Step 6 - Fear of Marriage, Fear or Eternity, Fear of the timing or God, Fear of not knowing, Fear of choice.

(Dating) Why do we fear to the promise of eternity? Why do we put it off?

  It is not a goal to saturate my blog with posts on the topic of dating. However it is a source of continual troubles to me, and as such I am able to learn much concerning the topic in my own life.

  In this one I will discuss three things that have continually frustrated me:

  1) I'm not ready to get married yet

  2) I don't know what I'm looking for

  3) Choose your love, love your choice

  What I write is not to convince people what I think they should be looking for, rather I will address both of these from my own point of view and explain what it is I look for, and why I choose those things.

  First, I want to discuss the concept of eternity. I think a large portion of people's hesitations in dating comes from a lack of understanding regarding this principle. The “magic” we seek in relationships stands to appease the here and now. It fulfills a more immediate desire for gratification in regards to our own emotional standing. When we feel it mutually we call the magic “falling in love” with one another. As I have gotten older I've spent a lot of time thinking of President Monson's words, “Choose your love, love your choice.” As I have let them bounce around in my head I began to examine the relationships and marriages of people I know and am familiar with. In the marriages I have noticed a consistent fact from one to another: marriage is work. Above all, loving your spouse is work. The concept of “falling out of love” is false, rather it is in fact “I choose to not work to love you anymore.” I will admit people may not grasp that concept, but it's true. (I want to note I'm speaking about formerly healthy relationships where the love seems to fade away. I am aware there are more strenuous relationships where there are other factors that come into play where it is far less likely it'll work out even if both did choose to work at it. But I firmly believe that choice is the beginning of everything.)

  If we then wake up one day and discover the magic has faded, how then do we love? By choice. You chose to let yourself fall in love with that person, you chose to marry them, and now you have to choose to continue to love them and they you. And in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint we covenant to make this choice for all time and eternity within the walls of the temple of God.

  Eternity, such a misunderstood word. Forever, such a uncomprehended concept. Have you ever looked up at the stars at night and thought how that is simply the beginning of eternity? Have you ever looked at your friends and thought to yourself about how those relationships could perpetuate forever? Time is an illusion.       

  When we entered this life a veil was placed over our eyes which blinded us to the fact we lived with God before being born into this world. Yet we know we did. We know our end goal is to return to live with him again for all eternity. We, then, began with Him and will persist with Him. We exist as eternal beings ourselves. That means the purpose of this life was 1) For us to experience the limiting aspects of the illusion of time, and 2) To give us a time frame to choose to follow God. For no man can spend eternity with the Father unless he meets the conditions placed forward by the Father. That was the purpose of the earth, to “See if we would do all things which the Lord our God would command us.” (Abraham 3) And so the veil was placed and the illusion of time began so that the work of God could go forward, and this temporal school for the preparation of continuing to exist as an eternal being began for all those who chose to take advantage of it. Think about it, you exist within a circle, but outside that circle exists a time and space that extends from all eternity to all eternity and has no end. And one day that circle will be removed, and you will see exactly what eternity is.

  Thinking about this I have set out to understand eternity, and while I cannot say I do, I know I do more than others may think I do, and this because I'm asking my Father to teach me regarding it. And as I study the scriptures and listen to the teachings of His Prophets and Apostles I find my mind being opened up to the concept little by little. Very much little by little, but opened all the same. An existence with no end, no beginning, but endless as the Gods themselves. To exist forever. I cannot take that concept lightly, I cannot toy with it, but I have a responsibility to prepare for it and to work for it to the best of my abilities. (Much of the above is not taught as doctrine of the LDS church, it's simply my understanding of the things I study and am taught. And it tastes right to me.) I don't really want to touch on eternity more than that, but if that gets you thinking about the depth and seriousness of eternity then it has served it's purpose.

  So then number one:

  1) I am not ready to get married yet.

  This is a common thing I hear people say. It's not something I understand as it was never a thought that once entered my mind. I remember wanting to find an eternal companion since before I even served my mission, and feeling ready to enter into that stage of my life. So when I hear people say this, I can only ask myself, “Why?”

  If we understand the severity of eternity then we wouldn't let our fears regarding marriage plague us as often as we do I think. Largely the problem is that we fear, or more exactly our fear of the unknown and fear of making an eternal commitment, and the fear of whether or not one may be ready to do such a thing. But much of the fears we entertain in our lives serve only to steer us away from the blessing that our Father in heaven intends for us to receive. In many cases at the time He would have us receive them. (I'm not talking strictly marriage regarding fear, but any blessing He would give us.) His timing is not our timing. We know this. Yet we do not understand it. Too often we apply the meaning to those words, “It's not meant to happen now because God means for it to happen later.” But we forget that it could just as easily be, “God means for me to do this now, much earlier than I had planned, and I don't feel ready at all, but He means for it to be now.”

  Sooner or later are the Lord's call, not ours. For example, I'm going on 27, and while it's not that old I have been ready to find my wife since I was 19. Yet for reasons only known to the Lord for me this is proving to be a “later” thing than I had planned. His timing for this is later. I have a sister who got married at 19. She never planned on that. She had hoped to do other things before she got married, but the Lord's timing was not her timing, and He let her know that, and my sister had the courage to listen. For her it was sooner. I know other people that fall into both categories. I have other family who married younger than I am, and older than I presently am. We simply cannot know on our own. We just push forward patiently.

  But what I would like to be understood regards the opportunity the Lord may place before us. If we by our own fear close the door to such an opportunity, we limit God's willingness and readdress to bless us. Largely we do this when He would have us do something sooner than we feel ready for, but rarely do we consider that our own apprehension is us choosing to not listen to the Lord telling us that this event, which is earlier than we had planned, is His timing. We just look for the later. We may say, “I am not ready to be married yet,” but the result of such words could be as devastating as, “Father, I know you've sent me this person who would be a wonderful spouse for me, but I'm not ready even though your timing is now. I can't do this.”    

