Romance And Divine Purpose
Romance, it’s big business. The driving interest, which is the ultimate measure of all things true (joking), has recently informed me that having a girlfriend will cost a dude roughly $140 per month. Romantic comedies coming out of Hollywood land remain a preferred genre of films for many. Steamy stories, novels with bare-chested studs, and doe-eye beauties continue to consume the free time for floods of women. Yep, America is sort of obsessed with love of the romantic kind. But God isn’t.
Oh, God loves romance, mind you, but for Him, it was not designed to dominate the entirety of human life. The Creator never intended love or the desire for it to be the central theme of our very existence. In fact, romance can’t handle that much responsibility. If we make romance our everything, it is going to let us down every time.
So how should love of the romantic kind fit into our lives? It was designed by God to fit into the context of purpose, the reason you exist. God has given each human a twofold purpose: to be transformed into Christ’s image and to love God and one another with the reason He created us. You are not here by chance or accident, and you have been designed by God with a specific purpose to accomplish in your lifetime. God-given purpose is what holds romantic love. Your purpose is the context in which it will thrive.
Look at Adam and Eve, Issac and Rebekah, along with Boaz and Ruth. All three couples were brought together by God alone while they were “busy about their Father’s business” or purpose, in other words. What does this tell us? We see in these divine matches that the purpose of the one you are meant to be with will align with your purpose. They will be two parts of the same thing.
It’s important to spend the gift of time our single years provide learning and growing in our purpose. If we chase the love thing without understanding purpose, we’ll find our romantic experiences to be backward. It’s also dangerous. Putting the desire for romantic love before knowing our purpose can really mess a person up.
In the new year, keep in mind that God may be working to get your purpose established before He addresses the romantic experience into your life. He knows what He is doing, and He is worthy of our trust.
