October 31, 2007

Which day of Holy Week do you think best describes your dating life? Is it Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday or Easter Sunday? Some people find that special person right away. For six months to two years, everyday is like Palm Sunday. Our hearts swell with great admiration for the other person. There is much anticipation of wonderful things to come. "Where is the relationship heading?" we wonder. We are so hopeful.

Holy Thursday. I am not quite sure how that day fits into the dating life. It could probably be compared with a wedding ceremony. A covenant is being established. There are promises of great things but also the realism that pain is part of the package.

For obvious reasons, let's skip over Good Friday. If you can compare your dating life to this day then perhaps you should submit an article and tell us your story. Additionally, the combined prayers of the thousands would be in order.

To me, Holy Saturday is a day which definitely resembles the dating life of most singles. And here's why. Most singles don't have a dating life. They are in "waiting mode." Not only are they waiting for marriage. They are actually waiting for their dating life to commence. They would like to date but for now they are not.

On Holy Saturday, the apostles were out of sight — not being too sociable for obvious reasons. Perhaps, they remembered the promise Jesus made that He would rise from the dead. But, at this point they just couldn't visualize the whole thing happening. Apparently, witnessing Lazarus walking out of the grave only a short time earlier wasn't enough for them.

We are the same way. We have friends who struggle for a very long period of time to find that special person. Then, suddenly this same friend is in a marvelous dating experience and is moving closer and closer to marriage. Even though there are people around us who rise from the grave of deep loneliness, some of us believe that we, ourselves, are never going to come out of that grave.

As singles, we go on all kinds of retreats and attend conferences to be filled with the Power and the many Promises of God. He tells us that He will never abandon us. Our Lord says that His ways are not our ways. He even tells us to place our burdens on HIM!! "Ask. Seek. Knock." Those are the words of Jesus who rose from the dead. This is Jesus who took on the sins of the world and was and is victorious.

Do we really believe that despite the ten million reasons why it looks like we will never be married...that this same Jesus will bring us all of the way to Easter Sunday? It would be a very good idea to start believing this. Faith is required for God's promises to be fulfilled. And for those who say, "You don't know how long I have waited," I agree. I don't know how long you have waited for your spouse. My wait has been twenty years. The last time I had anything resembling Palm Sunday dating was in 1987. Ronald Reagan was president and some of you only existed in the mind of our Heavenly Father.