Developing Meaningful Relationships in a Microwavable world—Michelle Lee

I can remember sometime in the 1970s when microwave ovens began to become popular. I remember the year we got our first microwave oven for Christmas and my step father tried using it for the first time. Apparently cooking a cinnamon roll-for longer than a minute-causes it to turn hard as a rock!! Who knew?

Microwaves are great for reheating, but they really don’t do that great of a job of cooking something from its raw state. Meat dries up, often other foods get too soggy or too hard or just plain tasteless, it’s just not like cooking something in the oven, (or the crock pot for that matter).  It would seem that the slower you cook something, the more tasty it is or the more tender and savory it can be.

Today, it seems like relationships, too are becoming microwavable. People are in such a hurry to jump into relationships these days, without forethought of allowing them to develop into something meaningful. In the culture of booty calls, friends with benefits, online dating (or online mating as I call it), social networking sites, and SMS unlimited texting plans, relationships are developed much faster than they were when I was growing up.

There is no doubt about the fact that God is a God of love, and He created us in His image.  As image bearers we desire to have love relationships with one another. The bible refers to four kinds of love. Agape love (unconditional love), Philio love (friendship), Storge love (familial love), and Eros (erotic or romantic love).  But it would seem that the culture today has a lot of confusion about love, and certainly the timing of when such love should be awoken. The love chapter in the bible (Song of Solomon) says in chapter 8 verse 4, “Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.”  This verse says to me that a romantic love relationship takes time to cultivate, and it shouldn’t be done in the wrong timing, or with the wrong person. Sexual love is a very powerful bond, and it is meant for marriage, not any other relationship.

As a 40+ single woman, who does desire to have a godly marriage someday, I often wonder why is it that young people want to so desperately be in love while they are so young and seem to be in such a hurry to get married. 14, 15 and 16 year olds, in my opinion are not ready to get married, yet at times it would seem that they think they are ready to handle a love (or sexual) relationship. Don’t get me wrong.  We all have crushes, and we all have probably experienced that exhilarating feeling of puppy love.  But puppy love doesn’t last. Adolescent love relationships rarely do either. Often they result in broken hearts, broken emotions, undesirable consequences, and in some cases—even bringing a child into the world.

I believe that part of the problem with today’s dating and relationship culture is that people want to get to the “love relationship stage” but don’t take the time to build that relationship on a solid, biblical foundation.  They skip the steps it requires to make it meaningful and fulfilling.  They-in essence-microwave their relationship instead of slow cooking it. And the sad thing is-- as a result of this—I have seen far too many broken hearts of young people and even singles, and in many cases broken dreams, all because of wanting to stir up love before it is time.

If you talk to any happily married couple, who has Christ at the center of their marriage, they will probably tell you that regardless of how long they have been married, they have to work hard DAILY to have a happy, fulfilling and successful marriage----that maintaining the “love relationship” takes a lot of work, a lot of tears and a lot of mistakes, and even when you think you are comfortable, life has a funny way of throwing in a monkey wrench. If you also asked them the most important key to their relationship, I am willing to bet that most of them would say that friendship (Phileo) love between a man and wife and learning to model God’s Agape love are like the two most important keys to a long marriage. Seeing others as God sees them, and loving them as God would love them is what agape love is all about. Loving unconditionally—loving for a lifetime, loving for eternity. God’s love is never selfish or self centered, or does things that harm.

Working in the field of adolescent health has taught me many things. It has taught me that if I want to have meaningful relationships that are Christ-Centered, I have to be willing to put the microwave away, and take the time to sow love and cultivate those love relationships, and to do it over time (using the crock pot instead of the microwave). Jumping into Eros love before I embrace and walk in agape love with someone will never bring me the kind of happiness I desire to have someday when I get married. Not having a healthy sense of Phileo love also can make a relationship go sour. These days, it seems that people are so focused on “being in love” that they don’t take the time to cultivate or nurture love relationships. They are in love with being in love. Either that or they have the wrong kind of love as the focus of their relationships-their relationship is built primarily on physical attraction-or sexual love (Eros).

Young people, I urge you.  Don’t be in a hurry to be in love. Take the time that you have as a teenager to allow God to develop you into the godly young man or woman he desires you to be so when the time is right for that love to be awakened, you will be awoke with a heart that isn’t bruised, or damaged. You be someone who knows your God given purpose and vision for your love because you will have spent your youth seeking what it is that He has put you on this earth to do.  Don’t waste time on microwave relationships. Think about what you desire and what God desires for you and ask yourself if your heart is truly focused on him in that relationship. If Christ isn’t the center of it, if lust (or Eros) love is the center of your relationship, then it’s not too late to sit back, take a deep breath, and walk away from that relationship so that you can focus on serving Him--until it is GOD’S time to awaken love. I know it’s hard. I am 40 years old, and I am still waiting on God.  And I wish I can say that my journey of waiting has come without bruises, bumps, scars, or heartaches, but it hasn’t.  But I know that one day, I will realize that all the waiting I have done has been a bit like cooking with a slow-cooker, and one day I will have all the desires of my heart and I will be able to boldly declare what the Psalmist declared in Psalm 34:8-Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him.

Michelle Lee works in the field of adolescent health as a full time Consultant who provides assistance to various youth ministries throughout the country in developing, implementing and evaluating abstinence education and teen pregnancy prevention programs.