The Truth About Being Single A Conversation with Donald Miller

In terms of taking responsibility in a relationship. You say

pretty strongly in the book that the human longing can't

be met in another person. The real human longing can't

be met through another person, can't be fulfilled through a

human relationship. Whenever I preach about relationships, people who may

not be married in the church kind of look at

their watches.

How many weeks? Is this the thing to go on?

Because you're going to tell me I don't need somebody,

and you have a wife and all of that. But

you know, you did a lot in your life before

getting married. So you're forty two years old when you

got married, and you had accomplished a lot. You wrote

a book that was read hundreds of thousands of times,

and you made kind of an impact on the world.

Would you speak to that now.

As someone who maybe has the credibility to say, I

went through that season and I accomplished some things, and

I dealt with the loneliness. What is your perspective on

what you call the unfulfilled longing?

Well, I'll say this, My years being single were you know,

I don't want to paint them as dark.

They were fantastic. I travel the world and got all.

Sorts of stuff done, and probably stuff that I wouldn't

have been able to do if I were married because

I was just devoted to work and all that kind

of stuff.

So they were fantastic.

So anybody who's single listening, just have a blast, I mean,

and get some work done because that's going to slow

down real quick, especially when you have kids.

Right. Yes, but I will say this in terms of.

In terms of you know, you can't be fulfilled by

another person. I agree with that that is true, that

only God can ultimately fulfill us. But I also believe,

you know, there's this myth that Jesus will fulfill every

longing of our heart. I do believe that ultimately at

the wedding feast of the land and even in today.

But here's how he does it. Jesus fulfills the longing

for water and thirst with water. Right, Jesus will fills

the longing for food with food.

I love that.

Jesus fulfills the longing for friends with friends, keep going.

Jesus fulfills the longing for a woman, guess.

What with a woman. So all of that is how

Jesus does it.

So here's what's beautiful about you know, God is walking

with Adam.

God is walking with Adham.

There is no sin, So Adam should be completely and

totally fulfilled if God fulfills every desire. But what does

God say of Adam. He's not complete for men to

be alone. It's not good for man to be alone.

He's lonely. Well, how can he be.

Lonely if God fulfills every desire of the human hearts.

I'll tell you why.

Because God put another desire in that guy's chest for

a woman. Awesome, and he withheld the woman. And you say, okay, well,

then he gave him even No, he didn't. God said,

you're lonely. You cannot find a helpmate suitable.

Here's what I want you to do. Name the animals now.

Pastor Stephen, if you were charged with naming the animal,

we all have told it in a children's way that

it's going to be an afternoon in when you say giraffe, monkey, whatever.

Even Darwin on the Galopagos Island took years just to

chart a small microcosm of the species. I think ten

years to one hundred years of no woman period.

So this longing. He didn't just take the longing and

fulfill it. He took the longing and.

Made it worse. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, made it worse. Wow,

Literally made the man wait and work. Then he gives.

Of course, he puts Adam to sleep. As the story goes,

takes from Adam a rib and makes Eve.

Adam wakes up and sees Eve.

And it's the very first place in the scriptures where

you see an ancient form of Hebrew poetry called parallelism.

It says, though the text has broken into song, so

here he sees this woman. He says, bone of my bone,

and flesh of my flesh. He broke in the song

when he saw her. Why did he do that? I'll

tell you why I did that. Because God made him

wait and name the nim. He had to work for it,

and he had to feel that longing. And you know

what I love about You know, I don't want to

discredit my wife, because she's an amazing woman. But I

guarantee you one of the reasons I cherish my wife

is because it was forty two.

Years of naming animals and I find and.

You think I'm going to mess this up after forty

two years? Wow, And so I think that's one of

the problems with sort of quick transactional relationships is it

doesn't give us the chance to build up the desire

which is embedded in pain. We tend to think pain

or loneliness is a bad thing, like you did something wrong.

Pain or loneliness is a gift from God to help

us appreciate what eventually would be given to us when

He blesses us.

You know, the people who are hurting from loneliness are

hearing that right now, and I hope they're comforted.

I hope so too.

Yeah, I know what the enemy is going to tell

them about that though it applies to other people but

not to you. You know that other people ma maybe

their loneliness is by design, But what you're going through,

you caused it. You know there's something because we will

always believe that we're the exception to whatever gifts God

wants to give. And I just I love this picture

that you're painting for us right now. That God allows

the void and sometimes creates the void so that he

can fill.

It with himself.

Now, that doesn't mean that God is going to withhold

every good, perfect gift comes from above and all of that,

we believe it. But you're on the other side of

this now saying I wouldn't have known what to do

with it and I wouldn't have known how to cherish it.

If I hadn't had to wait for it.

My wedding day was the happiest day of my life.

I mean, it just didn't. I was never sure what

was going to happen. And we didn't rush into it.

I mean we you know, we took a long time

and dated and you know, did all that stuff, and

but that stuff has to be earned. You can't you know,

you just can't rush a climactic scene. You can't rush

it in a story. You have to have the tension.

If you don't have the tension, the climactic scene is

going to be a.

Dud, you know what. I like.

We don't think of our flaws as the glue that

binds us to the people we love, but they are

grace only sticks to our imperfections.

That's cool in that.

True relationships that you get to know somebody and it's

like the fifth or sixth time to hang out with them,

and they just share some sort of insecurity and you

suddenly feel closer to them.

Yeah, you think.

It's going to drive them away and all of a

sudden you find out the thing that you are trying

to hide.

Yeah, and you can't use it as a strategic tool.

It has to be sincere right. We can't go well,

I'm gonna be vulnerable in order to smell that out.

Yeah.

But what happens in those things, I think is that

essentially between you and I, what happens when I'm vulnerable

and it creates a bond between us is in our relationship,

what I've done by being vulnerable is I've handed you

a gun. I've literally handed you a weapon because by

being vulnerable, you now have information that you can use

to hurt me. So what I did was I just

gave you power in the relationship. And when I give

you power in the relationship, it makes you more comfortable

and you think, you know, I'm never going to use

this gun. But I really like this guy because he's

not holding anything, and honestly, if he does anything to me, maybe,

So I wonder about like in our marriages. You know,

my wife has so many weapons to use against me.

I mean, she could literally, in one sentence or one

paragraph calls me five years of very dark pain. She's

got that. And you know how good. It feels that

she never uses it. It just increases my trust in God,

in the world and the existence of love and all

that kind of stuff.

And I've got stuff on her. I mean, I know what.

She'd be afraid of and those kinds of things, and

I could play those games, and man, I would never

do that. We are at the most loving truce right

so here we are. Imagine us just hugging each other

and there's.

All these weapons. He's just laid down by now and

we're not going to pick him up.

It's kind of the picture of our relationship with God, then,

isn't it.

Absolutely?

Because if anybody has their finger on the nuclear button

that could.

Flow the whole thing up, that's him and he's not

going to do it.

Not only is he not going to do it, but

he's going to sacrifice himself so we don't have to

be destroyed.

That's right.

Hey, thank you for watching.

Make sure you subscribe to this channel so you don't

miss a single video or live stream and share this

video with a friend, and don't forget you can join

me live every Sunday. Thanks again for watching.