Ford Focus, minus the Ford.

The past few months I've been learning a lesson. Something I've said all of my life is that I have an incredible capacity to remain completely unfocussed. My mind wanders, my attention drifts, and I'm lost in a world of my own making. I don't spend all of my time without a focal point, though. When I get focussed on something, I really latch on to it and whatever it is completely holds my attention and my energy. The issue then becomes: What am I focussed on?
I'll be honest, usually I don't have my focus where it should be. I know that I should focus on God, give Him my time and my energy and everything else will fall into place from there. My life may not be easy, I may face troubles and hardships, but if my focus is truly on God, then such things will be a pleasure, or at least completely endurable. But I have spent most of my life with an entirely different focus - girls.
My entire life, the ladies have been a major focal point in my life, which may seem odd when you consider that I've only had one girlfriend. But ever since high school began, and possibly even earlier than that (I don't remember that far back all that well) I have always had at least one girl that I've had a major crush on, or at least a significant minor crush. And that crush has received most of my attention. When I'm falling asleep I daydream about her. When I'm sitting in class or at work with nothing else occupying my mind, I dream about spending a lifetime together. I would sit in my room and listen to music and play solitaire (usually Spider Solitaire or Freecell, with a healthy dose of Vegas style regular Solitaire thrown in) for hours, just thinking about her. All of my time and energy was focussed on this girl, whoever it was at the time. There was no real time left for God. Sure I would make faltering attempts, but it really wouldn't ever go anywhere. I'd read my Bible for a couple days, but then feel tired one day and spend my time daydreaming rather than praying. And though I would speak nobly about my intentions, the truth is I was really looking at these women and my hoped-for relationship with them as THE thing that would make me happy, that drive my relationship with God to a new level.
Recently, however, things have been going tough for me in my relationship with God. I've been all over the map, wholly devoted one day, raging against Him the next. I couldn't find satisfaction in anything and I just felt worn down to a nub, devoid of energy and unable to control my thoughts anymore. And then somewhere along the way, I decided to let go of my latest crush, to just leave her behind in a sense. The hard part, though, was not finding a new girl to like and focus on. But it occurred to me that all of my focus and energy was going towards these internal thoughts and there was no room for anything else, and it was draining me of any will and energy for everything else.
So right now, I have consciously made the choice to avoid the desire to date anyone. And things have been perfect since then...
Actually, it's been rough ever since (but a different type of rough). Since that decision, I've struggled to know what to do (years of conditioned thinking patterns have to be fought against suddenly). I haven't really focussed on anything in particular, I've just been drifting along, feeling like I'm only half present. And I've struggled with knowing how exactly women fit into the equation. I've wondered what exactly I'm supposed to do about my desire to get married and share my life with someone. That's not something I can just deny because I truly believe with all of my heart that I am not one of those who are blessed with the gift of eternal singleness, like Paul talks about in one of his letters (I want to say Corinthians, where he says that it's good, even better, to be single). That being said, how do I focus on God and just ignore those desires? Will God take them away if I'm completely devoted to Him?
And then a friend of mine was talking about when he broke up with his girlfriend, and the struggles he'd been having. Something he said really struck me because I realised that it was exactly what I had been struggling with as well. He said "How can you justify the want to be married if you are fully dedicated to God? Isn't he supposed to fulfill all of your needs?" But, he continued, that was the wrong way to look at it. God wants us to be happy - we're his children after all, and what parent doesn't want their child to be happy? When you look at it that way, you start to realise that marriage is not a right or a privilege, it's a gift. God grants us this gift, and He wants us to enjoy it, to be satisfied with what He has given us. Of course, it took him some time to arrive at this realisation, it wasn't instantaneous. His words, though, contain wisdom.
My focus needs to be fully on God, something I've known for years. It has only been recently that the need has been seen by me in my life, or more accurately, that I've noticed the need in more than a purely intellectual way. My focus needs to be on God and everything else will work itself out. That doesn't mean I start to ignore women, that just means I will have (and I can already feel the change a tiny bit) freedom from the pressure I put on myself to 'win their heart' or something like that and just be able to be a friend. It has been nearly impossible for me to be friends with a single woman for a while without having the thought of "should/could I date her?" running through my head. And if it's a girl I have a crush on it's just about impossible for me to speak to her because I'm just to nervous and overthinking things and it's just a bad scene (disclaimer: ladies, if I seem to be this way around you, that doesn't mean I'm crushing on you. I have other issues as well, read on...). Even if I don't have a crush on a girl I have trouble talking with them because I'm afraid that others will get the wrong idea when I'm talking to a girl or seem to have fun around a lady, and that's been borne out by experience. There have been many times when I have just been having fun, joking around with a girl and then someone (or multiple someones) has come up to me and asked if I'm interested in that girl, or said that said girl is interested in me, and BOOM - instant awkward. But I've already BLOGged about that. The point is, it has gotten to the point where I simply cannot talk to women on a bad day, and on a good day I am very guarded, unable to say anything besides sarcastic quips (which is actually pretty normal for me, but not always good).
I wish I could say confidently that this was all going to change and change soon. However, I do realise that turning from a self-centred me-focussed life to a life of devotion and submission to God is not one that will come easy or necessarily quickly. The good news is I think I'm at a place, or rapidly approaching a place, where that change can start to blossom in me.