Coming to the End of Your Rope
I have never had success with dating and relationships. I always run into (I am not exaggerating when I say always) the “let’s be friends” speech. After that line, I tend to spend a few weeks in a mild depression trying to get over my anger and frustration. I mentally replay the events trying to determine where it went wrong. In the end, I do not come to a satisfactory conclusion and I find myself swearing off relationships. Then after six months to a year, I meet someone else and the vicious cycle begins again. It takes weeks or months for me to get up the courage to ask a woman out. Instead of taking a risk, I am content to passively sit by and “wait for the right moment”.
I have a close friend that I asked out. This occurred after several months of intense internal debate and prayer. We went out a couple of times and then she told me that she had some things she needed to work out. The fatalistic part of me instantly began to think the worst. The other part was trying to hope for the best and was failing miserably.
Therefore, I fell back into my passive ways. I did not ask her out again and I did not inform her of my intentions. I rationalized it as giving her space. After about a month, I realized that I needed to talk to her, regardless of the outcome. So I set up a time to meet with her over coffee. I had spent weeks praying about this. I knew I needed to take the initiative but I was afraid that it would go badly.
As the day approached, I became increasingly nervous. Then I received a phone call from a friend that would throw me for a loop. My friend informed me that there was a miscommunication between a mutual friend and me. It was severe enough that our relationship was in jeopardy. Because the miscommunication was between a female and me, I began to doubt everything. I began to worry and play through all the worst-case scenarios.
Now, normally I would continue to worry until I became sick. However, this time as I came to the end of my rope, I prayed. I had others pray for me and I quoted Scripture to help focus my mind. I understood that I could not fix any of this. So I let go. When I wanted to worry, Paul’s words to the Philippians came to mind.
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
As the days continued to pass, I knew I needed to be proactive but I did not know how it would end. Despite that, I was at peace. I had not experienced a peace like this before.
Sunset found me across the table from my friend. It took me close to an hour to steel myself to say what I wanted to say. I shared with her my desire to continue seeing each other. She expressed to me that she saw us as simply friends. And there it was again. Not the desire to listen to the blues and live in a secluded cabin. No, it was that same peace. I had no reason for why it did not work out. There was no mental replay.
I was content in the situation. I still had a close friend and life was good. It is hard to put into words. I can only attribute it to coming to the end of my rope. I turned to God for help instead of trying to fix it myself. And the outcome was unusual. I came to the end of my rope and found a foot of rope where there had been none.
Frustration and God’s Timing
I went back and read some emails that I have sent over the past year. There is some really deep stuff in those emails. I can’t take credit for it though. It was God speaking through me. It’s funny I’m still pretty much where I was in those emails. It feels like I’m in a vicious cycle. One mouth I’m doing good on my own and the next I’m moaning over how things aren’t working in my life.
I guess I’ll start with the whole dating, spouse hunting ordeal. I recently stuck my heart out on the line to see if someone shared the same feelings for me that I had for her. Let’s just say that I’ve had a perfect track record for hearing a woman tell me that she just wants to be my friend. Isn’t that what your wife/husband is supposed to be to you, your best friend? I feel like I’m in junior high every time I venture into this territory. “Can you tell so and so that I like them and find out if they like me back?” Can’t we act like adults and just tell each other how we honestly feel about each other. And no matter how much you tell yourself that you don’t care if it works out, it still feels like your heart got flattened when you hear those words. I’ve never been mad at any person in particular, just mad at myself for falling hard and letting myself get hurt. It’s a double-edged sword. You either get out there and get your heart broken or you close yourself off and not let anyone in and keep your heart intact, but you’ll be alone.
I have an idea. Let’s all become Vulcan. They are able to be social and have friendships but they have no emotions so they are not worried about whether somebody likes them. They don’t wear their hearts on their sleeves because they see no logical reason to do so. But let’s face it. We’re not Vulcans, and we are going to have to deal with our emotions. God gave them to us and understands how we think and interpret them. I wish there was an appendix on emotions in the back of the Bible to tell you how to deal with them but there isn’t so we just have to rely on God to give us the strength to endure. And so begins the great cliché that we all hear. “It will all happen in God’s timing.” Ask any person six months before God’s timing occurred and see if that phrase is comforting to them. It’s not. We can only get that peace from God and so many of us don’t want that peace. We feel for some reason or another that if we accept God’s timing then we will be 50 before we find someone.
I’ve also had several women tell me recently that I’m a wonderful Christian guy and they love my heart for God. I’ a great guy who wants to follow after God but you don’t want to go out with me. Then who do you want to go out with? Some guy that is an atheist and loves to beat women. It seems like my life is filled with paradoxes when it comes to dating. I’m a great friend and someone who will listen to their problems but I’m not husband material. I’m a godly man but not husband material. I’m a willing servant but apparently not the type of servant Paul called men to be in Ephesians.
It may sound like I’m bashing women or something but I’m really not. I’m just taking a step back and taking a look at how we go about this whole thing called dating. I think I’m so aggravated, and I’m sure many others are, with this whole convention called dating because it is a man-made concept. All man-made concepts are flawed and in turn will carry with them frustration. That is why people find no sanctuary in success, money, or power. They are all man-made and are empty. There is no substance. The same is with dating. We try to find fulfillment in dating and even in marriage but we will fail and ultimately will be frustrated if that is all we seek. The way to have marriage be fulfilling is by including God in the equation. But just by seeking God does not mean that we will automatically find our spouse.
So in the end we are back at square one. If we are seeking after God and have someone then God is good and times seem good. If we are seeking after God and don’t have someone then we question God “When?” There is no formula to plug in the pieces and get it to work. However, that is how our society is wired. We learn that if you plug in X and Y then you get the square root of Z. But God doesn’t work with equations. So when we try and plug God into an equation we get frustrated because he doesn’t fit. So really in the end, all we are left with is the old cliché. It does nothing to comfort our broken heart but it is the truth of God, and at these times all we can do is cling to the truths of God. So even if it is uncomforting, still cling to the truth that “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness.”
