Complete Only In Him

Update:  Rereading this has made me think that I really need to be more active about trying to find a Bible Study I can regularly attend because I haven't thought about any of this in a very long time.  On a semi-plus side though, I have gotten to the point where I don't look at every Christian guy about my age as a potential boyfriend.  The way I've gotten to that point isn't so great since the main reason is that since moving and having to leave my church where I was surround by very godly young men, I've discovered that there are many young men who say they are Christian and don't act at all like that and can in fact be just as mean and cruel as any non-Christian guy.  As I mentioned in my post the other day, I've gotten to be very wary of men which means that I'm not going to be jumping into a relationship with anyone until I know them pretty well.  That doesn't mean that I don't occasionally look at a nice guy that I've met and have a passing thought of, maybe he's the one.  What I don't do is see a guy, have a conversation with him where he's nice to me and everything, and basically fall head over heels and analyze his every word and movement and consider whether it means he might like me too.  Yes, I used to do that.  The biggest disappointment to me is that with not being involved in a church, I have done zero mission or service work other than occasionally volunteering.  That is something I would definitely like to work on.

~*~

Last week, I had the incredible opportunity to attend a camp called Regeneration in Glorieta, New Mexico.  I'd heard of the camp before, but it was the first time that my youth group had decided to go.  All I can say, is wow!  Everything about that week was amazing.  The preaching, the games, the preaching, the people, the preaching, the worship, the preaching...  Okay, you get the picture.

God taught me a lot of things that week, but one thing really stood out.  If you know me, then you know that I am a complete romantic.  Somehow, over the past year or so, my goal has become finding a new boyfriend.  Yeah, pretty pathetic.  I felt that somehow, life and everything would get so much better if I did have a  boyfriend.  I know there are others out there who feel the exact same way.  Basically, in other words, I thought a boyfriend would complete me.

So, what changed my mind?  Well, I'm not going to actually say that my mind has completely changed.  It's a work in progress.  But what began the change was a combination of one of the sermons I heard and a book I started reading.  I'll start with the sermon first.

On our third day at Regeneration, we were given a choice of listening to two sermons out of a potential ten.  I ended up going to one called Romeo and Juliet taught by Rick Holland.  This was truly an incredible sermon.  One of the things he said that struck me was "Wait and Hurry Up."  What he meant by this was to wait for now, don't just jump into a relationship, but once you've found the right person who God has made for you, then hurry up and get married.  I liked that idea.  One of the other things he said and what has become the core thought for me was this:  "You need to be content with the Lord, cause if you're not content with Him, you will be lonely in your relationship."  God really hammered that into my brain.

The book that basically cemented this into my brain  is one called Lady in Waiting:  Becoming God's Best While Waiting for Mr. Right.  When I ordered this book from CBD several months ago, I knew nothing about it.  I had never heard of it, but the title sounded good, so I got it anyway.  And even though I've just started it, I think it's a book that every single girl should read.  But, let me just get to the main point.  What this book strives to get into your head, almost from the very first page, is that we cannot find true completeness in a boyfriend, a husband, or having kids.  Only God, in His grace, can truly complete us.  But so often we do look for completeness in a man or our careers.  The kind of completeness you might find there is only superficial and won't last.

The other point that struck me is that our single years are our best years to serve God.  We don't have to worry about a boyfriend or a family, so we can simply focus on serving God!  That got me because in more recent years, since dating and breaking up with my first boyfriend and then being determined to find a new guy, I really haven't been serving God all that much.  I used to go on mission trips or do other activities where I could minister to people.  I really haven't been doing that much.  Although part of that has been due to some changes within my church, in truth, if I had truly wanted to serve God with all my heart, with "reckless abandonment" as my book calls it, then I could have found a church that was sending out missionaries, or put together a group to go out and witness to homeless people or something.  But my heart was not focused on God, it was focused on me and how I might be able to find completeness.

So, for now, with God's help, I'm giving up boys.  Or, rather, I'm giving up looking at every single Christian guy I might meet as a potential boyfriend.  I'm going to focus rather on cultivating my relationships as spiritual siblings first as Rick Holland said.  And I'm going to focus on serving God.  Is it going to be easy?  No.  I know it could be a very long time before I'm in a relationship again.  But I do trust that God has a perfect plan and He has someone in store for me.  I just have to wait for His timing.  I have to keep in mind that I can't find completeness in anyone or anything, regardless of what anyone else might tell me.  I can only find completeness in Him.

This post was originally published on Thursday, August 4, 2011.