Resistance | SingleRoots

11 Jan 2012

Twenty Things I Learned in My Twenties

Guys, don't let your twenties just happen to you...

Now that I’m at the ripe, old age of 31, I’ve spent some time reflecting on the things I learned while experiencing my twenties as a single guy. My list is mainly beneficial if you’re of the male demographic, but I’m sure that it can speak to the ladies too. (Even if it’s a “Yeah, Ryan, preach it, brother!”)

Hopefully, one of my life lessons can save you some heartache, point you in a new direction, or just give you something to think about…

1. Only in emergencies should you live with your parents. And if you must, put a time limit on it. Girls see this as a red flag.

2. If you don’t have the money, don’t buy it. Your future family shouldn’t be paying interest on the big screen you bought when you were 21.

3. Girls don’t care what kind of car you drive. They mainly care if you have drive — as in, whether or not you have enough ambition to support a family someday.

4. Working on a career versus working on an Xbox game has a much bigger payoff in the long run, according to Donald Miller. He’s right. [Read more...]

Categories: Career & Adventure, Church & Ministry, Relationships, Spiritual Growth, Stewardship Tags: commitment, masculinity, mentoring, relationships, Resistance, stewardship, travel, twentysomething

30 Nov 2011

Distracting Ourselves to Death, The Final Chapter

By Ryan S. 3 Comments

Bible © by Savio Sebastian

Editor’s Note: This post is the final post in the “Distracting Ourselves to Death” series. You can find the previous posts here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

The enemy is crafty. Just after coming off the “high” of my sabbatical, I immediately went about making changes. I was excited to initiate many of them. My confidence was high, my vision was clear, and my path seemed a little straighter than it had in years.

I woke up every day excited about the new direction I had for my life. I was finally starting to see my way out of the ruts I mentioned in my first post. Unfortunately, a trend started to develop. For almost two months, after my “life-changing” sabbatical with the Lord, I cracked open my Bible very few times. I didn’t journal, worship or even pray much. It was a subtle drift, but one day led to two days, then a week, and eventually an entire month had passed and then two. [Read more...]

Categories: Spiritual Growth, Stewardship Tags: distractions, reality, Resistance, sabbatical, Spiritual warfare

24 Nov 2011

A Thanksgiving Pep Talk

By Jessica Bufkin Leave a Comment

Thanksgiving 2010 © by tinaxduzgen

I’m fortunate that my family never makes me feel pressured to get married, and they don’t make me feel incomplete because my left hand lacks a wedding band. (Besides, I’m a girl, and it’s not like it is within my control in the first place, you know?) I realize, however, that my situation is not the norm for many of my friends. For some of them, the holidays are a glaring reminder that everyone else thinks they’re somehow unfinished because they’re not married yet. And for many, that very thought causes them to want to bury their heads in the sand, eat some turkey, and pray that they make it through the day relatively unscathed from blind date set-ups and Aunt Bertha’s tips for snagging a man or a woman. [Read more...]

Categories: Relationships Tags: Resistance, thanksgiving

23 Nov 2011

Distracting Ourselves to Death, Part 4

By Ryan S. 1 Comment

Editor’s Note: Click below to read the first 3 parts in the series: Distracting Ourselves to Death, Part 1,

Distracting Ourselves to Death, Part 2,

and Distracting Ourselves to Death, Part 3.

When it was time to leave the secluded lake house after 5 days with no technology or human contact, I was ready to interact with the world around me again. However, there was one really strange thing that happened soon after:

Way before I reached for my iPhone or hurried to find an internet signal, I wanted to find some good food. My time was really amazing, as I mentioned in last week’s post, but all I could think about was high-quality food. I went to the first restaurant I could find and picked a table in front of a TV. It was tuned to a 24-hour news station, and I was excited to see what had happened in the world while I was away. [Read more...]

Categories: Spiritual Growth, Stewardship Tags: discontentment, distractions, Resistance, sabbatical

22 Nov 2011

Airing My Dirty Laundry

By Jessica Bufkin Leave a Comment

“Relationships aren’t the best thing, if you ask me. People can be quite untrustworthy, and the more you get to know them—by that I mean the more you let somebody know who you really are—the more it feels as though something is at stake. And that makes me nervous. It takes me a million years to get to know anybody pretty well, and even then the slightest thing will set me off. I feel it in my chest, this desire to dissociate. I don’t mean to be a jerk about it, but that is how I am wired. I say this because it makes complete sense to me that we would rather have a formula religion than a relational religion. If I could, I probably would have formula friends because they would be safe.” Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller

I had an accountability partner in high school. We met at summer camp, and she lived in another town. Since we were far away, we wrote letters and prayed for each other. We reported our quiet times, worked on Scripture memory, and felt good about our special friendship that lasted about two months. [Read more...]

Categories: Church & Ministry, Relationships Tags: accountability, expectations, Resistance