To Singles,

If you’re between the ages of 18 and 50, and you’re single, but you’d like to be in a relationship or even get married, then this post is for you. I’d like to take a few moments out of my busy schedule to make some comments about what I think is a HUGE problem in our world today, but especially in what is known as ‘The Church’. And, this is only for single people, so if you’re married, you might glean something from this, but it is not directly written for you.

First, if you enjoy being single, and you do not desire to be in a relationship or get married, then I would encourage you to carry on. You can stop reading this post now too, because most of this will not apply to you.

Now, for those of ‘us’, and I say us, because I am included in this group, who are single, but want to be in a relationship or get married, I say, “PAY ATTENTION!”

Let’s start with the basics. The large majority of us were born to parents that have never been married, were married, but did not remain married, or still are married, but have not modeled or demonstrated what a healthy marriage looks like. In other words, I don’t care how much you love or respect your parents (if you do, like I do), they, YOUR PARENTS, have failed to show you how marriage is supposed to be done. Admit it. No matter how great a relationship you may have with your father or mother, or for many, how poor a relationship you may have with them, one thing that MOST parents have failed to do is teach their children how to have a successful committed loving romantic relationship. If you are one of the very few whose parents did not fail you in this, CONGRATULATIONS!!! You are an extremely rare & privileged breed. Most of us, grew up in dysfunctional homes with dysfunctional families, witnessing some really weird & twisted versions of marriage.

So, with that said… I’m sure you will agree with me, that most things we know how to do well in life, are things we learned how to do at some point or another. We learn from teaching, training, & from experience. Right!?

Ok, so you agree that most of our parents failed to be good ‘marriage role models’. You also agree that we usually do things well after we’ve learned how to do those things well. But in school, in college or university, on television, in the movies, on the Internet, in our neighborhoods, and in our homes, there seems to be almost nobody demonstrating successful lifelong-lasting fulfilling romantic relationships. And, so there’s a lot of noise out there, there’s a lot of articles, and reality TV shows, and talk shows talking about love, romance, sex, & marriage. But few good examples. And no matter what your learning style or type, we all learn best when someone demonstrates for us, and coaches us along as we go.

My point is, most of us don’t have that. Our parents didn’t teach us, and nobody else did either.

Let’s turn to the Bible, and you’ll see that even the great men & women of faith & righteousness had jacked up relationships & families. Good thing for God’s grace & mercy! Despite the crazy situations & circumstances that we read about in the lives of the Bible characters, there is an abundance a MASSIVE GIGANTIC ABUNDANCE of revelation knowledge, wisdom, & insight about love, romance, sex, & marriage in the Bible. That includes teaching directed specifically at husbands, wives, and even singles.

And, look at ‘The Church’! What a mess!!! First, let’s deal with divorce. The rate of divorce in ‘The Church’… HIGH, way too high. Then you have parents, who are supposed to be role models & teachers for their children right… well, many are, and I commend those that are. Congratulations, God bless you & keep you! Continue to do so PLEASE! But most, are failing miserably, and using the LORD God’s name in vein to justify or excuse themselves. Their children are worse off for it. Then you have ‘us’, the single adults in ‘The Church’ wanting to be in a relationship.

