A mild disclaimer that I do not profess to know everything, but rather, this post shall be an honest reflection on a subject that has exhilarated as well as battered many souls.
To put it in a most straightforward manner, I have gradually come to believe (or rather, accept) that most boy-girl relationships formed during the early teenage years (13-18) will not stand the test of time. Even if they do make it past the teenage years, such relationships are usually held together by the fraying threads of selfish love – poised to snap eventually.
I offend many, even myself, when I use the term ‘selfish love’. But honestly, can there be any better way to describe human affection? In our teenage years, we (consciously or not) crave love and acceptance, and that feeling of being important to someone. Our acts of genorisity and ‘love’ toward another person we feel for – are those not done out of the hope that these acts and feelings will be returned?
At this point, some noble soul (like what I used to be), may step out and declare that he continues to give of acts of love and genorosity even in the absence of reciprocation. Like a suffering matryr in a relationship, he continues to make sacrifices for the person he loves without him/her returning the favor. But nine of ten people of this sort also feel an accompanying sadness, sinking into pseudo-depression – and isn’t that sadness not also evidence of there having been a desire for reciprocation?
Most first loves fail, that’s a fact that we need to learn to accept. I wish it were different too, but like many other people, I’ve waited too long for someone to prove my accepted belief wrong. I’ve tried to prove it wrong too, only to end up alone in a pile of tears. The inevitability is so frightening that one becomes afraid to embark on any future intimate relationship.
But there is a reason for such failure, and as someone told me before, it’s all part of life. You fall and you learn. During the teenage years, it’s more important to learn about what we look out for in a person, it’s important to learn how to relate to a variety of different people, it’s important to forge a large network of friendships instead of investing all our time into a particular one.
When first loves fail, you begin to learn more about your own shortcomings, and you work on them in order to bring out the best in the next relationship. When first loves fail, you learn to change yourself.
— (and here’s something for Christians to note) —
During the teenage years, it’s more important for one to find themselves instead of concentrating on another person. And for Christians, this means working on our relationship with God. I’ve come to realise that the folly of most relationships at this age is that they take our focus off the One we should be wholly concerned with. It is most heartbreaking to witness how many Christians sacrifice a more intimate relationship with God (which endures forever) for temporal bliss with that special someone. For Christians, Christ ought to be the most attractive – because of his perfection, love and goodness.
It is important for us to grow to become more Christlike at our age; There really is a sort of spiritual ‘attractiveness’ that comes with such growth in God. And one of the byproducts of becoming more like Christ is that we will also grow to be more attractive to other Christians (who find us attractive because they find Christ attractive). Naturally then, sparks fly, and the horizontal relationship between a loving Christian couple is firmly built upon their vertical relationship with the one they are truly enamored with – Christ.
When Christians fall in love, I believe that they must be purpose to be truly attracted not to each other, but to the Christ that abides within their partner.
When first loves fail (like mine did), you come to realise how much sweeter the presence of God is. When human love is stripped away, our view of God becomes less obscured than it once was.
— (so how tim, shall we just give up on relationships and focus entirely on our relationship with God? Will marriage be a compromise on my relationship with God? Should I just remain celibate all my life? —
I believe that both celibacy and marriage are a gift from God. And like all gifts from God, they are to be enjoyed because of the Giver and not the gift. If we are single, we praise God for that, and we glorify him through our singlehood – with the greater amount of free time we have to offer him in ministry, or spend with him in private. If we are married, we glorify him through that – with our love for God expressed through our love for our spouse.
and seriously, I’m getting tired of people who are more interested in finding a life partner, than working on their relationship with God.
—
so yea. the one lesson I learned the most from the past two years must be that God’s love trumps any human love. God’s infallible love is all the more greater in the light of the many relationships that break down around me – human love that is selfish is fallible. In any case, we should be pining for God’s love, the greatest gift, rather than focusing on BGR at this tender age.
But to all who are currently in a relationship, I’m often in a struggle. I struggle because I know not what to pray for except that God be glorified and that the parties involved will grow to be more Christlike. I struggle because I part of me wants for their relationship to last, yet a part of me has grown to believe that these relationships will eventually falter. But whatever it is, keep God as the central focus.
Nowadays, I just look at people in relationships and feel that it’s okay, let them take the course they have chosen. Somehow, God will reveal himself to them. Sometimes, you just need to touch the kettle first to find that it’s hot, and then you learn (:
so yes, relationship or not, may God be glorified.
as for me, I have somehow pledged to be single till the mid twenty-somethings. thankfully so. haha.
Hear Our Praises 