  And ultimately it shows a lack of trust and faith on our parts. This is true not simply of marriage but of anything the Lord would instruct us to do before we feel adequately prepared for the task. My invitation would be to analyze yourselves and ask if you are not taking advantage of something the Lord placed in your life in His timing, because you do not recognize it is His timing, and you are afraid. Think about that, you may find that's exactly the case and that He has other plans for you than you have for yourself, or He may very likely keep directing you down the path you are traveling. But don't limit His timing only to “later” because it could just as easily be “sooner.”

  2) I don't know what I am looking for.

  Each of us is responsible for choosing the spouse we feel would fit us best. There will be times when the promptings will come from the Lord telling us of a worthwhile match and we won't recognize it as such. I would attributes much of my dating troubles to those I choose to seek after aren't sure what it is they do want in a companion. Again, it's not my place to tell them what they ought to want either. That is a matter between them and God.

  I can tell you what I am looking for and why though. I am looking for this: 1) A woman who loves God with all her heart, might, mind and strength. 2) She has a testimony of Him, His son Jesus Christ, and of the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and of the reality of the calling of the Prophet Joseph Smith and the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, and 3) she is willing to keep the commandments of the Father.

  These three things are the governing factors in my mind as I seek my eternal companion. Before I make any judgment calls of any kind on personality, behavior, how I feel they think, and so forth, I first consider whether these three things are met. If they are, I begin to look further at other things, if not I don't. For me the best way to do this is to befriend the person. While I am physically attracted to lots of girls around this campus, the physical attraction that I feel does little for me except possibly giving me a point in one direction or another for starting to develop friendships. As I befriend the young ladies, and as I get to know them and what they are like that is where true attraction for me begins to form. I will wait out an infatuation entirely as I do not want the infatuation clouding my thoughts. I want to know that when I choose to allow myself to love someone it will be exactly that, I choose to love them. And when I find my wife, I will have knowingly chosen to love her. The concept of falling in love does not work for me. Falling relates to an involuntary action that we experience only the consequences of at first, and have to choose to accept the consequences of after an event that happened beyond our own power and outside of choice. And many people do treat love in this way. But that's not how it was meant to be treated. Love is meant to be a choice, thought out and accepted by both individuals involved. Not simply “fallen” into.

  One I know it's by my own choice to love someone, and for me to do so the above factors would be met, I continue to look for things I like about them. For me a very attractive quality is how a young lady applies the things she is learning in her life; if she is applying them to work to better herself I find that very attracting and it pulls my attention really well. If she does nothing with the things she learns to better herself then I find that to be an extreme turn off. For what good is the acquisition of knowledge if it is not applied to better ourselves? This is especially true of things pertaining to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. When I see a woman working to live the Gospel of Christ, that is attractive, when I see she doesn't get it or doesn't care, I do not find that attractive. Once I've established whether or not the woman tries to apply the things she learns to better herself, I begin to look at other things like personal habits, tastes, things I like and don't like in those areas. I have never expected any woman I take an interest in to be perfect, for I am not perfect myself. But the questions I ask myself is this: If I, knowing her faults, can I still choose to lover her because of all the good I have learned about her? Remember, love is a choice. If you can still choose to love someone after you begin to learn their faults, that is a good sign in regards to the genuine quality of your feelings for them.

  I will admit I try to take care of myself and my own body. I want a woman who is confident and cares for herself the same way, at least initially. I understand there will be factors like pregnancy which can minimally to drastically change the way my wife's body will distribute fat and other nutrients. She may end up putting on weight that won't come off. But I choose her for the person she is now, knowing the type of person she will grow to be, and valuing it to be of more worth than her physical appearance over the temporal extended life of our marriage. But it's important to me that she takes care of herself now, that I am attracted to her for all above reasons, and that I feel our personalities are compatible.

3) Choose your love, love your choice.

  These words by President Thomas S. Monson have always been in my mind since I heard them. The more I think of them the more I understand that that is how is should be from the very beginning. As I mentioned about about how I choose to love someone, I feel it should be that way for everyone. The importance of doing it this way is in the fact that it is a continual choice, an unending choice if we want that love to survive. Love is the fruit of work. We work to make that love survive and thrive together, not alone. We should go into a marriage fully comprehending the fact that one day we will wake up and the easy days of early marriage will be at an end, and an eternity of working together to create a love that lasts will begin. I am of firm belief that we can establish a pattern of habits and working as a married couple so that when the man and his wife reach eternity, they will have already developed a self perpetuating pattern of love because they have learned to work together and it has become part of their very natures.

  Choosing our love does not mean “choosing to accept the consequences of “falling” in love with someone,” rather it means “knowingly choosing to love someone because you have reason to make the choice, it feels like a wise and correct choice to you. You choose to love them because of the type of person they choose to work to be.” If we make an honest effort choose wisely and in the correct manner we can be certain that God will honor that decision, and let us know so. We can also be certain he will be there to uphold and support that decision right there with us if we do all in our powers as a man and wife to work for the survival of the love within that marriage. Marriage is work, and God's pattern is a pattern of work, but of a work that results in eternal reward of happiness.

  I feel this is enough to say on the topic at this time. It is how I feel regarding those 3 statements. I believe that if the people of this world, and in this church, placed less trust in and took less council from their fears, and exercise more faith in and trust in the timing of God, then we would be a happier people and less fearful people, ready to accept the timing and challenges the Lord is ready to place into our lives, because He feels we are ready and capable of accepting them.

-Samuel