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Hmmm... Within my own church people rarely share with me things that I could actually help them with. They talk about health problems or delinquent children or aging parents, etc etc. But none of that I have control over. Maybe I need to be praying for something that I can actually help someone with.Before getting to marriage, which is optional, it's essential to back up a bit to what is not optional.
So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.Every Christian is to have this kind of humility and love for his brothers and sisters. It manifests itself in many ways - when believers apologize to one another and forgive each other, when someone at church has a need that you can easily fill, when a crying baby is seen to, when a wife submits to her husband, and when a husband lays down his life for his wife.
Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. - Philippians 2:1-7
See what happened there? It all has the same root. Develop that. This is what makes marriage a holy and sanctifying force - it puts a man and a woman both in stressful circumstances, where they need to do this for each other in order for the relationship to survive and thrive. It is merely a way to accomplish this sanctification.
Now, this isn't to say that spouses who are in physical danger need to remain in physical danger. Matthew 24:15-16 and and John 10:39 and Acts 8:1 show provisions for escaping danger.
I see your point. Marriage can reveal our own weaknesses and areas of improvement. That is definitely a valuable thing. Possible to be learned in a context other than marriage? Maybe...The Lord has His plans! Thus He made us and has a reason for what He did and does!
One of the things He does is teach us. He is the Teacher. So He made us and He develops us also.
So what of marriages? Not everyone gets married and the Lord talked about their being eunuchs of different types. So if someone is thinking they don't want to get married, fine. Then again, it was also said that what God puts together, let no man tear apart, and that concerning marriages. Also concerning marriages, there was something about God allowing divorce because of our hard hearts.
Considering all that, what are we supposed to do???
The answer is that we are supposed to seek the Lord and listen to what He has to personally say to us!!
Now we don't do that - not like we should. We are rebellious so don't want t listen to Him.
Is 30:9 For this is a rebellious people, false sons, sons who refuse to listen to the instructions of the Lord
So need to try and not be rebellious, and instead seek our Lord and His instructions. Does He tell you to just 'fool around' in relationships with the opposite sex? From my experience His opinions are pretty much exactly like you read in the Bible. He broken into my life when I was going through a divorce. He did not like the fact that I was going trough a divorce. He had made efforts to get into my life before that, but I had just chosen not to pay attention to Him. The divorce gave Him an opportunity for Him to get my attention, but that only meant I should have paid attention to Him early. The divorce cost me and had many effects that I did not want, but at least I learn to seek Him because of my mistakes.
I wanted another person to share my life with, and in time He set it up. He then used that and my current relationship with Him to teach me many things!! Things like the value of telling another person that you love them. I loved my first wife, but I rarely told her. There is great value in speaking the right thing. That doesn't mean that I never have argument with my current wife. But those give me opportunities to learn more about forgiveness, about watching my tongue, about continuing on an developing a relationship. about many faults that I have and need to work on, about how to handle faults in others correctly, and I could go on and on.
So what of someone saying they don't want a relationship because of the problems that they saw other have with those relationships? Are they not missing the fact that they may have something to learn by perusing a relationship.
Well, I know some women who have careers as a necessity, but would gladly drop it cold turkey to raise a family instead. So, career women aren't all out of question."Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her,"
"So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself."
Ephesians 5:25 & 5:28
"Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church"
Ephesians 5:22-23
Many problems in marriages are caused by people getting married and refusing to follow these commands. But considering 2nd Timothy 3 describes people in the last days as
"3 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, 4 traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God"
Should we be surprised? These character traits aren't conducive to a good marriage.
Finally, you mentioned observing people at your workplace. That also is contributing to your skewed view of marriage. Here's why:
"Guys: A word of advice. Marry pretty women or ugly ones. Short ones or tall ones. Blondes or brunettes. Just, whatever you do, don’t marry a woman with a career.
Why? Because if many social scientists are to be believed, you run a higher risk of having a rocky marriage. While everyone knows that marriage can be stressful, recent studies have found professional women are more likely to get divorced, more likely to cheat, less likely to have children, and, if they do have kids, they are more likely to be unhappy about it,,,
Many factors contribute to a stable marriage, including the marital status of your spouse’s parents (folks with divorced parents are significantly more likely to get divorced themselves), age at first marriage, race, religious beliefs and socio-economic status. And, of course, many working women are indeed happily and fruitfully married–it’s just that they are less likely to be so than non-working women. And that, statistically speaking, is the rub...
...To be clear, we’re not talking about a high-school dropout minding a cash register. For our purposes, a “career girl” has a university-level (or higher) education, works more than 35 hours a week outside the home and makes more than $30,000 a year.
If a host of studies are to be believed, marrying these women is asking for trouble. If they quit their jobs and stay home with the kids, they will be unhappy (Journal of Marriage and Family, 2003). They will be unhappy if they make more money than you do (Social Forces, 2006). You will be unhappy if they make more money than you do (Journal of Marriage and Family, 2001). You will be more likely to fall ill (American Journal of Sociology). Even your house will be dirtier (Institute for Social Research)."
So you're fishing in the wrong pond.
Finally, with all the nonsense going on currently, you never want to put yourself in a position where you get involved with a woman who (1) works in the same company or (2) goes to the same post-secondary school to help protect yourself from false allegations.
