Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!sun-barr!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: srchtec!johnb@gatech.edu (John Baldwin) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Anger & Dating for the first time: (long!) Message-ID: Date: 30 Aug 90 04:32:08 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: search technology, inc. Lines: 103 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article mead!mead!nxh@cis.ohio-state.edu (Nobuya Higashiyama) writes: >I don't mean to be inflammatory in any way in this posting: my apologies in >advance for possible offense. > >In article randall@sidd.sandiego.ncr.com writes: >>Has this happened to anyone lately? I am a 39 year old man, just starting >>to date now, as I have "kept myself pure" for that special person. Actually >>I am finding out that most normal people have already married, settled down >>and are raising children. May I join with "Higgy" Higashiyama in encouraging you? I can certainly identify with your anger and other feelings. I have been there myself, in very similar circumstances... with the exception that I am about 10 years younger than you. Please don't write me off on that account; perhaps what is lost in scale is made up for in intensity. First of all, although it isn't just simply "okay" for us to be angry at God, I am unshakably certain that He isn't intimidated or threatened by our anger, and would rather we be honest with Him about our feelings than to try to hide them. Have you brought it up and talked to Him about it? [I'm certain I've committed worse sins than being angry at God... and He's forgiven every one of those just as soon as I admitted my wrong and asked...] I can also understand if you've been taught errors (I don't *know* what you have or haven't been taught), and are angry about that. Anger against teaching in error is, IMO, entirely appropriate: "Be Angry, yet let not the Sun go down on your anger..." [oops... somebody PUHlease supply the reference!] Please remember something, and I think its a key "something:" if we truly "belong to Jesus," then we LITERALLY *belong* to Jesus! Lock, stock, and barrel. It was so hard for me to understand that, and for so many years. God can do whatever He wants with me, EVEN if I have a different opinion. There's nothing that prevents my next breath from being my last... ...except God's providential love and grace. He didn't guarantee me a wife, or even friends, or even Earthly happiness. What he DID guarantee me was eternity with Him, the joy of serving Him (real service brings real joy --- and how often do I have to relearn that one fact???), and that He would never let me be snatched from His grasp. It wasn't until I understood that I was literally Jesus' property that I was able to deal with "the marriage question." God has some of us chosen to serve Him as a single, some of us as married couples without children, and some of us in families with children. Only when I was able to say "God, if you want me single, I'll stay single... but I'm *awfully* lonesome," did He bring me into a relationship with a young woman. Something else to consider: MY timing was certainly NOT His timing! I was in the Navy at the time, attached to a submarine right in the middle of a major shipyard overhaul, and going back to sea just as soon as it was finished. And my idea of a spouse wasn't the same as God's idea: I had in mind a tall, leggy girl about 6-18 months my junior, interested in science and engineering and science fiction; good with numbers, etc. etc. etc. God's idea (my wife): shorter, curvy, 3.5 years my senior, little interest in science or math or engineering, no interest *at all* in science fiction, a special-education teacher *very* concerned with "people" problems, who gives herself to her mentally and physically handicapped students in a way I never could. The only part I (should have been) able to predict: she loves Jesus as much or more than I do... and I guarantee that whoever might turn out to be your "special someone" will match *THAT* description totally, or you can be sure she isn't God's choice for you; if it's God at work, He will only bring someone who will help bring you closer to Him, not farther away. Please pardon my use of net bandwidth for the following diagram, but I consider it vitally useful.... If God allows one of His people to enter a marriage relationship, it always ends up in the following form: GOD / \ / \ / \ / \ man ------- woman The diagram doesn't show this perfectly, but the relationships are as follows. If the man's attention is on the woman and not on God, he moves in her direction. If she's closer to God than he is, he will move *marginally* closer to God, too. If she's farther away, he moves away too. Remembering that there is no neutrality with God, something eventually will happen. If however, both the man and woman have their *primary* attention fixed on their individual relationships with God, then His Holy Spirit living within them tends to make the triangle equilateral, and while each is getting closer to God, they are *also* both getting closer to each other. While this illustration doesn't appear in the Scriptures, I believe it is a fairly accurate description of what goes on between an man and a woman and the Almighty. And I am sure that God wants my (yours, everybody's) attention fixed on Him, since He's the only one who can meet all our needs. Not a spouse. Not an earthly best-friend. Nor a really neat, really active church. Just Him. Please email me if you want to talk more. I hope my diatribe was helpful, rather than hurtful. -- John T. Baldwin | johnb%srchtec.uucp@mathcs.emory.edu Search Technology, Inc. | | "... I had an infinite loop, My opinions; not my employers'. | but it was only for a little while..." [Actually I think the message of Job is that it is OK for us to be angry at God. He can deal with our anger. --clh]