Single ladies. This is the real deal. For most of ‘us’ men, we just want to have sex. From the preachers to the guy sitting in the back row whose just visiting. We are wired for sex, and we need your body ladies. Apart from emotions, apart from serious interest in a woman as a person, apart from a solid friendship that could become a fruitful partnership for life, we just want to have sex. Plain and simple. And, because we grew up in an evil generation flooded with pornographic & sexual images all around us all the time everywhere we go, our natural sexual desire has been corrupted, perverted, & intensified to out of control proportions. It’s really not our fault. Our indulgent fore-fathers compromised at every turn, because ‘sex sells’, and they didn’t think or care if the decisions they were making would have any serious or lasting side-effects. They were wrong. So, because we’ve seen thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of women uncovered & unclothed engaged in every kind of sex act you can image, the reality of actually having a real relationship and being committed to ONE woman for the rest of our lives is sort of a disturbing and foreign concept to us. The concept that has been engrained in us from birth is one of fantasy. It’s endless female beauty exposed in nudity & engaged in countless sex acts. That is the IMAGE OF WOMEN that has been stamped upon my generation. So if you’ve wondered why men don’t know how to act with women, now you might better understand. You are like our favorite desert, snack, or meal to be consumed as often as possible. And, for most men in this generation, our person, identity, and even emotions are about as attached to a woman as they are to lunch. Only, most of us like you more than lunch. That’s why men are so quick to mentally have sex with women they don’t even know. It’s not about knowing that woman. It’s about the fantasy.

PAY ATTENTION!!! It takes real divine intervention, and transformation by the renewing of our minds, through the Word of God, the cleansing blood of Jesus, and the power of the Holy Spirit for a man in our generation to REJECT that IMAGE OF WOMEN and see women as God intended them to be seen.

Single men. Here’s the scoop on women. Most women today have grown up without a man to protect and teach them. So, they don’t learn the things they need to know in order to respect men. They’ve been exposed to an ugly world, they’ve been raped, molested, misused, abused, neglected, or minimized by men dominated by the prevalent false IMAGE OF WOMEN imprinted on their minds, and as a result the only refuge women have found has been other women who have ‘held up’ and ‘been strong’. The women in their lives had a voice, and that voice had more frequency and more volume than the voice of the men who were supposed to be their leaders. The women who raised these women suffered a lot, so they tried to protect young women by teaching them to be self-reliant, independent, & controlling. In doing so, they actually made it worse for this generation, because they painted a false IMAGE OF MEN. Today women are trained how to manipulate men for what they absolutely need, but stay self-contained. They’re taught not to trust men, because, “men aren’t worthy of respect, and they’ll hurt you.” So, women want a hero. They’re desperately seeking a forceful man to pay attention to them & protect them. They feel they can sustain themselves or ‘survive’ economically on their own, because they know how to get money. But, they flock to men associated with ‘power’ even if those men are only ‘acting’ like they care, because the women want a ‘trophy hero’. A man they can show off to other women (with words or without) to say, “you’re still unprotected & exposed, but look what I got.” That’s why women will literally fight each other over a man that they deem somewhat ‘powerful/respectable’, even if it means hurting, belittling, or crushing the other woman… even in ‘The Church’. They, like the men of this generation, also see ‘us’ as a possession. Only for women, it’s the identity, person, and emotions that become attached to their possession, so they’d like to keep their possession around. This also has nothing to do with real love or concern for the man. It is more like Smeagol in The Lord of the Rings, who says, “my precious.” The natural desire and security related emotions of women have been corrupted, perverted, and intensified so that they are also pursuing a false image, rather than developing a real relationship with a man, and finding out whether the friendship is solid enough to even consider a proposed partnership for life. That’s why women are so quick to mentally plan their wedding with men whom they do not really know. It’s not about that man. It’s about the fantasy.

PAY ATTENTION!!! It takes real divine intervention, and transformation by the renewing of their minds, through the Word of God, the cleansing blood of Jesus, and the power of the Holy Spirit for a woman in our generation to REJECT that IMAGE OF MEN and see men as God intended them to be seen.

But here’s a problem…

Both FALSE IMAGES perpetuate the other. The more men see a FALSE IMAGE OF WOMEN, the worse we treat them, the more damage we do to ‘men’ as a whole, and the more we help our enemy, Satan, deceive ‘women’ as a whole. Likewise, the more women see a FALSE IMAGE OF MEN, the worse they treat men, which provokes men to devalue women even more, and the more women help the devil deceive ‘men’ as a whole. Let me remind you, in Genesis 3:1 – “…the serpent was more crafty/cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD had made…”, that our enemy is neither men, nor women, but a very real devil who has been lying to us from the beginning (John 8:44) to steal, kill, & destroy (John 10:10).

