The opinions of others matter too much. Their eyes upon you make you self-conscious, weighting every choice beyond what it should weigh.
With all these eyes upon the singles that are dating, it is easy, of course, to be influenced by the opinion of others. But the others have not been spending time with this person you have dated and they don’t really know.
Others can also press young singles toward moving faster than they should or making snap judgments. Yet, choosing someone to marry is a seasoned judgment, made over time, and ultimately only one person lives eternally with that decision-the person involved.
Each of these bad ideas, impact the next, and all of them lead to acting out of fear. You heard fear in the comments I quoted above from some of the young single women in our ward. Stress and anxiety, of course, are just other names for fear. These fears are very natural. These women are in college a brief time where there is a large pool of men to date, and they can hear the clock ticking. They worry that marriage will escape them.
Yet, we learn as we are spiritually striving that decisions and actions motivated by fear are often unhealthy. Fear adds urgency that shouldn’t be there. It molds and distorts us into someone else. It urges us to decisions that are faulty. It inhibits us.
Love trusts that the Lord knows how to do his work in our life. Love makes us friendly to others without the secret calculation about whether we will soon be dating. We know that God is moving us on a journey of growth, and we can feel His love for us now. Continue reading