In this post I return to the original spirit of this blog and am
again writing simply - saying naught but what
I have learned through
relatively recent experience.
So let the story begin...
Due to the immense pressure placed upon me by family and coworkers
I began dating in the vain effort to find a godly woman among worldly
"Christians" This took place over the past 10 months or so, I dated
three women (one at a time) they were all nice people, and being the optimist
that I am I thought that perhaps it would be a successful effort. It was
successful in every way, with the glaring exception of meeting the stated goal,
that goal of finding a godly woman. So why then was it still a success?
Because it clarified exactly what I am looking for, and it
“proved” (at least momentarily) to certain harassing people that finding a wife
is no easy task.
First Revelation: The strongest reaction to discovering others
sins should not be negative thoughts against them, but thankfulness that we are
free from experiencing the consequences and guilt of that sin.
To realize what I mean by this let me first give some background.
Undoubtedly the reader may think this sounds crazy – but it is true and has a
considerable impact on my life. Sometimes I experience – I don’t know what you
want to call them – but out of nowhere a “movie clip” plays in my mind’s eye.
In my head I see a happening, an event, or an experience, so real it is as if I
am there. It always involves myself – or a close member of my family or someone
I care about. These “sightings” always involve situations of physical or
spiritual danger that a loved one or I is going through – they have never been
“real” that I am aware of, but things that could happen. For specific examples
– I might see someone dying in an auto accident, or someone reject long held
biblical teachings. When I see these things I feel anguish, terror, fear,
sadness etc., as if, or nearly as if it actually happened, and it immediately
causes me to pray about it, that it would not happen, that God would guard them
about it, and ultimately ends in thanksgiving that such a thing has not really
occurred. Though sometimes it may have occurred and I don’t know for certain, like
a “vision” that someone committed some certain sin, in which case I pray that
they can become free from it.
Second Revelation: Killing one’s self to escape a reality only
traps one in the very thing they are trying to escape.
This one came to me as I imagined if I had sinned in the same way
this one girl I dated had. I would want to kill myself, which made me consider
that for perhaps the first time with sincerity that doing such a thing would
merely be turning one Hell into another.
Third Revelation: Marrying a woman who disagrees with me on
biblical teachings I feel strongly about would be tormenting.
In other words, agreeing to disagree only works for minor things. This much I knew before, but I hadn’t realized
how major certain things were that I thought to be minor.
Forth Revelation: "I KissedDating Goodbye" by Joshua Harris has a lot of good principles.
The third girl I dated, on our second date, she told me about the
aforementioned book and suggested I read it. So we read it together. Not sure
why or how come she was ever reading it, as our relationship ended due to the
fact that she nearly completely disagreed with it, and I nearly completely
agreed with it. Nevertheless, it was a good book, and one which brought me back
to support justifications I had for why I wasn’t dating in the first place.
Stay tuned for a future post titled; Book Review: Why I Kissed Dating Goodbye.
