At our February First Friday event (which took place on Valentine’s Day), I had the opportunity to interview a panel of 4 members of our Single Adult Ministries community.
Each of them is single at this stage in their life for a variety of reasons, from never having been married to being “single again” due to divorce or loss of a spouse to death and/or also being a single parent.
Through a series of interview questions, we had the opportunity to learn how each of them has successfully navigated and lived out the single life that God has called them to in this season.
It’s not always perfect or even pretty, and like each of you, each of them has their own singleness journey that they’ve walked – and lived to talk about.
It was a fascinating discussion that boiled down to their having discovered three significant things:
- the purpose God has for them
- being content in that purpose
- finding great fulfilment in servanthood
The following are a few shared tidbits that it’s good for us to be reminded of and learn from.
If we’re not careful, the enemy of our souls will trick us into believing we can’t live without being in a romantic relationship.
Yet, sometimes, even in what may seem like the most perfect relationships, people can still face their share of challenges, pitfalls, or maybe even outright fails.
North Coast Church has proven to be a place where people greatly love and support our Single’s Ministries (as evidenced in part by the fact that the church employs 3 full-time singles pastors.
If we’re not flexible and confident as single people, we may fall into the trap of believing that marriage and family ministries are more important or carry a higher priority. Or worse, that perhaps singles are a forgotten or an uncared-for lot.
If we’re not vigilant, the enemy can sometimes place the thought in our head that if we’re not married, then somehow, we’re just not complete or fully formed as a human being. Yet, nothing could be further from the truth. The Bible teaches that each of us was fearfully and wonderfully made, individually created and woven together in our mother’s womb. On purpose, for a purpose.
85% of adults over the age of 18 have said they would like to one day be married (or married again). Maybe you’ve also heard it reported; for the first time in our nation’s history, adults over the age of 18 who are unmarried now outnumber those who are married (54% per the most recent census.)
And yet, as many as 85% of those same people report that they would, one day, like to be married.
And though marriage may seem to have gotten a bit harder to achieve, much less maintain, there’s really nothing wrong with having that desire. Yet there is nothing wrong with being single, either.
God created and therefore loves both the institution of marriage and singleness.
From the opening pages of the Bible, we’re taught that it’s not good for us to be alone.
We hear all the time that we were created to be in relationship.
The question that might be asked then is, does that relationship necessarily have to be marriage? Or can a person also find meaningful and sustaining relationships in community as a single?
Can the call to singleness be a legitimate, worthy and even enjoyable way to live?
Is it true that the more people you have in a given setting, since we are all by nature, sinful creatures, the more complicated and often more challenging things can become?
Is it possible that many churches spend what may seem like an inordinate amount of time and resources on marriage and families, because that’s where some of the biggest obstacles to living out the Christian life surface and fester and therefore need real help?
You’ve heard the phrase, “Be careful what you wish for?” We’ll talk more about this a little later.
But, for now, can we agree that sometimes, our desire for something can get so strong as to be less than beneficial for us?
Perhaps you’ve also heard it said, “If your desire becomes your god, then you will never be satisfied.”
Where have you seen this play out?
Maybe it’s when you achieve or receive one desire, only to have it replaced by another(?).
Talk with just about any one of the guys who just won the Superbowl.
Even after they’ve worked so hard and achieved what many consider the pinnacle of success in their field, ask them what’s next, and most of them probably won’t respond with, “Well, whatever the Lord has in store for me.”
No! What are they more likely to say?
That’s right. “I want to win another one.”
Left to our own desires as humans, it seems we’re never satisfied.
But we can learn to be content.
In the Apostle Paul’s letter to early believers in the ancient city of Philippi, despite some really difficult circumstances he was facing; as a person believed to be single again, and during that time, incarcerated, he wrote to them,
“…I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do all this through Him who gives me strength. (Philippians 4: 11-13 NIV)
When each panelist was asked to share how they have been able to discern God’s purpose in their singleness, it is interesting that each of them seemed to find their answer through a series of other questions- questions that you may find helpful in discerning your own unique purpose.
- What types of things might God be either preparing you for or protecting you from in your singleness?
- If not marriage, what other meaningful relationships or friendships might God be calling you to in community?
- The Bible teaches that God’s ways are not our ways and God’s timing often is not the same as our timing. (Isaiah 55:8, 2 Peter 3:8). What are some ways that you’ve experienced God’s timing and ways to be different than your own? What lessons have you learned in these seasons?
