That pretty much sums up my views on being patient. I'm the guy who hates it when people are in the left lane but drive painfully slow. I always run up or down the stairs in a building rather than wait for the elevator and I absolutely detest people in the cashier line who don't have their payment, preferably in cash because debit cards always seem to require at least three swipes to work, in hand when they reach the cashier.
While impatience in certain areas of life are probably beneficial, it is extremely hard being a patient, single Christian guy. Lately, I've been feeling extremely impatient abut when the Good Lord is going to bring a lovely Christian girl into my life. I can't even begin to estimate how many, many, MANY of my prayer entries involve my single stage. It's not that I'm unhappy being single. I am a firm believer in glorifying God in all that I do:
"Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people." Colossians 3:23 (NLT).
So, no matter what's going on in my current stage of life, I will try to make the best of it. For example, being single without any children affords me more free time, so I've been volunteering at my local art gallery helping little kids make play dough snow men and cutting out construction paper shapes for them. Recently, a cute-as-a-button three year old boy told me that he liked me after I helped him make a play dough dragon/mouse hybrid monster :-)
However, despite all this, I am still impatient for a romantic relationship that will, eventually, lead to marriage. For some odd reason, I'm ashamed of this desire because I know that a large part of it is due to my sex drive. I mean, come on! I'm a healthy, red-blooded 28 year old man. I believe that this sex drive is biological and from God, so I guess there really is no reason to be embarrassed about it. That said, I am not going to indulge in it in a hedonistic manner. What separates me from an animal is that I can consciously go against my biological urges for a greater purpose. Furthermore, it's not like I'll be spending the vast majority of my marriage doing nothing but the horizontal mambo. Marriage life is probably going to be the toughest challenge I'll ever tackle, but alas, at the moment, I am mostly thinking about the wedding night.
What to do about this crazy sex drive of mine? Well, I suppose the easiest thing to do would be to just go from nightclub to nightclub and buy countless drinks for random girls and eventually one of them will go back to my place for wild, anonymous sex. Actually, you know what? We're in a recession right now and times are tough. A typical club in my hometown will charge about $20 as a cover. Drinks go for $6 to $8, including tip. Multiple drinks at multiple clubs?! That can really add up! Therefore, an even cheaper solution to relieving my sex drive would be to lock myself in my bedroom and log onto certain websites. I mean, a jar of Vaseline runs for only about $5. You don't need to be an economist to see that's quite a bit in savings!
However, I am a follower of one Jesus Christ. I believe in reserving sex for marriage and I don't believe in taking matters into my own hands, figuratively and literally speaking. Where does this leave me? Pffft....I don't know. I really don't know.
What I do know, however, is that I'm not going to compromise my beliefs. Faith in the Good Lord and His plans for us is a large part of this thing of ours. Ultimately, what I want is an emotionally and physically intimate relationship in the context of marriage. Mindless sex and/or masturbation just won't cut it for me, you know?
All I can really tell myself is that I need to make good use of this current gift of singleness and try not to focus too much on myself. In the book of James, we have this passage:
"Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing." James 1:2-4 (NLT).
The only thing I can do at the moment is to endure through this crazy sex drive and let this trial further strengthen my faith in God. A tangible first step would be to not rush through life, so maybe I'll drive in the slow lane more often. On a final note, the topic of pornography and masturbation was mentioned briefly in this post, but I think that this topic certainly deserves to be its own post in the very near future.
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