I-want-a-man-before-the-apocalypse

This isn't my typical blog post, but in regards to recent conversations I've had...

There’s a trend among single Christian ladies that you have to “get to the point where you don’t want to be in a relationship before God will bring one to you.”  Do I believe this?  No, not really.  If this is true, why doesn’t anything else in our Christian walk work the same way?  We don’t get to the point where we don’t think about loving others in order for God to make us loving people.  We don’t work to lose the urge to share our faith to have God bring the urge to us.  So I really don’t think we wait to become uninterested in having a relationship for God to bring us one. 

I wouldn’t say we should put ourselves out on the “market” in some desperate, I-want-a-man-before-the-apocalypse kind of way, but we shouldn’t shut ourselves out from the world because we are trying to deny any desire to be in a relationship.  Because let’s face it, that’s just not true. 

What kind of message do we think we are sending when we say, “I don’t want to be in a relationship”?  I’m going to take a wild guess and say that it probably sends guys the message that we don’t want to be in a relationship.  So why would they try? 

And what’s with all this “playing hard to get” and “being mysterious” business?  You know what I think that does?  Nothing.  We shouldn’t be desperate, but why be unavailable? 

And why do we expend so much energy being something we’re not?  We are bombarded with articles explaining to us “how to attract men” and “what men want,” but why change our ways?  Personally, I don’t want to find someone who doesn’t actually want the real me.  If you don’t like what I have to offer, then you’re probably not for me.  In my humble opinion, all those articles should just say:

Step 1:  Find someone who likes you for you the way you are right now. 

Step 2:  When someone comes along who doesn’t like the way you are right now, forget it.

So no, I don’t think God sits in heaven waiting for us to truly believe we are better off single in order for him to bring us our own personal Prince Charming with the snap of his fingers.  In the wise words of my father, “you meet people where you are at.”  So if we are truly following God’s will for our lives, I believe we will end up where He wants us to be.  And it will be in that place where we meet someone.  Not because we have suppressed the desire to be wanted, cared for, or loved.  But because we have followed “his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Romans 12:2) 

And that’s it.  Forget about all the trends.  Forget about the how-to articles.  Forget about all the supposedly “tried and true” methods.  Just trust God and follow His will.