NoelHeikkinen.com

4 Minutes on “Finding the One”

Jan 9, 2012 4 Minutes On...

When I taught on marriage and singleness last fall, the most common question I received related to finding the right person to marry.  Since I definitely found “the One,” I figured I was qualified to put together this 4 minute video on the topic…

Tags: dating, marriage, singleness

Fornicating on the Battlefield

Nov 23, 2011 1 Corinthians

At Riv this past weekend, I read a bit of a powerful piece called “Fornicating on the Battlefield.”  The entire thing is worth reading (so make sure you click over to check it out).  Here’s the part I read:

Just imagine for a moment that this is reality:

You’re on a battlefield. It’s dark. Chaotic. Cold wind is whipping your face. The stench of death fills the air. Corpses of demons lie all around you…and the field is soaked in blood.

You can hear the sounds of armor and weapons colliding…sparks are flying. Screams pierce your ears.

You see chiseled, powerful beings radiating in white…and they’re destroying shadows…gripping the throats of principalities and slitting them with iridescent blades.

But you’re without armor. You wonder how you got to this place…and why you came unprepared.

Men that you recognize are rushing the opposite direction – spears aligned…ready to throw. Swords sharpened, shields fixed, helmets lowered…they’re ready for battle. They’re calling for you to join them. They’re rushing for the the front lines – and they’re unafraid. They know they’ve been given victory.

But not you…you’ve got your pants down around your ankles. You’re roaming in circles looking for the seductress that’s calling you by name.

You can’t wait to fornicate on the battlefield.

And all the while, the Kingdom is coming. The lost are being found. The sick are being healed. Demonic assignments are being cancelled. The veil is being lifted off of Islam…and the persecuted church is exponentially growing in the face of opposition. Jesus is authoritatively mediating a covenant – and the Spirit is interceding for the children of God…breathing life into dry bones.

You? You want an orgasm.

Tags: lust, pornography, sex, singleness

Singleness Advice

Nov 22, 2011 1 Corinthians

This past weekend at Riv, I read portions of some letters from some of my single friends. Because of time, I couldn’t read the entire letters so I am posting them in their entirety here.

LETTER #1 (From a Single Woman)

One of my biggest temptations as a woman living in prolonged singleness is to try to be completely self-contained and self-sufficient – to do life alone. But Jesus always sent the disciples out in pairs, and Paul always traveled with companions.

About a year ago another single Christian woman and I decided to become accountability partners. Every Sunday we talk on the phone for an hour about everything – work, guys, our eating habits, whatever. We quote scripture with (and sometimes at) each other and sing hymns to each other. And I’ve noticed over the course of the year that my own attitudes have been shifting. I’m less bitter than I was a year ago. I don’t worry nearly as much about whether or not a particular guy liked me as I used to. And we’re both much healthier. Our impetus for this was weight loss – we’ve each lost 30 pounds this year.

My point is simply this: Don’t do life alone. Find another Christian single of the same gender as you who you trust. Chances are, that person will need this sort of relationship as much as you do. Have good, regular conversations with that person. Call them after another friend gets married or has kids, or when you’re spending another Valentine’s day dateless. You especially need to be able to talk to that person about your temptations, and you need to listen and act when they call you out on something. They’ll have the emotional distance and perspective from your situation that you lack. And remember to keep it reciprocal. That person should be able to ask your advice, and you should be able to call him or her out for any poor decisions. In the end, you’ll both be amazed by the spiritual, emotional, and even physical health benefits.

LETTER #2 (From a Single Man)

For me, seeing singleness as a gift from God is often one of those things that is easier said than done. God made the whole universe and said that it was good, but then He takes one look at Adam in the garden and says ?It is not good that the man should be alone.? (Gen 2:18)  I can feel that many days. I can feel my need for a helper. I can feel the need for a companion.  It is in these moments however that God reminds me how much better He knows what I need than even I do.  Singleness is a gift for me in three distinct ways:

1. My free time is my free time.  If there is an opportunity to serve God, I can just say yes without having to consider the needs of my wife, because I don?t have one.  My ability to serve God and His Church is not decreased by responsibilities in the home.

2. My focus on God and my faith is not divided. As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 7, the single person?s focus is not divided between spouse and God. Instead my focus gets to be wholly on pleasing the Lord with who I am, and being holy in body and spirit. (Believe me, it is a great enough struggle in itself to seek Him and His holiness with only my own sinful self to worry about.)

3. I have maturing yet to do.  I can often identify with Paul?s writing in 1 Corinthians 13 when he says, ?When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.? To be completely honest, I can look at my day-to-day actions and say that there are a lot of times when I am just undeniably selfish (much like a child is with his things or wants).  As I see it, God?s gift of singleness to me now is also a gift to my future wife, because He is using this time to show me what it means to give up these childish ways and to become a man. In my time as a single man, God is giving me a crash course in what it means to love sacrificially.  It is pretty clear to me that only when I learn to love and serve Him, do I stand a chance at loving my future wife as a daughter of the King deserves to be loved.

When I think about being gifted with singleness, I have to start by seeing the great freedom and opportunity I have to fully devote my life and energy towards pleasing God. I get to pour my energy into developing my own faith, while not having to consider the needs of a spouse when committing to ministry. I refuse to waste this time in my life a single man. If I desire to be the ?man of one wife? that Paul writes about in 1 Timothy 3, I have to start today.  As it is now, I don?t know who that ?one woman? is because I haven?t married her yet, and so part of being that man in the future, means that today I have to fight tooth and nail to keep my heart, and my body for her. The greatest part about this fight is that God has already set up a defense mechanism for me. When I pour my heart and soul into loving God, He protects me from the temptations of the world and His grace is big enough to redeem me from the past when I have failed to live for Him.

