Dissecting the Gospel of Marriage and the Reality of Singleness

 

"Marriage is the greatest blessing in life"

Christians LOVE talking about marriage and if you're in college, you're practically drowning in relationship talk. It's the tea. You're drowning in the tea. When you meet someone who you have not seen for a while, after the standard pleasantries of "what have you been up to?" have been exchanged, the topic invariably goes to "how's the love life?" At least once a school year (if not once a term), there is a relationship talk. Some older Christians seem set on trying to set you up. For as much as we sing love songs to God, we seem too often to be equally focused on finding that someone "special" we can sing love songs to as well. When we leave the halls of our church and go into the secular world, marriage and relationships are shoved into our face as well. Any dissection of the music charts reveals song after song about love. We all know that it's important and we should want it. Yet, for many of us, despite our best efforts, instead of meeting our holy, humble, hospitable, and hot spouse, we only meet heartbreak. We (speaking as a dude) ask girls out and get turned down. Maybe, we get that first date but don't get that second date. Maybe things go swimmingly, but, due to circumstances, it doesn't work out in the long haul. So we stop. And look around.

AND OH MY GOODNESS ALL MY FRIENDS ARE GETTING MARRIED AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Christians seem to LOVE marriage. It makes sense. We know that marriage is designed by God and gifted to the first human. Every guy has probably annoyingly quoted that "it is not good for Man to be alone" when trying to explain to someone why they want a wife. We know that marriage means companionship, and in an age and time of our life where we often have mainly surface level friendships and constantly shifting social circles, we crave that intimacy of a partner who is with us for the long haul. A partner who we can bare our awkward insecure souls to and still be WANTED. A partner who we can express our sexual desires to (which is totally good. God created us to have sexual desires). A partner with whom we can learn how to live self sacrificially for.

Marriage is good. Marriage is a blessing.

However, we, as typical humans, have turned and twisted a "good" something good into a "perverted" something good. Speaking from personal experience, while never explicitly stated, marriage was signaled as a necessity if I wanted to be a better Christian. I heard things like "I personally grew so much in my marriage. I didn't know so many things that were wrong with me until I was married." While told in a way that is supposed to help people see the hardship of a Godly relationship, I interpreted it as "I can be more sanctified by being in a marriage than if I wasn't." Marriage was not just a blessing. It was a salvation. Furthermore, hearing married couples tell their story of how they were so deeply able to serve each other and love each other made me assume that the purest form of human love is expressed in a marriage. I'm not just talking about the physical stuff, but rather the ability to self-sacrificially love another person. I assumed that by being in a relationship, I could truly practice loving someone else. After all, Christ is the bridegroom and the church is His bride, so if I want to be like Christ, I need a bride.

I had drawn a line in my mind, a line that I needed to cross. Unfortunately, it's really hard to cross that line if no one wants to cross that line with you. So, naturally the question became, "why can't I cross this line?" If marriage is supposed to make me a better Christian, and God wants me to be a better Christian, what's going on? 

"I didn't find my partner until I was content being single"

Naturally, something MUST have been wrong with me. In order for me to be a better Christian, I needed to get married, but I was also being told that I needed to be happy being single in order for God to give me a wife.

That's some cognitive dissonance right there. Being married will make be a better Christian but I can't want to be married if I actually want to be married. Therefore I don't want to be a better Christian? huh?

My mind would always go back to "why am I not content with where God has me?" It turned into a mental prison where I would beat myself up for not "being content with being single." Was my faith that bad? Was I that superficial? What else is wrong with me? Every time I got turned down, I assumed it was because I was deficient in an area. Maybe I was too immature. Maybe I talked too much. Maybe I wasn't pure enough (which to be honest, still working on that one. Pro tip, counseling is great. Seek it out). Maybe these white girls just don't want to date a short Asian dude (actual thought, no lie). I would grind my mind trying to come up with ways to better myself and to be a better Christian. A relationship was a salvation, and it was a works-based one. It wore me down, and often led to me acting out in sin. So, I obviously needed to do better.

So, what's one way to become better? Run and work harder obviously.

"You just gotta run after God and look around and see who is around you"

It's terrifyingly easy to turn selfless service into selfish service. We use the metric of how many hours a week you serve to measure up ourselves against others. However, that very quickly turns into a game of comparison and when we think that having a good relationship is a sign of holiness, we use how much a person serves as a sign of how well things will go. I would become frustrated when I would serve a lot, but all the people who didn't seem to visibly serve would start dating. That frustration turned into an air of bitter superiority, where I assumed that they were probably crossing boundaries that they shouldn't be, and it would all end in a fiery wreck. My response was to merely keep on serving (maybe serve more? maybe serve in a more visible way?) to show God and potential spouses how godly I was (intentional use of the lower 'g' there).

"Singleness is a gift"

Ha. 

