Ben & Donna Stuart - The Gift of Us

[Music] hey this has been in Donna and we are in Washington DC out in the snow because we wanted to do a series of videos for you we had a book come out not that long ago called single dating engaged married how to navigate life and love in the modern age and it was our attempt to help people at every stage really navigate the complexities and leverage the possibilities in each stage and after we wrote it we had tons of questions come in about particular issues how do I handle this or how do I solve this and the challenge with the book is you had to edit it down it was originally twice as long and we just had to cut it down and so we thought we would do a couple of these to try to answer some of your specific questions and to help you as you navigate life and love and so this first video we wanted to cover a thread that runs through every single stage and we feel like is the key to victory in every single stage and that is community vibrant encouraging wise and we would say godly community people around you that can encourage you in whatever stage you're in it's interesting in the book of Genesis when God is forming the world he says of Adam in the midst of perfection it's not good for this man to be alone before brokenness and sadness in the world he looked at Adam and said he's incomplete he is meant to be connected to other people we are hard-wired to connect to one another it's actually considered torture to put someone in solitary confinement it's a form of punishment to isolate people it'll literally drive you crazy and so we are hardwired by God to be connected to other people so for those of you who are single I talked to some that feel maybe a sense of shame about the intensity of their longing for connection and let me just tell you that we're wired for it you're meant for it and though it may not be met romantically right now it can be met in community some of those emotional needs God's given you the book of Romans says that we are not just in the body of Christ if you've come to know Jesus it says but we're made members of one another that we're not just individuals that happen to all believe the same things about Jesus when we come to know Jesus he links us together within us and one of the greatest gifts God has given us is us and it'll help you in that single season I remember my single season it was incredible because I got to be a part of a community that had some families in it that had some that were just married couples that are just a little bit further ahead there was a families with kids families with dogs so I they would invite me over to feed me and to let me play with their dog and just actually to tell me what it's like to be in that season so they would come and encourage me with the things that I would be doing in life they'd come in whenever I would be leading worship or doing something they would come in to be a part of that and they would actually ask me hey how do you see God what are some things that you're doing to see God so that we can do that - yeah and I would say community is going to be the key to success in dating as well on the front end I think there's a lot of benefit in having community around you that will help you in the evaluation phase it'll save you time from lingering too long with somebody that you're not meant to be with and it'll keep you from entering a bad relationship to begin with so having community around you will help you write on the front end a dating donnas community did a great job of that it was fun we would so a bunch of the girls we would be together and maybe see you the guy would there's a guy that they would see and be like I'm kind of interesting that guy but I don't know and so the other girls would be like all right let's throw a party let's go do something let's do something together let's invite us all to go be a part of something the group of guys the group of girls and we're all doing it together we got wheat we would do anything I mean we'd go ice skating we'd go play volleyball we'd go do different things but we would bring the fun and we were doing in a less pressured environment because what we could do is we could evaluate her on how she's acting around him and we can evaluate him on how she he acts around us honestly because it matters about what how he treats us and also how he acts towards her and we could tell her hey yeah this looks good or hey you know I just don't think he's that into you well and that's the benefit of community the book of Proverbs will say that in the abundance of counselors there safety having counsel around you will keep you safe from entering the wrong relationship to begin with or lingering too long in one you should have never been in in the first place and that's the benefit of having community around you it can be awkward to pair off one on one too early and then when realize man this isn't a good fit now you have to tell that person I don't want to be around you anymore and that can be awkward but you can be infatuated with someone bring them around your community and say oops nope never mind I didn't really like him and all you've really got at the end of the day is maybe he picked up some friends y'all had a good time and it saved you a lot of heartache my community will also help you as you journey through dating and get closer to engagement the Book of Proverbs not only says that in the abundance of counselors there safety it also says in the abundance of counselors there's victory that having wise counsel around you will keep you safe from being with the wrong person or making bad decisions and dating but it'll also give you confidence that you're on the right track that you found the right person and that there's someone who's worthy of your affections I know for me that when I was dating Donna I knew that infatuation Skewes evaluation and when I'm into somebody I'm not always seeing them clearly I wanted people that loved God and loved me to be around us I invited her to situations where we'd be around different people that could look at her and say that's someone worthy to set your affections on that's someone who makes you better you're the best version of you when you're around her and so you want that community around to give you confidence I am in the right relationship and then as you enter into marriage man that person that group of people can come around you and encourage you as you encounter a new set of stresses and strains that marriage always brings yeah Ben just said that the best version of you when you're around that person that's what also in community in marriage those people can help you be the best version of you for that person and so I think that that was what's so great in marriage when I would go to my community and be like hey can you help me with this and they would say yes because we're for your marriage we love you we love Ben we want you to look like Christ in the church and so we're gonna help you so I know as I'm saying all this some of you might be thinking man this is easier said than done Ben like I had a group of friends and they all got married moved on and I'm by myself all my rowdy friends have settled down and I get that I was the last person in my friendship group to get married or some of you go I'd love to join a community like that but I've visited churches and I sit in the pew and then I leave and no one says hi to me and I feel alone and there could be student but let me tell you that doesn't negate the fact that you're for community and you'll be most alive and most safe and most victorious in community so I just want to challenge you find a good godly vibrant church to get involved with go plug-in risk getting involved in some small groups where you can meet people of various ages because I promise you that one of the greatest gifts God has given us is us that we is better than me and so whatever stage you're in you're gonna thrive if you can get around a vibrant community so we got other videos coming up about singleness about dating and about engagement that we'll get into but we hope this one encourages you and we're gonna go inside now because it's gold [Music]

Channel: Ben Stuart

Views: 12,701

Rating: 4.9699998 out of 5

Keywords: single, singleness, dating, relationships, ben stuart, sdem, engagement, engaged, marriage, married, marry, community, church, bible, God, Jesus, love

Id: tyPfLMm05k0

Length: 7min 43sec (463 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 21 2017