A late-March entry about Valentine’s Day? Believe it. Depending on whether you’re on the “half-pipe is complete” end of the spectrum or the “half-pipe is only half awesome” end, I’m either a month late or 11 months early. Let’s go latter! Below I’ve included an entry from my journal from a month ago about some of my meditations on being a single Christian man on the day Saint Valentine was beheaded. I’ve gone ahead and included some “month after” commentary after doing some more reflection on this subject lately.
2/14/09
“I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.”
1 Corinthians 7:32-35
Valentine’s Day. And God is GOOD. More and more, he is faithfully bringing me to a place where the above passage is not just a lofty ideal to aspire to but an inward reality to be enjoyed. I feel like I’m no longer having to convince myself that I’m happy in my singleness. I just feel more content. But in no way is my desire marriage depleted. It’s still there. But I didn’t care being single today. I credit this to becoming increasingly dependent on God’s promise to be good to me (Romans 8:28). By focusing on the promised end (all things working together for good), I rest and let God decide how he wants to do this. God has and will continue to lavish his goodness upon. If he can be most good (and most glorified) by keeping me single forever, I will gladly accept. If he will be most good by partnering me with a wife, then that’s what he will do. It is liberating to belive God when he promises to be good. This inherently crushes dissatisfaction. For if we are in despair over singleness, we’re essentially trusting in our own definition of “good” and not God’s. Our primary good is the knowledge of God by which we are saved (John 17:3), which he pours out on us (Ephesians 1:3, 2 Peter 1:3).
The Christian is to be preoccupied with that which will carry over into eternity. The institute of marriage as we know it will be a casualty of the consummated Kingdom. Thus, a preoccupation with marriage in and of itself is foolish at best and idolatrous at worst. Preoccupied with eternity, the Christian should pursue marriage as a means of producing more fruit, more treasures, and more glory to God (Galatians 5:22-23, Matthew 6:19-21, Ephesians 1:6,12,14)*. My attitude about marriage should be governed by the realization that people won’t marry in the new earth. This realization forces a Christocentric recontextualization of marriage itself.
In all of this, I’m learning to see the world more in relation to Christ. And because it’s not necessary to be married in order to serve and meditate on him, I’m growing more content in my circumstances.
“Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!”
-2 Corinthians 9:15
(end entry)
The working definition of wisdom I’ve been living off of for the past few months is this: Wisdom is seeing the end state of all things and living in light of that in the temporal (or something to that effect). So when Jesus says that “in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Matthew 22:30), how should that affect how I live now? How much control should the desire for marriage have in my heart as a temporal institution?
I find myself becoming far more confrontational with myself in the fight against sin. What I mean is that I’ve often tried to convince myself I was satisfied in singleness. I read passages like 1 Corinthians 7, and Song of Solomon 2:7, and would feign some excitement: “Yeah, Lord. Awesome. I’ll be single for you if you call me to!” But if God were to physically appear to me and tell me he wanted me to remain single for his cause, I would have broken down. Pride is unmercifully relentless, and cunningly subtle. I have discovered in my heart at times the attempt to appear to be content in my singleness in the elusive hope that God will look at my contentment and decide that because now that I’m content in him alone, I’m finally ready to get married. That’s anything but contentment. It’s a charade. So when I say that I’m becoming more confrontational, I mean that I’m asking myself harder questions. “I’m content in my singleness.” Am I? Really? What are the evidences of this? If God were to confirm in my life that he wanted me to remain single, how would I really react? How do I live as a single man?
I’ve come to believe that this issue of Christian singleness is much more serious than I’ve treated it in the past. Sermons addressed to young singles are centered around the theme of waiting. They’re patience-driven. This is fine, but it leaves one kind-of big aspect unaddressed. To instruct singles to wait well is to presuppose that they will one day get married. But no one has that assurance. There’s a great scene early on in the show “Lost” in which the survivors of a plane crash are about a week into their time on the island, and they’ve been waiting eagerly for rescue to come at any moment. Their leader Jack then makes an awesome leader-speech in which he starts out saying “It’s been six days… and we’re all still waiting. Waiting for someone to come. Well, what if they don’t? We have to stop waiting. We need to start figuring things out.”
The problem many Christian singles face isn’t patience. It’s idolatry. Impatience is merely the symptom. I’ve too long treated the symptom, trying to become more patient without looking deeper into my heart and seeing the problem there, the idol I’ve made of getting married one day. I’m still waiting. Waiting for a wife to come. Well, what if she doesn’t? I have to stop waiting, and start figuring things out. I’ve long planned (albeit vaguely) my future ministry and plans on the assumption that I’ll be married then. But what if I’m not? A man is more than his marital status. Such a status is temporal. God’s kingdom is eternal. We teach our children that “true love waits” when the Bible doesn’t give anyone the assurance that there’s anything romantic to wait for in the first place. We must be weary of promising earthly blessings when God has not.
As I stated in the journal entry, I’m a weird paradoxical spot when it comes to marriage. My desire for it is perhaps stronger than ever, yet I’m more content than ever in my singleness. There’s a fine line between desire and need, and by God’s grace alone I’m slowly but surely leaving one of those sides. But that’s a daily fight. It’s only been in the last few weeks that I’ve realized that I’ve been harboring an idol in this area. God calls us to be truly satisfied in him. And only when we do this, when we relinquish all control and let God decide how he wants to be good to us will we be truly satisfied in our marriages, in our singleness, in our jobs, and friendships. If our treasure is here, it can be threatened, leaving us vulnerable to fear and hate when that threat comes. But if our greatest treasure isn’t here, then nothing here can threaten us. May we all learn to find deeper satisfaction in God alone, not what he can give us. God’s greatest gift to man is himself, and nothing can ever top that.
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*At the risk of purging this thought of its full implications, it is fruitful to your walk and wonderfully glorifying to God to be bathed in sexual satisfaction in the God-given context of marriage.
Posted by thetenthleper 