I've heard that line far too many times than I've cared to. In my mind, singleness wasn't a true gift. It was a consolation prize. A consolation prize for the discards, those who would forever be thought of as a valued brother or sister in Christ, a valued friend, and a valued servant, but nothing more. Singleness wasn't a gift. It was the bottom rung of a pit that I could never seem to climb out of. I was stuck in platonic relationships where I couldn't truly become an "ultimate Christian" able to fully love and be loved by another human. But...

Greater love has no one than this...

Marriage is good. We should desire marriage. But what is love? How do we love? When do we get to love? Jesus in John 15 makes it pretty clear. He tells his disciples that they are to love each other as He loved them. That the greatest love is laying down one's life for a friend. He is their friend. 

It's intense foreshadowing of His sacrifice on the cross, but it is also telling of how we are to live our lives. If we are to be imago Christi, the image of Christ, we're supposed to do the same and to other believers. To those who were once our enemies but who God has brought into His fold. In fact, we're supposed to do that regardless of if we're married to them or not. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), Jesus only briefly touches on adultery and divorce, and spends most of His time focusing on how to live in a community and how to love others. I do not think I've ever read those chapters and thought He was only talking about how I relate to my spouse; I always knew that he was talking about the greater church. Godly love is found ultimately in Christian community, by serving one another and learning how to die to ourselves. If you think about it, that's even harder than a marriage! You get to choose who you marry. You don't get to choose who else is a child of God. Instead, God has called us to love one another and lay down our lives for one another, even if that another isn't the person that "checks all our boxes". That person could be across the political aisle. That person could not like you. That person could have almost an opposite view on everything except for Christ's finished work on the cross. That person could even be ugly (!). Still, God has called you and me to love them.

I think Paul sums it up nicely in Romans 13:8-10 (NASB):

⁸ Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for the one who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the Law. ⁹ For this, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁰ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the Law.

The thing that the Jews cared so much about, the fulfillment of the Law is contained in loving our neighbor.

So now what?

In a classic passage quoted by the "Singleness is a gift" group, Paul tells the Corinthian church the benefits of being single (1 Corinthians 7:7). However, it is in verse 17 that I think really helps us to see how to properly contextualize our relationship status.

"Only, let each one live the life which the Lord has assigned him, and to which God has called him..." (1 Cor. 7:17 AMP).

Given that we're all born single, for those of us who ARE still single, why do we strive so hard to get off the path that we are currently on? I certainly want to get married, and I do THINK that I will be someday, but for this chapter in my life, God has called me to be single. How do I know this? BECAUSE I AM SINGLE. WOW. 

Do I know why? Nope. Do I need to know why? Also nope.

So what should I do? I seek God, not because I want to show off how much of a catch I am, but because His goodness is worth running after. When I feel lonely, what do I do? Do I just pine and wish for a girlfriend (and probably give in to sexual temptation), or do I first bring my pain to God and then seek out Christian community for me to love and be loved on? Am I neglecting the people in my life that God HAS placed in front of me because I'm always looking over them trying to find that nice gal to marry? Am I being mentored and mentoring others, having Godly men speak into my life and challenging me to grow? Do I understand that my relationship status is not an indication of God's pleasure or displeasure of me, but that Christ's sacrifice and finished work of the cross is enough?

Do I understand that God is good, and He has abundant grace and patience for me when I fall short of perfection?

Do I know that Jesus loves me?

Saying that singleness is a gift still feels like a stretch some days, but I've come to terms with the fact that it's my reality. Will I stop trying to make an effort if there's a nice Godly woman who I'm attracted to? No! However, I'm learning more and more that being in a relationship and a marriage is not the biggest God's sign of His blessing and happiness upon you. God's blessing was already shown: a cross with Christ dying on there and an empty tomb showing His defeat of death. His happiness is seeing Christ's perfection in me. There's no striving. There is only grace and mercy with heaps and heaps of blessings.

So, who are blessed? The poor in spirit. Those who mourn. Those who are meek. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Those who are merciful. Those who are pure in heart. Those who are peacemakers. Those who are persecuted because of righteousness.

What is the blessing? Being called a Child of God. Seeing God. Inheriting the Kingdom of Heaven. That is the greatest blessing.

Run after God but remember that you aren't required to have a spouse to run the race that God has set before you. Don't compare your mile time to others but instead run after God to the best of how He's gifted you! 

Run and rest. Rest and run. Above all, take heart knowing that God knows you and that He loves you and that He is guiding your life for His ultimate glory which involves your greatest good.

 

 

 

 

P.S. If you're in a spot where you know all this but you don't feel it, I guess I can only say try not to sweat it. I'm still not always perfectly happy and zen with being single. It's a process. It takes time. There are times where after a long day I just want to cuddle on a couch with someone and decompress, and if I'm being totally honest, often just reading my Bible or praying doesn't make that desire go completely away. However, when I think of the cross and Christ's love for me? That's something. Feelings are valid. They exist. They point to deeper underlying currents in our hearts. But they aren't everything. Sometimes we want what we can't have in that moment and that's okay. Go to God. Lean into Him. Text a trusted friend. Call someone. Go for a walk. The body of Christ is there for a reason. And?

Remember He is good.