Friday, January 11, 2013
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I never heard the words till I got to college. You start talking about Senior Panic. Yeah, well, if you didn't have a prospective mate by your senior year, it became pretty obvious that the odds were working against you and time was not on your side. Sadly, there were some people who got somebody in their desperation, but time began to show they got the wrong somebody. I guess you don't have to be a senior to begin to panic over your singleness. In fact, you may very well fear deep down inside never being married or never having anyone again; that you're going to be stuck eating frozen dinners alone a lot of nights for the rest of your life. In your anxiety, you can make a terrible mistake. I think I've got some good news today!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Mating Game."
Our word for today from the Word of God? It goes back to the very first couple there ever was. You remember Adam and Eve, or as my daughter said when she was a little girl when we asked her who were the first man and woman, she said, "I know! I know! Eve and Steve." Well, no, that's not quite right. It's Adam and Eve. And it says in Genesis 2, beginning with verse 20, "So the man gave names to all the livestock; the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the Lord caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib that he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man."
Oh, I love that story and I love some of the priorities that it teaches. God saw that Adam needed someone. He said to him, "It's not good for you to be alone." Now, in spite of the fact that he had God over him and the animals under him, he had no one to be next to him. And so, Adam slept while God worked on that need. And God prepared Adam for a partner, and then He rested. And at just the right time, God brought them together, "He brought her to the man" it says.
Now, how different that is from the frantic American dating game. We don't wait; we chase! We catch a husband; we catch a wife. I'll tell you, there is no one who knows what you need emotionally better than the God who made you. I wonder, do you think you could trust Him to meet your very deepest need as a man, as a woman? Now, that might be through a fulfilling singleness, or it might be through the marriage that perhaps you hope He'll bring about. Or are you going to have Senior Panic? Are you going to take matters into your own hands and chase, and pursue, and manipulate, and grab what you can and try to push and press?
God has unique plans. God has unique people. God has unique timing that is just for your unique life. Don't compare how He's working in someone else's life to yours. He's got a plan that's never been there before. There's never been a you. He's got a plan just for you. Right now the thing to work on is building God-glorifying friendships with both sexes without that pressure of having to think marriage with them or to push for marriage, or to put the very pressure on them that might ruin the whole thing. Don't panic!
Psalm 23:1 says, "The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want." God can meet your need in the very same way He did with Adam. Adam didn't go and find his own wife and create his own situation. Let God meet your needs. And He'll do it like with Adam, when you're resting, not running.
There's a wonderful statement in Colossians 2:10 for all of us who belong to Jesus. It says, "You are complete in Him." Wow! Married or single, alone or with lots of people, you are complete in Him, and Jesus is enough.