Lovesick: Obsessed

I have “always” wanted to be in Love! I don’t really know why. I grew up in a very loving home with both my parents. But there was always something about having a boyfriend that really appealed to me. I remember most of my boyfriends and I think I’m okay to talk about a few of them because J and I both dated A LOT!

I was in 4th and 5th grade. His name was Jason. We were together for 2 years and he was my best friend’s brother. Oh yeah! I went on my first ‘real’ date with him. His parents picked me up and dropped us off at the movie theatre. I don’t remember what we saw, but I do remember we didn’t hold hands or anything in the theatre. He won me a duck with a little pink and green cap on its head out of one of those claw machines and bought me a drink and popcorn to share. Then my parents picked us up after the movie.

That was your cue to saw “Aw sweet!”

Then in 6th grade I dated Josh and he started my short person streak! He was shorter than me, had a rat tail and was so cool! He was everybody’s friend. I still think I have some love notes and a necklace he gave me in the attic.

There was Shane in 8th grade and then my most serious relationship before college… David. He kind of looked like Jeremy. Tall, big guy, way older than me, black hair and he followed the car to the state line when I left for college!

Then there were the bad eggs of course. The ones my parents could see, but I couldn’t. I thought they were each “the one”, but we won’t go there. At that age I thought being in love would make me someone else, something more than I was. And my heart was broken on a regular basis because of my need to be in love.

How many of you would agree that relationships are complicated! They are confusing, a lot of hype and sometimes painful! God created us to desire relationships. He formed us to feel attraction towards the opposite sex; boys liking girls and girls liking boys. What ends up happening and happening fast, is girls get frustrated with boys, boys can’t understand girls and we get anxious, self-conscious and nervous and these situations lead us to heartbreak. But having a relationship is not the problem in fact they have the potential to be very rewarding. The problem is that our culture had taken two basic inventions of God and twisted them beyond measure:

Human relationship and opposite-sex.

You’ve got girls asking each other “Did you find somebody yet?” Meaning, “You’re not single, are you?” Teenagers are viewed as “weird” if they’ve gone too long without a boyfriend or girlfriend. People check out your relationship status on Facebook or MySpace. Families secretly feel sorry for relatives who are single past age 25. It seems everyone has bought into the idea that our worth is directly tied to our relational status. It is just normal to think that way. If you take all that and mix it with our God-given desire for relationship and the attraction He gives us to the opposite sex, you get a bunch of lovesick people.

Whenever I wasn’t in a relationship my self esteem would drop. I’d stay in doors like a hermit and even begin to get depressed. I felt like I HAD to have a boyfriend just to me myself! I found my identity in it. That desire drove everything I did. Balance went out the window. The truth is it’s great to want relationships and it’s great to be attracted to the opposite sex. It’s even okay to wish you were dating. This is both normal and healthy. It becomes dangerous, however, when we have a heart that is so controlled by these longings, that we lose perspective on everything else in our lives because of our lovesick desires.

It’s dangerous when who we are becomes so wrapped up in our relational status that we lose sight of our God-given identity as an individual.

I want us to look at what the bible has to say about this. We are going to talk about a man named Samson. In the Old Testament, if you go way back before there was ever a king; there was a period of time that was called the judges. It was called this because the Israelites (Gods chosen people) were living in little groups, or clans and they had leaders, called judges, who helped keep everything running smoothly. During this time the Israelites really wanted a king like all the other nations, but God kept telling them it wasn’t a good idea, not yet anyways so they did what he said and kept living with the judges. One of the judges that God appointed was Samson.

Take a moment and read Judges 13: 2-5. It’s the birth story of this guy Samson.

Now the Israelites had been under Philistine rule for 40 years and this baby was basically going to “save them” The verses said Samson was to be a Nazirite. What is that you might ask? A Nazirite was a person that was set part from others to God and had to abide by some pretty specific rules in order to be used mightily by God. Not like today when anybody can be used by God.

There is a list of those rules in Numbers Chapter 6 but I’ll give u a few:
-You had to never have wine, grape juice, eat grapes or raisins or anything that comes from the grapevine including seeds or skins.
-He could never cut or shave his hair.
-He can not go near a dead body even family because it would make him unclean in fact if a person were to drop dead in his presence their was an entire ceremony he had to go through to make himself clean before the Lord again.

Back in Judges it says Samson was born, he grew and the Lord blessed him. But as he grew older he revealed one of his greatest weaknesses-women!

He’s a Womanizer Baby!!

Now his parents obviously weren’t too thrilled about that. And I know some of you can relate.

Look at Judges 14:1-2

Basically Samson’s parents were saying, “Look, we think girls are great. You probably should get married someday. But that girl? Really, son?” You see, they didn’t question the value of relationships. They never told Samson to, “Stay away from girls’ altogether.” They simply challenged his selection process—why was he interested in a girl from the Israelites greatest enemy? But in verse 3 Samson responded with some attitude, “You’re not going to stop me! I’m lovesick over this girl!”

