How to Overcome Passivity and Anxiety in Christian Dating and Relationships

in this video I’m going to give you three pointers on how to overcome fear and passivity when it comes to Christian dating and Christian relationships hey everybody I’m Marc from apply God’s Word calm a place where we apply the Bible to your life if you’re new to this channel consider subscribing or making videos like this every week I also want to take a little bit of time to share with you something exciting that I’m doing right now and it relates to this video so I’m in the process of finishing up a book that I think is really gonna benefit a lot of people the book is called the one how to know and trust God’s sovereign plan for your future marriage the reason I’m telling you this is because this video is really from that book in the books not totally ready yet I’m hoping it’s going to be ready in two or three months I need to finish editing it and doing the cover and all that type of thing but I just couldn’t hold back the I was really excited about this content so I wanted to share it with you right now so if this video is interesting to you I wish I had the book book to offer you right now but what I would suggest is that you hit the subscribe button on this YouTube channel because when the book is ready I’m going to make an announcement on this channel or you can also sign up on my email list on my website at apply God’s Word calm become a agw subscriber through the website and I will send out an email when this book is available and I also want to let you know you’re gonna want to know when the books available right away because I’m gonna offer it at a really reduced price up front so a lot of people can get it right away for really cheap um so you want to you want to make sure you know when this book is coming out so again you can hit the subscribe button or sign up for the email list and if you sign up for the email list on the website you also get a free ebook called the ultimate guide to a Christian singleness so if those are things that are interesting to you go to the description of this video and there’ll be some links there for that also if you’re watching this video and you know maybe a couple months have gone by I’ll go back and edit the description of this video and leave a link for the book I’m talking about called the one how to know and trust God’s sovereign plan for your future marriage alright but here we go so how can we overcome passivity and fear when it comes to Christian dating and Christian relationships and even in your search for the one God has for you in your future marriage if he does indeed have marriage in your future I think one of the best places to look when you want to look at someone who wasn’t passive and who wasn’t afraid is that the life of King David if you watch my you know YouTube channel or you go to my website you know I love King David and I refer to his life very often so as I was thinking about a story of passivity one story that came to mind in the scriptures was David and Goliath this is an amazing story and in this story you see that David was the only one who wasn’t being passive when all these men were just hanging out on the sidelines waiting and scared of the enemy that was facing them so what was the difference between David and all these other men who are so passive in these moments the first thing that I see in David was a theological difference between him and everybody else our actions and our beliefs are our feelings are ultimately a symptom of what we believe and ultimately what we believe about God our feelings and thoughts and emotions and actions always come back to our theological beliefs our God designed us from the inside out what’s inside of us will dictate what we do on the outside of us so when we are acting in a way that we don’t want and we’re afraid or anxious or fearful or passive we have to take a look at our inside and say what’s going on in here that’s making me feel this way so point one if you want to overcome passivity and you want to overcome fear and Christian dating and relationships you have to first know who your God really is so when you read through first samuel 17 you see that goliath was taunting the men of israel and he was spewing out lies towards them for forty days and all these guys were just scared on the sidelines listening to the lives of goliath and this is what goliath would say to the men in 1st Samuel 17 verse 8 and verse 16 it says he stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel why have you come out to draw up for battle I am am I not a Philistine and are you not servants of Saul and then it says for 40 days the Philistine came forward and took his stand morning and evening when David saw what was happening he was appalled at this and just couldn’t understand the passivity of these men and really when you look at David’s response to what is going on you see that David was able to act differently than all these other men because David had a different understanding and a different identity he knew who his God was he knew who he was therefore he wasn’t so fearful and passive when the enemy was standing in his way so when Goliath was shouting at the Israelites notice what he said he says you are servants of Saul you are servants of Saul when David responds to Goliath he denies that lion says we’re not servants of Saul we’re aren’t we’re the army of God our identity is and God notice what David says he says then David said to the Philistine you come to me with a sword and with the spear and with the javelin but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts the god of the armies of Israel whom you have defied this day the Lord will deliver you into my hand and I will strike you down and cut off your head you see the other men had swallowed the lie of goliath and accepted yes we are servants of Saul but David was able to act differently than all these other men because David said no we’re actually God’s army who are you to defy our God so David had a different theological position than all these other men therefore he was able to act differently so the takeaway for us is if you are afraid of anything in life for anxious about anything in life we’re just applying this truth to dating and relationships and Christian relationships you know if you’re afraid of anything ultimately you will overcome that fear when you remember who your God is when you can put your trust and and faith in God and you know that you’re a child of God you don’t have to fear the things on this earth because you know I’m gonna I’m a man of God or I’m a woman of God because God says I am NOT because of someone else’s perception of me point to David was able to not act passively and fearfully when the enemy was standing in his way because he trusted in the sovereignty of God so a lot of times when we start thinking about God’s sovereignty and the plan that God has for us it can make us feel like we’re just robots and things don’t really matter because God already has a plan and if God’s already sovereignly ordained the future then what’s the point of living with faith right now in the present because it’s just