Shortcuts Christian Singles Take

Have you ever taken a shortcut thinking it was going to get you to your destination faster? The first time I ever did this bigly, I knew I was going to end up writing about it someday, and here it is.

I was taking one of my first drives back from a vacation at my parents’ home. Starting with a coastal route, I got detoured off the main road and found myself somewhere near a huge forest.

I saw a sign that said “five miles” with an arrow pointing right. I thought it was a five-mile shortcut back to some civilized place where I could reconnect with the main highway.

What was I thinking?

It was beautiful. Lots of large, gorgeous trees, soothing shadows and lovely bushes, and fresh greenery were sprouting everywhere. Seemed a lot longer than five miles.

Then I came up on the five-mile sign. The same one.

I realized I’d just completed a five-mile loop and I was no nearer to my original destination of getting home. And now it was later in the day, and I had to scramble around construction zones to find my way back to the coast.

So many Christian singles take shortcuts trying to get to their destinations: the right spouse, career, position in the company or ministry, business or ministry start-ups. Most of the time, the outcome is not good.

Christian girl wants to get married so badly that she takes the first smooth-talking church guy that comes her way. He turns out to have an anger problem that he never dealt with. She ends up getting verbally abused, then physically harmed—many times—before she flees his wrath with a separation.

She thought a divorce would put a cushion between them. No such luck. Custody battles, lies told about her to their children, and refusals to give the kids back in a timely manner, or to pay child support consistently, threaten to ruin her.

Christian man couldn’t wait for sex, so he addicted himself to pornography in his teens. As an adult, he watches porn and masturbates. Then he starts swiping to meet women online and can’t help falling into bed with several women.

That last one ended up pregnant and she blamed him.

He didn’t like her that much; he just liked the sex. Now he feels stuck with her and somewhat obligated to meet his baby’s needs by sticking around his baby’s mama. But she wasn’t the kind of woman he wanted to marry.

Sometimes the original destination was no good, and the shortcut just shoves them further back into a worse situation.

A Christian single watches megachurch pastors all over the Internet and vows to become a megachurch pastor. Dreams of fame and money mounting from preaching and speaking engagements fill their head with delusions of grandeur. They start going to seminary and develop the walk, talk, and swagger of their favorite pastors.

As they preach their way through seminary, they lose their own personality. They can’t figure out why others call them “shallow” and “fake” and refuse to listen to a second sermon. Now they’re nearing graduation and have begun to wonder if they should have not wanted to become a preacher.

Christian single, what is your goal, your destination, in life?

Is your destination worth arriving at? And how are you trying to get there?

For instance, there’s nothing wrong at all with wanting to marry. Why you want to marry, how you wait, and how you arrive at the altar, are critical questions to ponder. Marriage is serious business, too serious to wrap your life around the wrong reason or wrong person.

Choose carefully.

God gave each of us a sex drive. That sex drive was designed to cement the legitimate union of a husband and wife, not a boyfriend and girlfriend, or friends with benefits.

Done properly, saving yourself for marriage will teach you how to trust and obey God to meet all your needs. Not waiting produces consequences that cannot be easily rid of. If sex is a snare for you, the enemy of your soul will keep pushing all your buttons to make sure you stumble around in sin, shame, and guilt.

Choose carefully.

Paul commended the desire to be in the ministry (1 Timothy 3:1 https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/1%20Timothy%203:1 ). Our motives and methods matter, though. We can’t get into God’s ministry man’s way and expect to be approved by Him.

Have you ever heard the saying, “A shortcut is the longest distance between two points”?

Taking an unauthorized shortcut is not going to get you closer to your goal. Being impatient, ignoring our motives, and disdaining the character we’ll need to sustain what we want will delay, even destroy, what we want. Click To TweetIn the kingdom of God, there is no such thing as a shortcut.

Taking an unauthorized shortcut is not going to get you closer to your goal. Being impatient, ignoring our motives, and disdaining the character we’ll need to sustain what we want will delay, even destroy, what we want.

Delay is seen as a denial, and we are taught by the world and the flesh not to deny ourselves.

We live a culture that urges us to take what we want, no matter the cost. The cult of Me, Myself & I must be gratified and worshiped. We must not inconvenience ourselves.

This is not the way of the heaven, my friends.

If we want to get God’s blessing on what we do, we must pursue it God’s way. We must learn to trust God and deny ourselves. We must stop demanding everything we think we need and going after it with sinful hearts and using sinful methods.

And He said to all, If any person wills to come after Me, let him deny himself [disown himself, forget, lose sight of himself and his own interests, refuse and give up himself] and take up his cross daily and follow Me [cleave steadfastly to Me, conform wholly to My example in living and, if need be, in dying also]. Luke 9:23 AMPC

And if you do not carry your own cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:27 NLT

It takes time for us to learn how to carry the crosses of denying ourselves. We learn to deny ourselves by letting Him purify our motives, guide us to His purpose for our lives, teach us His wisdom, and develop His character.

Let’s stop pretending that God doesn’t see our sneaking around, trying to meet all our own felt needs and desires. We can receive God’s best for us up front as we submit to Him and trust Him for His timing instead of trying to take a short cut.

Do you want to end up back at square one with nothing to show for your life except for wasted time, energy, emotions, and resources? Then let’s do away with shortcuts and do it all God’s way, Christian single.