Therefore, until YOU as a single person… YES, YOU… begin to wise up, and study the Word of God for yourself, and spend time with God in prayer so that He can change your heart & mind, you really should remain single. Because, if you don’t REJECT the false image of the opposite sex, and allow God to show you how He sees men & women, you’ll only make matters worse by being a part of the problem instead of part of the solution.

Most of ‘us’ single people in ‘The Church’ are looking for the right person to be in a relationship with, but we’re still looking through the polluted lenses of sin-stained glasses. You will not be ready for the right person, if you haven’t at least begun to be renewed in your mind. If you still ACCEPT the false image, and still entertain the fantasies (whether sexual or emotional), then you only ready for FAILURE when it comes to love, romance, marriage, & sex.

Men and women both… STOP saying or even believing that God showed you or told you who your ‘future husband’ or ‘future wife’ is. STOP telling everybody what you saw in your dreams at night about your ‘future spouse’, because for some of you this is the ’3rd, 4th, or even 10th’ different ‘future spouse’ you’ve had dreams about. You should be able to figure out by now that God doesn’t lie, but your mind & emotions can play all kinds of tricks on you.

Men and women both… STOP considering ‘marrying so-and-so’ who you have a virtual, digital, or telecommunications relationship with on Facebook, Skype, IM, on the phone, by text, through email, in a chat room, etc. If and when you get married, you’ll be living with this person 24hrs a day, 7 days a week, in person. You’ll wake up next to them, you’ll brush your teeth in front of them, you’ll probably bath & take care of hygiene in front of them, you’ll smell their breath at it’s worst, you’ll walk in the bathroom after they filled it with foul smells, you’ll be shopping, cooking, eating, doing dishes, taking out trash, cleaning your home, changing dirty diapers (if you have kids), washing laundry, paying bills, traveling, and handling all kinds of other non-romantic commonplace tasks in life with them. YOU CANNOT & WILL NOT EVER really get to know someone unless you spend time with them doing the ‘regular things’ that you both do in life. That includes getting to know their family & friends, seeing how they really are, & hearing things about the person from others that they would not have told you themselves.

Men and women both… for most people on earth, there is nothing LONG-DISTANCE about marriage. So, LONG-DISTANCE RELATIONSHIPS are not good preparation or practice for marriage in most cases. They’re maybe some exceptions, but this is the rule.

Men and women both… TIME always tells the truth about everything. That includes people. So, rather than rushing into a romantic relationship or marriage with someone, take your time to get to know them first. That way hopefully, you won’t find yourself in a marriage that you hate with someone you found out that you don’t like, or doesn’t like you. Marriage is a covenant to be kept until death. So, no matter how difficult it may be to wait, IT’S BETTER TO BE PATIENT THAN TO BE SORRY.

I’m not married yet. I’ve been painfully waiting for a very long time. I tell you the truth though, I’d rather remain single my whole life than perpetuate the problems in our world, marry the wrong person, marry for the wrong reasons, be deceived about the purpose of my marriage, or be another FAILED example for the world not to follow.

Lastly, nobody is perfect, but JESUS. Relationships are hard work, and marriage is the ultimate test of a couple’s character, their commitment, their communication, their trust, their loyalty, and their love. So, I’m not delusional about how hard it can be to have & maintain a healthy marriage. And, there is grace & mercy for those who have failed. God forgives those who confess their faults & turn away from their sins, because of the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus. I’ve had a number of failed relationships, as I’m sure you have. We should be getting better, by learning from our mistakes and the mistakes of others though; not worse and not bitter.

Consider my comments, and comment below if you have anything to share or add!

This blog post by,
Elliot Potter

Tags: Elliot Potter, false image, Genesis 3:1, hero, image of men, image of women, John 10:10, John 8:44, marriage, mistakes, our enemy, relationships, satan, sex, single, The Church