- Similarly, the Bible teaches that instead of praying our laundry list of requests to God, we experience life at its best when we genuinely seek to align our wills with His. (Proverbs 3: 5-6, John 15:7; Colossians 3:17, Matthew 6:33). How have (might) you amended your prayer life toward learning to better align your will with His?
Finally, our panel members shared that, to a person, one of the things that has made the biggest difference in their single life journey is the gift of being called to serve in some way. Multiple benefits have reportedly been experienced by cultivating and maintaining a servant mindset. As people interested in developing a more meaningful relationship with Jesus, this stands to reason, doesn’t it?
Jesus, throughout His ministry (and as a single person) regularly modeled acts of service for those in His circle and the new people He encountered. In The Kingdom’s economy, the Bible therefore teaches that God loves a cheerful giver (2 Corinthians 9:7) and that it’s much better to give than to receive (Acts 20:35). God has also built into each of us, a sense of joy and satisfaction that we experience when we serve Him through others (Proverbs 11:25).
Yet, in all of this, I recognize that you may still be wrestling in your mind with just how you feel about being single. I understand how those thoughts and emotions can sometimes run back and forth upon that continuum. So, let’s close with and look at what is, perhaps, the Apostle Paul’s most influential writing regarding singleness vs. marriage. Two or three years after leaving the church he’d started in the city of Corinth, Paul received some disturbing reports.
As you can see on the map, Corinth was a harbor town, bustling and busy as could be, settled right there on the trade routes. And, as we talked about a little earlier, the more people you have in a given area, whether it be families with children or sailors in town for just a brief stay, the more complicated ministry and living the Christian life can become.
So, strife and division were seriously threatening the young church. Some arguments were over how people should look at and deal with marriage or remarriage in contrast to remaining single. Paul wrote this letter in hopes of helping to restore balance to the church.
Let’s begin in 1 Corinthians chapter 7, with verses 8 and 9 as they are written in the NIV translation:
8 Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. 9 But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
Jumping then, to verse 17:
17 Nevertheless, each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches.
And now, following on to verses 23 and 24:
23 You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of human beings. 24 Brothers and sisters, each person, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation they were in when God called them.
And finally, to verses 26-35:
26 Because of the present crisis, I think that it is good for a man to remain as he is. 27 Are you pledged to a woman? Do not seek to be released. Are you free from such a commitment? Do not look for a wife. 28 But if you do marry, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. But those who marry will face many troubles in this life, and I want to spare you this. 29 What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not; 30 those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; 31 those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away. 32 I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs—how he can please the Lord. 33 But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife— 34 and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world—how she can please her husband. 35 I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.
Here are a couple things I hope you to take from this and be encouraged by.
A married man, Paul says, is concerned about the affairs of this world – how he can please his wife – and his interests are divided.
The woman who is married has an obligation to please her husband. The single sister, on the other hand, has the opportunity to be all about pleasing the Lord, singularly.
There is a woman in scripture who models this very effectively. Her name is Anna.
Her story is captured briefly in Luke 2:36-38:
36There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. 38Coming up to them (Mary & Joseph) at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.
Anna didn’t panic about her stage of singleness. She didn’t lament her situation. Rather, she realized she had an opportunity to serve the Lord without distraction. And what happened?
She was given a very special revelation. She recognized that which only one other man – a man named Simeon – knew. She knew the baby in the arms of Mary and Joseph was not an ordinary child; he was the long-promised Messiah.
What might happen in your life if, those of you who have been widowed or divorced or even those who’ve never married, were to follow the example of Anna?
To look for the Lord, pray to the Lord, and daily walk with and genuinely trust in the Lord?
Anna didn’t hang out in the temple with God’s people because she was miserable there.
She didn’t hang out at church expecting that, if she did, God would bring her a spouse.
I suggest she stayed in the temple year after year because she found in the Lord exactly what her soul craved. His Word, His guidance, His instruction, His provision and her joy.
She found that, in community, the Lord provided everything she needed in that season of her life.
And she trusted in the Lord that He, alone, would forever bring her greatest fulfillment, whether that ever included marriage again or not.
And I believe, because I’ve had the opportunity to experience it, that if you’ll lean in to and let Him, He can and will do the same for you.
I pray you’re encouraged by all of this and that you know you are genuinely loved for who you are.
Right here with you,
Terry