Wisdom Hurts

So I realized why God is keeping me single for now, and it isn't exactly thrilling.

I really want to be a husband. I really want to be a father. I want a family. Bad.

But I also want to be a GOOD husband and a GOOD father. I've been convinced for quite some time now that I'm ready for both of those things, yet I have remained single, despite my very best efforts to change that.

And I finally figured out what the hold up is. God is trying to keep me single in order to keep me from cheating on my wife.

I'm not at all comfortable with saying this openly, but I've been trying all day to come up with literally anything else to talk about, and that's not happening, so I guess I gotta lay this out. I'm something of a womanizer. And that's bad.

I'm not at all proud of it. I know it's bad. I've made a lot of mistakes with a good sized handful of different girls over the years. There have been some I've just treated like absolute objects, some others I've idolized as visions of perfection. I'm a very passionate guy. I am deeply romantic, emotionally reckless, physically aggressive...

Yeah, it's not good.

I've managed to maintain some false idea of "behaving myself", sticking to the willfully ignorant position of knowing that I've gone too far, but didn't ever go that far, so it's not really a sin, right?

As I've already said... it's not good.

I've been praying about this whole me-being-single thing for a while now... Like, a few years... It's never far from my mind. I cannot seem to find the strength to distance myself from my own desires, whether they are actually desires of the flesh or desires of the heart doesn't matter, because either way, those desires have been getting in the way of my relationship with God.

But God wants to help me change, and that's actually pretty awesome.

I'm not by any means there yet, but it's really thrilling to know that God wants to help me change my mind in such a way that I can see a physically attractive young woman (and they're everywhere) and treat her the way He wants me to treat her no matter what my relationship to her might or might not be. That is rather difficult for me to see actually being played out, but I know it's coming.

I also know it's going to be rough going for a while. Not so crazy about that, but I know it's necessary. I want to be purified in all things - I guess that means I have to go through the fire.

But what's amazing about this is that I'm actually not all that down on myself. I normally am after I have a realization like this. I just get really angry with my own shortcomings, get really depressed about my sins, and just do not give myself anything close to a break when it comes to accepting and learning from my past mistakes.

But this time, that's not happening. This time I think I'm actually understanding a bit of what Paul talks about with that thorn in the flesh deal...

To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

- 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

Call me crazy, but I'm to the point where I'm not quite as afraid of confronting my weaknesses anymore because I know that when my weaknesses come to light, that's when God is going to shine on through them anyway. For all of my temptations, struggles, lusts, concerns, pains, and everything else, God is still able to make me stand, not on my own two feet, but by finally fully trusting in Him to show me what I need to see in order to be the man He wants me to be.

But at the same time, some of this hurts.

Part of this whole understanding of my own lust-driven nature is accepting that God might actually be calling me to be single. I really, really, really hope that's not the case. And I'll be honest, the idea scares me. I have wanted to be a husband and father for as much of my life as I can remember. Even as a young, young, young boy, I wanted to be a daddy. And I still do. That desire has not gone away, and if it does, it won't be overnight. So much of my life up to this point has shaped and reinforced that desire in me to the point that I can't imagine my life being complete without it.

But then, two years ago, I couldn't imagine myself having the relationship with God that I have now, so it's not like my imagination should be used as any sort of defining standard for the actualities of the real world.

How often are we willing to take the brutal, unflinchingly honest looks at ourselves? How often do we check our own eyes for the logs instead of checking other people for sawdust? I am, quite frankly, embarrassed by all of this. I'm not so embarrassed as to not be able to write it up. Besides, who of you is any closer to or further from God's standard of holiness than I am? We're all in the same boat.

What I'm embarrassed about though is realizing that the root of all of my problems was me. I railed against God, mad as a hornet because things aren't working out my way. It's seriously been throwing me off track just because I've been SO focused on getting SOMETHING to happen that I couldn't just sit still for five minutes and realize that maybe God still had something else to work over in me. And here I'd thought He was all done.

I've already learned so much and come so far and grown at such an exponential rate that it's hard for me to understand why I still mess up, and especially on things that I kinda feel like should already have been taken care of. I'm disappointed in myself when I make the same mistakes that I've been making for years. How have I not overcome this? Is it hopeless? Am I doomed to constant failure?

Well, yes. On my own, at least. I do still get frustrated with myself when I see the apparent lack of progress in my life, but I know that I'm doing a lot better than I used to, and that really is amazing, because I know that's not me. That's God.

I don't know where you are with God. I don't know how actively you see Him working in your life, but He's definitely working on me every day. There's not a day that goes by in which God doesn't show me something else, and it's everywhere I look.

The only snag is that sometimes I don't want to see it, because it hurts. Sometimes I don't want to face it because it's really scary what might be on the other side. I might have to give up something that I've wanted for my whole life. I might have to give up something that I consider to be a very part of who I am.

But if I'm getting rid of it in order to be closer to God, is that bad? Can I really be upset about that?

I don't have any great huge point to make here. I would like your prayers. I know I'm starting down a pretty difficult road - I'm going to be learning how to completely redefine my interaction with half of the human race - and I could use some encouragement. I could also use some patience, but that one's pretty much between me and God, I think.

I would like to encourage you to take a good, long, deep look at yourself. Ask God to show you what you need to see that's getting in your way to getting to Him. Even if it's something that you feel is completely insurmountable, look at it anyway. See where God is trying to take you. It might be a surprise how you wind up on the other end.

God loves you, no matter how often you try to convince Him otherwise.