gonna happen anyway and the Bible completely denies that logic it states that yes God is sovereign but the result of that is not that you should just act and not act because God has a plan rather because God is sovereign this should empower you to live with faith in the present because God has a plan this should make you have peace about stepping out in faith as you walk in that plan that God has for you so the Bible absolutely states that yes God is sovereign and hasn’t a plan for each and every one of us but in our sinfulness we take that and make a wrong conclusion and say well it doesn’t matter so I’ll passively wait because I’ll just don’t do anything because God has a plan and it doesn’t matter that’s the wrong biblical response the right biblical response to say yes God is in control therefore I can act in faith notice in 1st Samuel 17 verses 46 through 47 David is completely in the sovereignty of God and this is what empowers him to step out onto the battlefield in faith before the battle even starts he says this day the Lord will deliver you into my hand and I will strike you down and cut off your head and I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth that all the Earth may know that God is the god in Israel and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with a sword and spear for the battle is the Lord’s and He will give you into our hand David was able to step out in faith and courage because he was focusing on not what is but on what will be because he knows his God holds the future because God has a sovereign plan for how this battle was going to go between Goliath and David this didn’t make David sit on the sidelines in fear and frozen rather this empowered him to go out and act courageously and in the same way when we can trust the sovereignty of God and know that God has a good sovereign plan for our relationships or our singleness and our future marriage this doesn’t cause us to sit on the sidelines rather this empowers us to step on the battlefield so to speak and to step into the game and realize that I don’t know the future but I know God and he holds the future and he holds me so therefore I can act in faith 0.3 if you want to overcome fear and passivity and Christian relationships and in Christian dating you have to start moving before everything is perfect before you know how it’s going to end you have to move forward with God I love in this story that David threatens Goliath he says I’m gonna cut off your head which you know as a man I just get all riled up as we talk to the enemy that way but anyway he says I’m gonna cut off your head but the craziest part about this whole story is that when David said that he wasn’t even holding a sword he’s talking about what’s going to happen to Goliath and he not even holding a sword he says I’m gonna cut off your head and I don’t even have a sword right now I mean that is some faith that is some strength I love it David so what’s my point here I’m not saying that you just rush out onto the battlefield without a plan when you read through the life of David God was training David for this moment he had trained him through fighting off bears and through fighting off lions so I’m not saying you just throw caution to the wind and dating and relationships and just say well I don’t really know how this is gonna turn out and this looks like a really bad idea but God is sovereign he’ll work it out so I’m just gonna go for it anyway that’s not what I’m saying at all what I am saying is that if you wait for the perfect time you’re always going to be waiting there’s never a perfect time in life so David stepped out onto the battlefield and he didn’t have a sword in other words on the gun I’m not saying don’t plan David did that on purpose to show that God was sovereign and that he was gonna win this victory but the point is it’s not perfect you know this isn’t a perfect perfect plan that David you know organized every little thing so that he would be able to have the best strategic advantage and overcomplicated this whole process because he was trusting God he knew that he could defeat the enemy because of God’s power not because of his own skill so the point is you have to stop being a perfectionist if you the reason so many of us fear dating and relationships and have so much anxiety is because we think that it all depends on us it really comes down to a works based theology if you really want to get down to the heart of it we think that where we need everything depends on our works and not God’s grace and so therefore if I god has a plan but I’m the one who has to fulfill that plan and if I screw up one step of God’s plan I’ve completely ruined God’s plan for my life but that’s starting from a false premise the the biblical approach is that God has a plan and he accomplished that accomplishes that plan not through my works but through His grace through his power therefore yes God has a plan and yes I need to follow him but he’s going to accomplish that plan which free me from having this fear of having to do everything so perfectly or else missing the will of God we can overcome fear and anxiety in our dating in our Christian relationships when we trust that God is ultimately the one in control in 1st Samuel 17 verse 50 the Bible puts special emphasis on David’s lack of a sword and here’s what it says it says so David prevailed over the Philistine with the sling and with the stone and struck the Philistine and killed him there was no sword in the hand of David when you go back to verse 47 David did this intentionally and it says for the battle is the Lord’s and He will give you into our hand so the reason David was able to act in faith and not in fear is because his focus was ultimately on the glory of God he wanted to glorify God in his dealings with Goliath this wasn’t about the David show this wasn’t about doing this be in his own strength this this moment was about God glorifying himself and when you realize that that’s ultimately the purpose of your life including your relationships you can trust that God has a good plan for you and I’m not saying it’s gonna turn out a certain way or that you know how it’s gonna turn out maybe you’ll be single for the rest of your life or maybe you’ll be married next year but when you focus on the glory of God and you seek to honor him and everything that you do you can act in faith because you know that God is ultimately in control and God wants to glorify himself through your life well like I said this content is coming from a new book that I have finished but I’m in the process of editing and you know puttin it all together so if this was something that you enjoyed that you benefited from and that you want to get this book when it comes out again hit that subscribe button on this channel or even sign up for my email list so that you can get an update when this book is ready well again I’m mark from apply God’s Word com I really hope you enjoyed this video and if you did give us a thumbs up or leave us a comment in the comment section what are your thoughts on overcoming fear and anxiety in Christian dating and relationships well thanks for watching and God bless you