on the cake but the cake itself. All the good stuff, fillings, icing and sprinkles are what come out of marriage. If we wait until we have a perfect life, career, house, etc etc we are missing the joy of baking these things together.
More importantly most of us want to have kids, (you should it’s amazing btw) and I will say it without ambiguity, in my opinion, you want to have them younger. Why? You get to share as much of their lives as possible that way. Simple. Also there are limitations on our bodies, especially you ladies. We should not pretend they don’t exist, too many are getting caught out at the moment trying for kids in their late 30s/40s and struggling. Viability of an egg in your 20s is 90% by 40 its already down to 25%! The biological fact of healthy kids also statistically changes at an alarming rate as ladies get older. I am not saying 30s is old. I am sure you will be beautiful and sexy way into later life, but your womb does have a best before date on it. This is not meant to offend anyone, I am just caring enough to point out facts we should not ignore. Finally decades together does matter, growing together and a marriage over many decades is like an oak tree, it has deep roots and is able to bless and benefit those around it. There is something wonderful about a long life together and getting old watching the grandkids.
ASIDE: I may write a post about why I feel has changed at some point, but what I have said so far and the myths below do touch on them. The main change I feel is with the ladies. Though it is complex and layered it can be incapsulated in this; a major shift in the priorities for what is important, what equals societal success and what brings personal happiness. Clue, nothing of what comes most naturally and exclusively to women is promoted and praised today.
There are a number of myths which I believe cause Christians to put off dating and delay marriage here are just a few worth considering. 😄
Caveat, these are not hard a fast rules! Just some of my observations and hopefully some food for thought! Let me know what you think :-)
Myth 1 = ‘I need to work on myself’ 💪🏼
There has been a tsunami of self help interest over the last few decades. Now clearly there is nothing wrong with being our best and we certainly want to becoming more like Jesus!
However, self improvement can become a runaway train leading to self absorption and, if unchecked, total narcissism! Yes if you lean in to being a bit self absorbed Self Help will be your new religion!
But it is everyone too, people can fall in to a trap of doing courses, reading self-help books and loving themselves so much nobody else has a chance.
It is hard to date someone who is already dating themselves!! Lol
We will always have character flaws and things to work on. Sure, if we have some big character flaws it is better to deal with those before starting a relationship so you are going in healthy. However, when we are married great things happen.
When a person chooses to love us despite our flaws. This encourages us to love ourselves too and it creates a positive environment for change. A spouse also brings a different perspective which helps us see our flaws more clearly. The irony of self help is that the areas we need most help with we are often blind too and so cant help ourselves anyway!🙃
A 2013 research paper; Knot Yet: The Benefits and Costs of Delayed Marriage, said that young adults see marriage as the 'capstone' instead of the 'cornerstone' in other words it is 'something they do after they have all their other ducks in a row, rather than a foundation for launching into adulthood and parenthood.'
So remind yourself, you don’t have to be perfect. We never will be and, shocker, neither will our partner! We don’t need to have it ‘ALL together’ and part of the fun of marriage is growing together as one flesh, doing life and that includes friction that helps us both flourish.
Be committed to change and supple up (like 'new wine skins' to quote the Bible) but don’t let improving your self become a barrier to dating and marriage.
Marriage is to be brave enough to invite someone else to be part of your growth, for life!
Myth 2 = ‘Plenty of Fish’ 🐟
This is a bizarre one because it is true, there are more ‘fish’ (though, read myth 5) yet it has the opposite effect to what is implied by the saying.
For most of human history people had relatively small networks. There was a HUGE shift in the last few hundred years with urban dwelling and modern transport making regular travel possible. However, that change was nothing compared to the event of online dating. Tinder type apps, including the Christian versions, Social Media in general our networks are global and the dating ‘pool’ just turned in to the Atlantic Ocean!!!