I should say, one of my close friends and his wife had not yet had a real argument after being married three years. I'm not sure if that's still true or not... It's not like they got along perfectly, but they were so real with each other that there was no question about why one of them acted a certain way or did something that the other didn't like. And, they both knew Jesus and kept that relationship as their main focus, so that definitely had an affect on everything else.That's been my experience as well. I remember meeting this 'happy couple', and the guy fully admitted that he always made sure to take a job that worked second shift, so that he was rarely home when his wife, that worked first shift, was home.
Two people setting up their lives to avoid each other as much as possible.
Had a pastor whose wife would publicly humiliate him. Pastor's daughter divorced her husband without reason or cause. Had a wife co-worker that would spend the entire day bad mouthing her husband.
Had another wife co-worker, who would sit there and talk about how dumb her husband was. One day she said he was retiring after 40 years at such and such job. I said he must have loved it, to which she said he hated his job. I asked why he worked there so long. "For us of course!" Referring to herself, and her daughter.
I remember just staring at her, and thinking this guy wasted his whole life working for people, that trash talk him every single day. Then she said a month or two later, that he had a heart attack, and will be confined to a hospital for most of the rest of his life.
Where are these 'happy married people' that others claim exist? I'm sure some people here will claim to be, but it's kind of like blessings of G-d.... I'm sure they exist, but I have had nothing but failure in life. Neither have I met any of these supposedly happy couples.
Similarly, I've never had a woman's involvement in my life, that had anything positive as a result.
So I don't know what to tell you, except I understand your position... I'm right there myself.
It's really doing anything that can help another person even if it inconveniences you. If your church has any sort of organized service opportunity, you can go to that - you might be giving up sleeping in or an evening of video games, but you're giving of yourself in some small way. Start easy, like with weightlifting.Hmmm... Within my own church people rarely share with me things that I could actually help them with. They talk about health problems or delinquent children or aging parents, etc etc. But none of that I have control over. Maybe I need to be praying for something that I can actually help someone with.
All true...there's also the aspect of self-sacrifice for her well being.
Yeah, a lot of times when I imagine getting married, it would be mainly for the purpose of putting everyone's concerns for me to rest. Which is a very bad reason to make such a huge decision! Single people make other people uncomfortable, I realize, and I hate feeling like the odd person everywhere I go.
I see your point. Marriage can reveal our own weaknesses and areas of improvement. That is definitely a valuable thing. Possible to be learned in a context other than marriage? Maybe...
I've been single my whole life, though I have had transient crushes on various girls over the years (and vice versa). But nothing has come from any of it - no one made any moves, or the moves weren't recognized - mainly because I was just blind to it.
All my life I've struggled to desire a close relationship with a woman. Just when I think I might be interested in seeking that, I happen to be around a married couple who's yelling at each other or just saying hurtful things or there's just a lot of drama. I loathe that and would rather die than have to live with emotional ups and downs the rest of my life. My childhood was full of that between my grandparents and parents and my friends' parents... So much tension and yelling and hurtful words and I began to hate the very idea of marriage. Now if I just hear one harsh word between spouses, my heart sinks and I'm grateful to be single.
Nowadays, as I work in the secular world I'm surrounded by people my age who have also rejected marriage but have instead opted for "swinging" and sleeping around and even polygamy. They see marriage as a joke, and they treat sex like it's purely an animal instinct as normal as eating food.
So now in addition to hating the drama and hurt that comes with marriage and relationships, I also see it as something dirty and banal - just pheromones making people "love" each other for the sole purpose of having children and preserving the "species".
I know that's not how God sees it. But I'm struggling to see it any other way... Is love really just as vulgar as hormones? For what good reason should I give myself up to a life of hurt and drama?
Suggestions? How can marriage be redeemed as a worthy goal for me?
I've been single my whole life, though I have had transient crushes on various girls over the years (and vice versa). But nothing has come from any of it - no one made any moves, or the moves weren't recognized - mainly because I was just blind to it.
All my life I've struggled to desire a close relationship with a woman. Just when I think I might be interested in seeking that, I happen to be around a married couple who's yelling at each other or just saying hurtful things or there's just a lot of drama. I loathe that and would rather die than have to live with emotional ups and downs the rest of my life. My childhood was full of that between my grandparents and parents and my friends' parents... So much tension and yelling and hurtful words and I began to hate the very idea of marriage. Now if I just hear one harsh word between spouses, my heart sinks and I'm grateful to be single.
Nowadays, as I work in the secular world I'm surrounded by people my age who have also rejected marriage but have instead opted for "swinging" and sleeping around and even polygamy. They see marriage as a joke, and they treat sex like it's purely an animal instinct as normal as eating food.
So now in addition to hating the drama and hurt that comes with marriage and relationships, I also see it as something dirty and banal - just pheromones making people "love" each other for the sole purpose of having children and preserving the "species".
I know that's not how God sees it. But I'm struggling to see it any other way... Is love really just as vulgar as hormones? For what good reason should I give myself up to a life of hurt and drama?
Suggestions? How can marriage be redeemed as a worthy goal for me?
Just when I think I might be interested in seeking that, I happen to be around a married couple who's yelling at each other or just saying hurtful things or there's just a lot of drama. I loathe that and would rather die than have to live with emotional ups and downs the rest of my life.
So now in addition to hating the drama and hurt that comes with marriage and relationships, I also see it as something dirty and banal - just pheromones making people "love" each other for the sole purpose of having children and preserving the "species"
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