It turns out mom and dad knew best because Samson’s wife ends up selling him out to some of her people during their wedding feast, and the marriage goes downhill quickly. That didn’t take long. So Samson is single again. He could have turned back to God and lived out his calling to rescue the Israelites from the Philistines, like God had called him to do. But Samson has a problem—he just can’t stay away from the ladies, and not just any ladies, but women who were not right for him, that were keeping him from what God had in store for him. His obsession with the wrong kind of woman was so strong, so powerful that he was willing to lose a part of who he was in order to have a relationship.


Now, after a near fatal run-in while visiting a Philistine prostitute, Samson becomes lovesick over girl number three—another Philistine. This ones name was Delilah. (Judges16:4-5). See the Philistines knew that Samson was the guy who was going to save the Israelites out from under them, so they wanted to stop him, but he was just too strong. So they used Delilah.

So after they’ve been seeing each other awhile she starts asking, more like begging him,“Honey, what makes you so strong? I mean look at your amazing muscles and how big and handsome you are, how do you do it?” She keeps after him over and over. 3 times Samson tells her lies or stories and leads her on these bunny trails about where he gets his strength, but then in verse 15 and 16 look what happens. Delilah says, “Sugar pie, how can you say you love me when you won’t even confide in me and tell me all your secrets? You keep making a fool out of me. Please tell me the secret of your strength. It will make us closer!” Don’t act like you’ve never heard anything like this before!

Well Samson gives in and tells her his strength is in his hair and the fact that he won’t cut it because of his vow to be a Nazirite. Now, why didn’t he just run from that nagging woman? Why but up with all that whining? He was obsessed! One of the problems with being obsessed is it blurs your judgment and leads you to do things you wouldn’t normally do, because in a way, you aren’t acting like yourself. You have lost a part of yourself in your obsession with this relationship.

So, Delilah betrays Samson, cuts his hair when he is sleeping and the Philistines capture him, bounding him between two pillars and he dies trying to be the man God calls him to be. I believe sitting there between those two pillars he starts to think of all he could have done, or been if he would have just invested the time into God that he did into seeking after those relationships. It angers him and moves him to break free, pulling the pillars down, causing the temple to break and killing him and thousands of other philistines. Samson took normal desires –relationship and the opposite sex- and twisted them until they eventually and literally took his life. He lost sight of who God created Him to be!

You’ve probably seen this up close in the life of someone you know. You used to be friends with someone, you hung out and had fun—until that person started dating him or started dating her. All of the sudden your friend is missing in action and it almost feels like you don’t even know who he or she is anymore. You can see someone you once knew start to change in front of your face.

You don’t have to be in a relationship to become lovesick or lose sight of who you are. Some of you are lovesick because you’re alone. You’ve allowed yourself to become so consumed with finding the right person to date that you can’t just enjoy life without that person in mind. You can’t go someplace without scoping the scene to find potential boyfriends or girlfriends. You may have stayed home instead of hanging out with friends because you needed to do a little Facebook stalking—you’re lovesick. Your identity is all about who you may or may not be in a relationship with sooner or later. You feel like you are less than who you think you should be because you don’t have someone.

Others of you, it’s not about obsessing over one person or over the idea of a relationship, maybe you’re lovesickness comes from being a serial dater. The last time you were solo was like in third grade. You just always have to be in a relationship. That was me. Every time one relationship ends it’s a matter of weeks, if not days, before you’ve found your next soul mate. You really aren’t sure what you would do with yourself if you weren’t dating—you may not even know who you are without a boyfriend or girlfriend.

It’s not that relationships are wrong. It’s not that dating is wrong. You can have healthy relationships with the opposite sex. But when all you do is think about relationships, read about them, watch them on TV or in the movies, and talk about them, then you’ve crossed the line into obsession.

This series is about dating, but it’s also about you. For some of you, you need to do a little check-up on your status—Are you lovesick? Are you consumed with relationships at the expense of who you are as an individual? What I want you to do is close your eyes, maybe even bow your head. Whatever you need to do to get alone and get really honest with yourself. Ask yourself some hard questions.

What do you think about and pray about the most?
What do you constantly talk about?
If it’s sex, dating and the opposite sex, you are heading down a risky road.

For some of you, you need to put yourself in check.
Have you really bought into the lie that you have to have somebody to be happy?
Do you really think that having a boyfriend or girlfriend would satisfy your loneliness?

For some of you, you’re way past being able to see it in your own life—you need someone else to help you see it. That’s what small groups are for. It’s what your small group leader is for. Friends have a natural way of recognize lovesickness. It’s just because it’s much easier to see from the outside. So be brave enough to ask your friends or your leaders,
“Am I too into this relationship?
Do I talk about dating way too much?”

God created relationships for us. He is passionate about us engaging in them. But obsessing over relationships, however, is not healthy. In a culture that pushes dating everywhere we turn, don’t get so caught up in it all, that you lose sight of who you are and who God made you to be.