There really are plenty of fish in the sea, but research has proven over and over the more choice we get the worse it is for us! Psychological studies show people who are presented with more choice become more anxious, take longer to choose and are more likely to not purchase anything! So often we are debilitated by either the thought that something better is round the corner or it’s all just too much so we won’t choose at all incase we get it wrong..!
So yes there are lots of options. I would say don't overlook the people right under your nose. God has made lots of awesome people and your spouse might be someone you grew up with, or went to uni with 5 years ago and liked but never explored any further with etc.
If you do use some online services then don't be a douche bag. If you match with people then talk to them and find out if they are interesting enough to you to meet for a date. If you decide they are not that’s cool, if you meet for a date you are more likely to know.
Myth 3 = Dating is not a Christian thing to do🤥
Lets stick with fishing, though I don’t fish lol! However, we all understand some pretty basic principles. You don’t catch anything without throwing in a line. It does not matter how many fish are in the sea if you don’t go fishing! Right!!!
Hopefully we can agree that, short of God dropping someone from the sky, it is not going to happen unless you are part of making it happen. So is it right to date? The short answer is yes!
There is nothing even remotely sinful about dating someone to see if you like them, and they you, and to find out a bit more about each other. Chemistry is an important factor of any relationship. It is not what sustains you but it will always be important. Like all chemical reactions the two different chemicals don’t react when sat in their own little Petri dishes. You need to mix them a bit, they need to touch. That’s when you can see/feel chemistry. It maybe someone you have known a while but never considered them in a romantic way, it might be the friend who serves with you on the kids team, it might be your siblings' bestie… whatever.
Until you are brave enough to meet up and just chat and see how you get on you will never know.
When you think you feel some chemistry that’s not a done deal, there is compatibility. Do you actually WORK together, what are your hopes and dreams and calling, do they align. What do they feel about things we care about and vice a versa. What extras do they bring, good a bad.
Caveats:
1) They need to love Jesus. No, they really do! 2) Dating and feeling for chemistry is done with our pants on. 😆 Chemistry should make us want to take them off, yeah for sure. However, loving Jesus and loving people (inc. future spouses) means we feel for sparks but don’t let the passions start a fire we cant control. I have failed at this, so no throwing stones here, but you know what the best looks like. For more on how to keep it to a simmer till the right time see my post about sex before marriage
So go date! It doesn’t have to be weird or stuffy. If you can meet up casually before calling it a date then great. Say, 'hey you seem interesting and it would be great to get to know you a little better'. See what you think, be open to possibility! Then if you think there is more to explore ask them on a date. Yes ask them ‘on a date‘ specifically. Communication is key, we say that we are interested to find out more about them, after a few dates if we don't feel it is a good fit, let us be honest and honouring to let the other know and keep the friendship.
Myth 4 = ‘the one’...☝🏼
Let me just say this is not a thing. God has created loads of wonderful people, we could marry any number and experience a fantastic God filled marriage. If God had just one person for us can you imagine the chance of us managing to do the right things to meet them? Lol, not a chance! On the day God tried to set up a meeting we may have a bad mood, we don’t have the boldness to flirt or we choose to wear double denim... The idea is not kingdom, if anything it’s Greek in origin and reinforced by modern pop culture.
The ‘one’ is the one we choose and then grow with by choice, it’s not some predestined fate. This would start us off on a false foundation as marriage is about a lifetime of choosing each other. There will be many times we have to choose our spouse even when we don’t feel like it, there will be even times we have to choose our spouse though it pains us. If we believe in this magical perfect ‘one’ then when they do something wrong or it gets hard we can convince ourselves that they were obviously not the one. That is all kinda wrong!
Imagine if we have a checklist the length of our arm and they have the same the likelihood of us all checking off each others list completely is almost impossible!
I am not saying lower our standards, I am saying we need to allow ourselves the chance to find out if we even know what we are looking for. I have a sneaky feeling that far too often we dismiss people way too early. The version of them you know from a distance is most likely very different from that up close.
