Several years ago, I embarked on a dating fast, an intentional time away from dating to seek God’s will for my life in dating relationships, specifically seeking His healing and His direction. What does it mean to be a woman of integrity in dating? What I realized is that dating for me had become a distraction from God, from the ministry and the life I felt God was calling me to live. It was a 50 day journey and without a doubt one of the most meaningful times in my life spiritually, as I dove into scripture and sought God with a new level of earnestness.
Now, I am choosing to set out on a similar but different journey, to once again seek God’s will in my life, for my dating relationships and for marriage - eleven weeks, today, my birthday, until the end of the year. I will likely revisit some of the themes of the past, some of the lessons learned. But I also want to dive into new scriptures. I want to look intentionally at God’s will and His plan for marriage. I want to challenge myself to not view dating as necessarily a distraction. It certainly can be a distraction. But I want to look at how it can be not a distraction but rather how it can be a tool that God uses to show us the way, to lead us into deeper relationship with Him and a deeper understanding of His love for us.
For me, this journey is not so much about whether or not I want to get married or will get married. I want to go through this journey to look at marriage again from God’s perspective, to see it as a celebration of His love and goodness , a picture of His redemption and grace, a glimpse of His glory, apart from the distorted view of brokenness and sin. Hebrews 13:4 says, “Marriage should be honored by all…” This journey for me is about honoring marriage more, not valuing singleness less. The last thing I want to do is feed discontentment in my life. I want God’s best for me, whether single or married. And I want to honor the institution of marriage and family that He created.
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