LETTER #3 (From a Single Woman)

Tags: men, ministry, singleness, women

I Will Wait For You

Nov 21, 2011 1 Corinthians

This past weekend, we talked about Singleness at Riv. For all of you who are single, check out this awesome spoken word piece by Janette:

Tags: singleness

Review of “Did I Kiss Marriage Goodbye?” by Carolyn McCulley

Nov 16, 2011 Book Reviews

As part of the 1 Corinthians series we are working through at Riv, I am dedicating my Wednesday book reviews for the next few weeks to books on marriage, singleness, and divorce. Today’s review is a repost of a book review from a year or so ago.

A few weeks ago at Riv, I asked for a single person to volunteer to read the book “Did I Kiss Marriage Goodbye” and to let me know what they thought of it. My friend Lisa took me up on the challenge and posted an exhaustive (and personal) review on her site.

Here is a shorter review specifically for the readers of my blog. Thanks, Lisa. You rock.

The author is theologically sound and covers a wide range of scripture to make her points. Most books on singleness seem to rely on either 1 Corinthians 7 or Ruth. McCulley touches on both, of course, but also digs into many more obscure, seemingly tangential passages. For instance, she actually references Leviticus 19:23-25 (you don’t actually get to eat any produce from a vineyard until year 5) to talk about how Proverbs 31:16 (“from her earnings she plants a vineyard”) is actually about long-term investment.

She offers numerous examples of how other single women have used their singleness to be a blessing. This is key. Other books seem to just say to use singleness well and leave it at that. For instance, if they’re talking about being an influence among children, they don’t seem to go much farther than suggesting that we should teach a Sunday School class. McCulley talks about strategically developing relationships with kids and their parents (volunteering to babysit so the parents can go on a date; getting permission to step in and offer corrective advice to specific children). The second half of the book offers up a ton of tips like these. The very fact that she goes for breadth – not depth – makes it a LOT easier to find ways to apply it to my own life.

She emphasizes singleness and marriage as both temporary states throughout. As part of this she makes it clear that the desire for a husband never really goes away. This gets a little more personal for me. Somewhere along the line I got it in my head that if I were truly “gifted” with singleness there would come a point where I functionally became an asexual being, and I’d no longer be attracted to the various men in my life. I’ve prayed while struggling with my feelings for various men that this one would be the last; that either he would be the one I’d actually marry or I’d just no longer have to deal with such feelings ever again. The fact that life just doesn’t work that way is so obvious that nobody ever bothers to actually state it. Most books instead focus on the whole “don’t be the aggressor in the relationship” thing. These books always feel like they operate under the assumption that (a) women choose when they fall in love and (b) single women are by default desperate enough for marriage to initiate a relationship. Okay, yes, it’s important to talk about that, but (a) initiating a relationship as a female may be unwise but does not guarantee its failure, and (b) some of us have long since learned that knowledge and can we please move on to something else. So it’s refreshing to have a book that helps you live like a single in spite of your emotions toward any particular man.

Tags: singleness

Did I Kiss Marriage Goodbye?

Jun 29, 2010 Book Reviews

A few weeks ago at Riv, I asked for a single person to volunteer to read the book “Did I Kiss Marriage Goodbye” and to let me know what they thought of it. My friend Lisa took me up on the challenge and posted an exhaustive (and personal) review on her site.

Here is a shorter review specifically for the readers of my blog. Thanks, Lisa. You rock.

The author is theologically sound and covers a wide range of scripture to make her points. Most books on singleness seem to rely on either 1 Corinthians 7 or Ruth. McCulley touches on both, of course, but also digs into many more obscure, seemingly tangential passages. For instance, she actually references Leviticus 19:23-25 (you don’t actually get to eat any produce from a vineyard until year 5) to talk about how Proverbs 31:16 (“from her earnings she plants a vineyard”) is actually about long-term investment.

She offers numerous examples of how other single women have used their singleness to be a blessing. This is key. Other books seem to just say to use singleness well and leave it at that. For instance, if they’re talking about being an influence among children, they don’t seem to go much farther than suggesting that we should teach a Sunday School class. McCulley talks about strategically developing relationships with kids and their parents (volunteering to babysit so the parents can go on a date; getting permission to step in and offer corrective advice to specific children). The second half of the book offers up a ton of tips like these. The very fact that she goes for breadth – not depth – makes it a LOT easier to find ways to apply it to my own life.

She emphasizes singleness and marriage as both temporary states throughout. As part of this she makes it clear that the desire for a husband never really goes away. This gets a little more personal for me. Somewhere along the line I got it in my head that if I were truly “gifted” with singleness there would come a point where I functionally became an asexual being, and I’d no longer be attracted to the various men in my life. I’ve prayed while struggling with my feelings for various men that this one would be the last; that either he would be the one I’d actually marry or I’d just no longer have to deal with such feelings ever again. The fact that life just doesn’t work that way is so obvious that nobody ever bothers to actually state it. Most books instead focus on the whole “don’t be the aggressor in the relationship” thing. These books always feel like they operate under the assumption that (a) women choose when they fall in love and (b) single women are by default desperate enough for marriage to initiate a relationship. Okay, yes, it’s important to talk about that, but (a) initiating a relationship as a female may be unwise but does not guarantee its failure, and (b) some of us have long since learned that knowledge and can we please move on to something else. So it’s refreshing to have a book that helps you live like a single in spite of your emotions toward any particular man.

Tags: marriage, singleness