Yes. Believe it or not, I am still single. As handsome and attractive and sexy as I am, I am still single (ladies, take note!). Is it a curse? Yes and no.
Curse in the sense that I lack companionship. Curse in the sense that I lack someone to hold and to put my arm around while watching Transformers. Curse in the sense that some rascal people in shopping malls just have to flaunt their relationships in front of me and choose to walk by me with their arms around each other, especially when I'm standing alone (not that they intend to, I'm sure. It probably just seems that way).
Or do they...?
But one Reason alone more than makes up for all these curses of being single – God.
“For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare, not for woe! Plans to give you a future full of hope.”
-- Jeremiah 29:11
The main reason why I'm still single now is that I believe God has not yet thought that I should go into a relationship. While it is quite painful at times, especially when I see couples walking together and holding hands, and Anne Yong getting married, and I look on my left/right and I see...
**a crow flies past, "Aak...aak...aak."**
...there is a much deeper joy in knowing that God has a much greater plan for me (who knows, maybe even priesthood?) than being in a relationship at this point in time.
But of course, this doesn't mean that I don't struggle with singlehood. In fact, I struggle with it A Lot. Like a generous portion of single guys, I struggle with loneliness, I struggle with lust, I struggle with pornography, I struggle to control my eyes when a sexily-dressed woman passes by, and I definitely don't have Jesus' ability to quote off-hand from Scriptures when faced with temptation*. I continuously fall when tempted. But I am continuously trying to offer all of these struggles up to Him, praying for the grace and strength to live out according to His plan for me, and I must say, He has indeed provided for me in my time of need.
*Matthew 4:1-11
I remember I used to mourn that I didn't have a girlfriend. There was a time when I was about 14 or 15, I used to have this really huge crush on a girl in my class (and I obviously didn't dare to convey that piece of information to her). Then came the end of the year, where we had about two months of holidays and I went to Australia with my family to stay with my aunty for about a month. And as my brother may be able to testify, almost every single day of that month, I would turn on the song “Faye Wong – Eyes On Me” for hours at a time, thinking about her and singing along, wishing that over the distance, she would hear me singing this song for her; wishing that over the mountains and the seas, her river would run with love for me, and she would open up her heart, and let me set her free.
Well, there went a month of my life just like that, for as it turns out, she already had a boyfriend.
Now, being more mature emotionally and spiritually, I offer up all my relationships to God, asking Him to bless them, and if it is His will, He would let “things” come to pass in His own time. I believe He has indeed blessed me abundantly since I started to offer up my relationships to Him. I used to wish a lot for girls in my life, and now - rather evidently - girls have just been coming non-stop in droves. Of course, that's not the reason why we should offer up our relationships to God la, but I'm just trying to illustrate a point: God always gives the best to those who leave the choice with Him.
There was also a time, about a year ago, when I was just thinking about whether I had given myself fully to God, and I realised I was holding on tightly to one thing: sex. Not that I was already having sex at that time, but rather, I was terrified at the thought of joining the priesthood, which would mean No Sex Forever! And I realised that with all my singing in praise and worship that “I will offer up my life in spirit and truth”, and “all that I am, all that I have, I lay them down before You, O Lord”, I wasn't offering up my life in truth entirely, and I wasn't really laying down all that I am and all that I have before God when I wasn't giving Him full control over my life, which included full control over my vocation. So with this in mind, so happened there was a vocation camp coming up not too long from then. Trying to give up that part of me, I signed up for it. It was a very difficult thing for me to do; I didn't know if anyone I knew was going; I didn't know whether I would come back from the camp a priest-in-training, or castrated or who knows what. But I'll tell you this, on the day the camp was supposed to begin, right when I drove into SFX Church to meet with the other participants before departing, a deep sense of peace washed all over me. Not that I knew my destiny was to be a priest, but rather, it was as if God was telling me, “Well done, My son. NOW you can really say you have offered up your life to Me.”
And that day, I think I really felt the meaning of Jesus' words in John 14:27, where He said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you.”
That's basically the point of my sharing, really. It's simply an awesome thing when you offer up to God every aspect of your life, especially the most difficult ones, which for me is a desire for an earthly relationship. Because He alone knows what is best for us. He alone sees the big picture. And while I can just jump into a relationship, solve all my pains and be joyful, I believe it cannot be compared to the joy of living according to God's plan and being blessed by Him (either in singlehood or in a relationship) for, how can God bless something which He doesn't endorse? =)
Again, this is not a vocation story - I'm not sharing about how I'm now about to enter the priesthood, or that I'm going to be single for the rest of my life. Neither am I saying that being in a relationship is bad. Rather, this sharing is about how awesome it is when we leave the choice up to God. I'm not saying that life for me has become a box of chocolates and a cup of tea; in fact, it has got a lot harder. But let me say that it's all truly worth it indeed.
I'd just like to end with what I think is a pretty ironic thing. How many of us know the song Truly Madly Deeply by Savage Garden? It's been one of my favourites for the longest time (and still is), but for those who don't know, it's a song that goes “I'll be your dream, I'll be your wish, I'll be your fantasy”, and with diabetes-inducing lyrics like those and “I want to bathe with you in the sea”, you can tell it's about a guy/girl declaring his/her love for another. But only recently, within all these mushy lyrics, something jumped out at me. In the midst of all the earthly declarations of love in the song, there's a line in there that sounds like God speaking: “all that you need will surely come”. And I was like hmmmmm, how strange it is that within such an earthly song, there can be such a powerful divine message? So for those of us who like me are desperate for a relationship, I believe God is speaking that to us today,
“All that you need will surely come...and not only all that you need, but so much more that I want to give you, if you but trust in Me."