Myth 5 = ‘I have plenty of time’⏰
Right please stick with me here or you might get upset with me before hearing what I am actually saying…
Society has changed. Much for the better, some not so much especially when it comes to finding a partner. One of the effects of myth 1, the self improvement trap, is the inevitable amount of time this take. While we maybe ‘working on ourselves’. a third of eligible/desirable options may have disappeared. Think about this, since 2017 the MAJORITY of young adults go to university, couple this with highly mobilised & global world of work and we can be way in to our 20s before we are even remotely settling in to an area.
All the time the options for marriage are reducing. Yes I said that. Your options are reducing day by day. Now I am not trying to panic you, but I want to point out that it is a very, very obvious fact and one I think we can be sadly encouraged to ignore.
Another large change is the number of women ‘focusing on a career before settling down’. Women have been going to work now for decades but increasingly they are in more demanding careers. I am not saying that the change is wrong, it is not. However, one of the observable effects is that ladies are leaving it longer to start dating and, even when in relationships, much longer before having children which is causing havoc for many (I will talk about this another time). Within our group of friends, colleagues and church community the number of potential partners is constantly reducing which means waiting until we are in our late 20s, by default, may have halved their options in just 5 years.
Also, just to point out, for ladies it’s a little more tricky as church unfortunately has about 60/40 split female to male.
The additional challenge to waiting a long time is that we become more established and independent in every way. This can become quite something to overcome! I have witnessed this in counselling couples a few times where neither feels they can flex to fit the other. This is not stubbornness, I don’t mean that, I mean quite legitimately they have very separate and established lives careers etc.
So get your butt in to gear! 👍🏼 Of course this doesn't mean we propose to the next available and half decent looking guy or gal. What I do mean, is we may need to get a bit more serious in finding someone to share our lives with. There is nothing silly about being proactive guys AND girls!
Bonus Myth 6 😆 Jesus is NOT enough, He never has been!
I did a wee video a year ago (ish), which had a lot of comments from people thanking me as they felt unspiritual, I will add it below. But here is the gist.
In the beginning Adam was in Eden and it was awesome, he had a close relationship with God, like they walked and talked together close! However, God saw that it WASN’T enough, in fact man being alone was the first thing in the history of the universe which God said wasn’t good!!! So He created Eve, thank you God! We are created for relationship with each other and that finds it's most wonderfully full and beautifully expressed in marriage.
Now I am NOT saying that we should be looking for someone to ‘complete you’. Marriage is two whole people joining to become a new person. Not two halves joining. So we need to have the right perspective on this. Nevertheless, the idea that Jesus is enough has never been true for the majority. This is why celibacy is considered a gift in the Bible, it is a given thing to some and not the normal for most.
I have noticed that many people seem to be using this as an excuse not to engage in dating. Perhaps it is fear of the unknown, heartache or past hurts. I totally understand and I am not saying they are not or valid. I have them! However, we mustn’t con ourselves out of sharing our lives with someone.
That's all for now...
Ok well there is loads more 'myths' we could discuss and perhaps I will do another post sometime on the subject, but these are some thoughts I have had and wanted to share.
Can I encourage you to be daring in dating! Take a few risks, people may surprise you!
I think the key to dating is to be light and polite. Don’t get too heavy to quick etc… Actually I will do a post on dating tips that could be fun!
If you are reading this summer 2021, I am single. Hopefully, I will be taking my own advise and not be single if you reading this in 2022! 😂
SHARE THIS POST TO ENCOURAGE EVERYONE TO BE A LITTLE MORE DARING IN DATING!!
Big love
Joss
♥️
Some links to some of the references and some interesting stats / reading:
'Knot Yet: The Benefits and Costs of Delayed Marriage - The research is hard to find now but referenced a lot.
#dating #christiandating #christiansingles #single #christiandatingadvice #datingadvice #plentymorefishinthesea #theone #marriage #christiansex
コメント