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Fred's Comments:
"You've heard about a place called home, but there doesn't seem to be one for you." I came from a broken home, with one real dream. Someday, somehow, I'm going to find that girl who will wipe away all those years and help me build a place, a home, that's just "too good to be true." When I left my home in Iowa for Stanford University and California's Bay Area, hope filled my heart. But the bone-crushing loneliness of being two thousand miles from home soon wasted that heart and my morality went into a death spiral, lost in the swirl of a pornographic whirlpool.
Soon, I began chasing women without brakes, picking up speed going down a hill, picking girls and then dumping them faster and faster, searching for that one who could finally stop the madness, the one with the love that would take me in and change everything for me. The one who would finally say, "You belong here."
Before long, I was moving so fast that the relationships were overlapping, and one year out of college, I had four girlfriends, I was sleeping with three of them and essentially engaged to two of them. The funny thing is, I was no closer to "home" than when I began:
Harassed to distraction by my sin, I found it harder and harder to successfully juggle the demands of four girlfriends. All the "connecting" I did late at night left me feeling like I wasn't connected to anything-even to these women. How could this be? All I knew was that I felt like a gerbil on a wheel, running faster and faster, but spinning nowhere fast. In spite of all the sex, I was lonely, bone-crushingly lonely.
Tactics, Page 99
On the outside, it looked as if I were living every man's dream. But inside, I was desperately racing around in circles until I woke up in stuck in a dark, confusing place where I didn't really know myself anymore.
"I know you've heard the stories, but they all sound too good to be true." I had heard the stories, but now an icy, wispy hopelessness was settling over the cold landscape of my life. "A miracle starts with the beat of a heart." My fingers were slipping, losing their grip on what now seemed no more than a pipe dream. Maybe "home" was just a hallucination, a "distant dream" that was "just too good to be true." I couldn't find that place no matter how many girls I went through. Where was that miracle? Where was that beat of a heart?
Turns out, it was just around the corner. As it is with you and with every other guy on earth, the Lord couldn't keep His loving, passionate eyes off of me. I'd been waiting all that time for the girl who couldn't keep her eyes off of me, never realizing that until I'd heard the miracle of His heart beating for me, the loneliness would never end and that new life could never really begin. He realized that, too, so He'd been watching me, waiting for His moment:
Once I was a proud mustang, wild and free. Sleek and rippling, I ranged the hills and valleys, running and mating where I willed, master of my destiny. God, owner of a large local ranch, noticed me from a distance as He worked His herd. Though I took no notice of Him, He loved me and desired to make me His own. He sought me in many ways, but I ran from Him again and again.
One day He found me trapped in a deep, dark canyon, with no way out. With the lariat of salvation, He gently drew me near, and I became one of His own. He desired to break me, that I might be useful to Him and bring Him further joy. But knowing my natural ways and how I loved to run free with the mares, He set a fence around me....I must be broken.
Every Man's Battle, page 164
"And this love will never let you go, there is nothing that could ever cause this love to lose its hold." The loneliness ended, and a new life began. I found that home in Him. I found that love that took me in for good.
And the Lord loved me so much that He began to break me gently, preparing me to finally find that other miracle of my life that I'd been longing for:
Back in Iowa, I began attending a marriage class led by Joel Budd, the associate pastor of my new church. It wasn't long before I realized that I knew nothing about treating women properly. Perhaps it was because my mom and dad were divorced, and I never saw a loving relationship modeled at home. More likely, however, it was because of my own selfishness and sexual sin. Everything I knew about women came from one-night stands and casual dating relationships.
I didn't date during that year under Joel's teaching. I might have been the only man in history to attend a married couples' class for a whole year without even having so much as a single date! But just before the twelve-month mark, I prayed this simple prayer: "Lord, I've been in this class for a year and have learned a lot about women, but I'm not sure I've ever seen these things in real life. I've never really known any Christian girls. Please show me a woman who embodies these godly characteristics."
I wasn't asking for a date, girlfriend, or spouse. I just wanted to see these teachings in practice, in real life, that I might understand them better. God did far more than that. One week later, He introduced me to my future wife, Brenda, and we fell in love.
Every Man's Battle, page 16
You see, all the while I'd been trampling down my own dreams on that cold gerbil's wheel, sleeping through lonely, listless, heartless nights with near strangers, He knew of another out there who had been dreaming of me all along, praying for me even though she hadn't yet met me. "And somewhere while you're sleeping, someone else is dreaming, too." A precious girl, counting down the days until she could finally hold me close and say, "I love you!"
"And like the rain that falls into the sea, in a moment, what has been is lost in what will be." In a heartbeat, Brenda became that miracle for me. I'd heard the stories about that place called home, and there didn't seem to be one for me. The stories seemed too good to be true, but they weren't at all. I simply had to be patient, waiting within the miracle of God's love until He had time to prepare me for the miracle of hers. And soon, her love had taken me in, and this love will never let me go, and there is nothing that could ever cause her love to lose its hold, either:
In spite of all that, at the end of the day Brenda shone magnificently for Christ in my life. She found the grace and mercy to see the big picture, with the help of Christ's eyes. Our marriage was no longer all about her. For Brenda, our marriage had become a ministry.
