The Golden Standard

A lot of times, I used to feel I wasn't good enough. I felt this way primarily because I'm still single and always have been. I don't mean single as in that I've never been married, but single as in I've never even gone on a second date. Essentially, I feel that if I were better in some way, I could get a woman to actually be interested in me. I feel I'm missing some quality that everyone else has or that I have some negative attribute that I'm not aware of that no one else seems to have. It may sound ridiculous and, in my head, it is, which is also why I'm very frustrated with the situation.

I've always kept myself to a very high standard. No report card was good enough if it had an A-, no performance at a game was good enough unless I made no mistakes, and no test was good enough if I missed a question. Did I say very high? I meant impossible. Now that I'm no longer in school, I don't feel the pressure of a high GPA and now that I don't play competitive sports, I don't feel the pressure of having to be a good player (which I never really was). What I do feel pressure to be is everything a woman wants.

There are two problems with this. The first is that I can't be everything a woman wants because women look for different things in a guy. Almost every woman likes a sense of humor, but what they find funny is incredibly different. Some women like exciting men of action, even if rash, and some like men who have a calming influence. Some want a tough guy who doesn't show emotions much and some want a man who will be open with his feelings. Then there are all the different interests. Some women like gardening, others like cars, sports, cooking, hiking, animals, art, knitting, and almost anything else you can think of. I'm not interested in all those things. To set myself up as someone who will be everything to a woman places an impossible burden on myself and, far more dangerously, makes me more important than I should be, in both my own eyes and, should I come even remotely close to succeeding, in the eyes of the woman I end up with as well.

I should not be my wife's source of happiness. I intend to do all I can to lead her to the best of my ability and to make her as happy as I can, but even at my best, I fall far short of Christ. It's going to take God's strength and wisdom for me to lead her as I should, for that leadership will be putting her needs and our children's needs above my own, not once, but consistently, time after time after time. Even then, the greatest good I can do for them is to lead them to the Father and have them see Him as the source of all good things and depend on Him. As happy as I can make her, I can't heal all the brokenness in her heart or fill all her needs for love. I can't even love her unconditionally, for I would always need her love in return.

It is a stunning blow to my pride that I am, of myself, able to accomplish only failure, however well-intentioned I may be. And yet it is wonderfully calming to know that I won't have to face the challenges of marriage by myself.

The second problem is that I have become guilty of the thing I had wanted my wife to be guilty of: seeking her happiness in a relationship rather than with God. I want to experience the rapturous joy of being in love with a woman more than I've wanted to draw closer to God. There are times I've wanted a certain friendship or even my reputation of being someone who is trusted and considered wise more than I want God. It's no wonder I'm frustrated; I'm seeking gold where there is only tin. It may be shiny, but it is worthless compared to God. Moreover, I have been killing myself to get this tin when the gold is being freely offered.

How, then, do I begin to desire the gold? Simply saying that I need to put God first is much like telling a homeless man he should live in a house. It's true, of course, but not helpful because you haven't told him how to get a house.

It's long been axiomatic that a man and woman can't be best friends without romantic interest popping up in at least one of them. The closer they become, the more likely it is to happen. I can't imagine that God would design us to be like that with each other and not have it work the same with Him. When I spend time in the Bible, pray, and sing praises, I want God more.

But this goes beyond simply making God my best friend as well as my King. It goes to seeing others and myself as He sees us. I have tried to make myself perfect and think it is good that I continue to make myself better, working on my weaknesses and enhancing my strengths and developing new competencies, but I am, at my core, flawed. I am weak, selfish, prideful, judgmental, and feel I need others' approval. And all of us are like that. We have all sought each other or our own desires above God. We are all equal in that and have no right to reject each other. But God knows we are flawed and He loves us anyway. We don't have to earn His approval, we CAN'T earn His approval.

I know in my head how silly it is to desire the approval of others more than God's. This is a heart issue. When I seek others' approval, especially so strongly, I'm really revealing that I'm valuing them more than God.

It's not something that I expect to snap out of instantly and I might struggle with it all my life, but the approval that I've been working so hard for and worried so much about being denied has been waiting for me all this time from the Father. He has seen my flaws and declared me perfect, He has seen my heart and declared me pure, He has looked into my mind and declared me worthy - all because of what Jesus has done for me. No friend, no wife, no child, and not even I can know myself like He knows me and none of them can love me like He does and (this next one is perhaps the most pertinent) none of them can love without asking for anything or any standard in return.