Have you been longing for a relationship?

I too was there. In this too, God has matured my mindset that I am to date with the intention of marriage. The past year, I’ve been praying for a life partner in my mission work and call towards Jesus. “Purity”, that was the word God gave me as I am called to wait. In a world where many prefer ‘sex without strings and marriage without rings’, how could I guard the purity of the mind and purity of action? I read 1 Thes 4:3-7,

"It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God”

It is God’s will as people in this world, but not called of it, to avoid sexual immorality. Do you know there’s a correlation between purity and holiness? I want to be holy as He is holy. What that calls me is to be pure—for the pure in heart will see God (Matthew 5).

“For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.” (v.7)

In a generation that holds sexuality loosely, we seem to forget the ties of the physical to the emotional. The consequences you pay most..are paid emotionally. Guarding the act preserves the emotions. Spending in the act bankrupts the emotions. This is the way God has made us. One author made his point:

“They play at love-making so much that it loses all its sacredness. Caresses become cheap and common things to be dispensed to almost passer-by. Such a girl, to use a figure from James Lane Allan, becomes like a bunch of grapes above a common path where everybody that passes takes a grape. He who takes does so without reverence and to his own impoverishment. In the golden coin of real and abiding affection such spendthrifts soon become utter bankrupts.”

And for this, I learn to guard my walls. Firstly, because God has commanded me to honor His word. I know He is not withholding good from me, but He knows what is best for me and what will give me the most joy. Second, that my body is the temple of the Living God and for His honorable use.

1. A Partner Who is Equally Yoked

In our loneliness, we often give in to certain fundamentals we have—such as in the aspect of faith. You may reason, ‘He is a kind man!” or “He is not religious, but he’s spiritual!”But you are not equally yoked.

You can either compromise your values with momentary physical comfort or you can nip the relationship in the bud knowing that it will not meet my deepest need of the sharing of faith.

Your relationship with God is the deepest, most profound and most important part of your soul. If relationship is about connecting all of ourselves to another, then the spiritual aspect is inconceivable significant. So we all yearn for a person that we can be one with, all the way down to the core self, where God resides also.

I was listening to John Piper's podcast, "I feel called to Missions --Should I date Someone who Doesnt?"

In our human limitation, for us who are called to missions, we think we have to sacrifice missions for a relationship with a spouse. It's either you sacrifice mission. or you sacrifice a spouse.

The best place to find a like-minded husband/wife is precisely on the path of your missionary calling. Follow your sense of God's leading towards mission, with a patient trust, that if you don't dishonor God in your gift of singleness, He might have for you a third way.

- John Piper

So stay patient. Keep walking your lane.

2. Enforcing Boundaries

Boundaries help you to be the person God created you to be. Boundaries is your fence guarding your house. In dating, your house is your soul. And it defines you~who you are and are not.

Boundaries help us from being with the wrong person. When we have developed boundaries, we are more drawn to healthy, growing people. We are clear about what we will tolerate and what we love.

You may think if it’s consensual, it is not hurting anyone. When sex occurs outside of marriage, someone is always wronged.

1. They are taking away a very precious aspect of themselves and someone else which is of great value and esteem and cheapening it. It becomes casual, of lesser value, and will have less value later with someone they really care about.

2. They are using them for their own pleasure and lust, and that is a long way from love.

3. While they are using them, they are keeping them back from finding someone who will truly value them.

4. They are coming in between a person and God. God has asked everyone to submit their sexuality to him so that he can develop it and guide it to marriage. Sleeping with someone causes them to disobey God and creates a barrier between God and them.

Love waits and respects. Lust wants it now.

In 1 Thes 4:4, God commanded, “Each of you should learn to control his own body.” Why does Jesus encourage us to practice self-control in our desire to love? For love is full of sacrifices for the other person.

A person capable of delay in gratification and self-control is able to love well. If someone cannot control their own desire and delay their own pleasure, what makes you think he/she can sacrifice for you?

If someone does not have self-control, how can one delay the gratification of getting his or her own way in conflict?

We put on our training wheel of self-control now so that we can sacrifice our will to love the other person better.

3. Don’t taint God’s good gifts

Lastly, I don’t want to taint God’s good gifts. If the eyes are the window of the soul, I can cheapen the gift of intimacy by not guarding my eyes. God meant the marriage bed to be kept undefiled because His presence sanctifies the act.

Can there be freedom?

Though perhaps not perfectly, I believe there is freedom from sexual immorality. There is freedom from old addictions and habits. God has given us the power to flee from temptation and overcome it. That we are to clothe ourselves with Christ Jesus and put to death our sinful desires (Romans 13).

I too believe that God is a faithful God. And He gives us the desires of our heart for He puts them there.

—

If you are waiting for someone, be a person of the light, and people of the light will be drawn to you. Don’t demand perfection. But demand righteousness. For a righteous person will be connected to the Source, and when he falls, he will be open to that correction and take himself back to God.

If marriage is as grand as the Bible intended it to be, then it is well worth the wait until the right moment for the right one.

Lord, if I hear a ‘No’ or ‘Not yet’ from you, help me to obey. Keep me from anything that will distract me from doing your mission for me this season. I know how wonderful the plan you have for me is. As a bride to the bridegroom, keep my eyes centered on you first Lord until the Day comes.

In whatever the Lord ordains,

Tam