She saw a hurting young man who had never been taught the truth, a son whose father had rejected him early in life, and a young man who'd never had a single completely faithful friend or family member. As my Christian sister, she once declared her faithfulness with these indelible words: You have never had a completely faithful and trustworthy person in your life. I'm going to be that person, no matter what. I won't hurt you, and I won't leave you for as long as I live.
Every Heart Restored, Page 145
The more I saw the miracle in her, the more I wanted to do well as a husband. Our marriage has been my dream come true, the home I longed for.
And out of that home was born a young man, my son Jasen. He, too, has dreamed of a home out there for himself with that special heart that beats only for him. He's waited long, but he's listened to me and learned from my mistakes. More importantly, Jasen has listened to his other Father, his Father in Heaven. He's waiting for God to prepare him for her heart. He's waiting for God to bring that time around. Listen to Jasen's take on it all:
At the time, Jasen was eighteen and a senior in high school, and yet he had never dated. One night I casually asked, "Hey, Jasen, I noticed you haven't really dated anyone yet, and here you are getting ready to head off to college. That's kind of uncommon. Any particular reason?"
He looked me right in the eye and simply replied, "There just isn't anyone out there, Dad."
Hmmm. That makes him only five thousand times more mature than I was at his age. He's got his standards, and he will keep them. No rush, no hurry. Is that odd? Should that be rare? Still, I densely pressed on a bit more, asking, "Well, some of your friends have had steady girlfriends and all that. Have any of your friends ever asked you why you don't date?"
"Some. Jan asked me about it just the other day. But I'm glad it doesn't come up so much. The whole topic is very annoying."
"How so?"
"People are so strange about it, Dad. They are all so convinced that you have to use high school as some practice ground. Remember Mr. Peterson?"
"Sure. Everyone's favorite teacher."
"That's him. He is one of my favorites, too, and I really loved his class," Jasen continued. "But I'd often hear him talking to kids about opening up and getting on with dating. I didn't want to talk to him about it, but one day he and a couple of the guys cornered me. I knew they were only concerned for me, but they piled on about my need to start dating before I went off to college. They also said it would be good practice for picking out a wife."
"I stood there patiently listening, while chuckling to myself inside," Jasen continued. "I thought, If all this practice is so helpful in learning how to pick wives, why are our divorce rates so high? But I didn't say it, because I didn't want to offend him. Still when they kept going on and on I finally got so annoyed that I told them, 'But I don't want to be practiced on!'"
"You should have been there, Dad! It was really funny! They all just fell quiet and stared. None of them had ever considered that while you are practicing on the girls, they are practicing on you, using you as their own little practice field."
I, too, fell quiet and stared at Jasen. In all my "sophisticated" years of dating, I'd never thought of that, either. Then, I burst out laughing. The joke was clearly on me. Some might say that Jasen has uncommon insight. But, he doesn't. He has normal insight, so normal that many of us don't recognize it.
But we should. Our chief commandment is to love our neighbors as our selves, and it is quite normal to do so. Practicing with a girl's body and emotions isn't loving and it seems quite odd to God, to say the least.
Preparing Your Son for Every Man's Battle, Pages 88-89
My son knew better than to force his way and to race about his own gerbil wheel. He kept himself pure and he waited on God even though it was hard, like any soldier:
You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus....Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs-he wants to please his commanding officer. Similarly, if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not receive the victor's crown unless he competes according to the rules.
2 Timothy 2:3-6
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
We run to girls in a desperate search for meaning and connection, but we don't have to. Take it from me: There are far worse things than loneliness. Besides, you don't have to be lonely while you wait on God. Get closer to God in intimacy-pick up a copy of Tactics to learn how. Get closer to your parents. Get closer to your brothers in Christ. Please your Commanding Officer, and await His orders when it comes to girls.
Sure, you will long for that one girl, just as Jasen did. Like Jasen, you will often get to wondering how long it might take. You'll feel ready, but she won't yet be on the horizon. But if you hold your position, God will deliver the heart of that "someone else who is dreaming, too."
That someone else who is "counting down the days until she holds you close and says, 'I love you!'"
In the fullness of time, God sent Rose to Jasen. They remained pure until the wedding altar, where they experienced their first kiss together. Jasen now has that home of his dreams. Rose's love took him in, and everything changed. The waiting he endured now seems like a moment. "And like the rain that falls into the sea, in a moment, what has been is lost in what will be."
Jasen is grateful that he committed to the discipline and the sexual purity. Rose is extremely grateful for his commitment to discipline and purity all through the years she'd been dreaming of him, hoping for him, praying for him. He was true to her even as he waited, even as she waited. Now, there is nothing that could ever cause this love to lose its hold. The trust runs deep.
Jasen has made this father proud. He has made his other Father proud, too.
Now, go out and do the same. Make your Father proud, my friend. Be a hero. She's dreaming and praying out there for you.
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