Singleness can make us more like Jesus

I've heard my married friends say that marriage is tough.  It reveals to you your selfishness, your pride, your sin.  I don't know exactly what marriage is like, but I can imagine that it would be hard to lay down personal desires to love and serve your spouse.

They've also said that being married is the best way to become more like Jesus.  It forces you to confront your sin.  You can't just ignore the fact that you're impatient, or that you struggle with lust, or that you have anger management issues.  These things will negatively affect your spouse and your marriage if you continue to ignore them.

While I can see the point, I don't agree that marriage is the best way to be sanctified (read: become more like Jesus).  And here's why:

1. Singleness forces us to trust God with the future.  We can't rely on another person to help us make life decisions. 
   
2. Singleness gives us more time to spend with God.  When a woman has a husband and kids, her energy is almost entirely focused on caring for her family.  With more time to spend in God's word and in prayer, we should expect to see God change our hearts through that.
   
3. Singleness may mean we're lonely at times; loneliness reveals to us our need for God.  If we feel that there's no one who fulfills our needs for love and acceptance, we can look to God.  He is the one who unconditionally, eternally loves those who trust in Christ.
   There have been moments where I've felt incredibly lonely.  In those moments, I thought that what I needed was a boyfriend.  I believe that that's one nasty lie that all women have been fed.  The truth is that we don't need men to fulfill us.  We need our God.  And yeah, I needed my God.  On many occasions, I've seen God come through.   When I come to him with a broken heart, he fills me with a renewed sense of his awesome love.  The bible says that he comforts the downcast (2 Cor 7:6).  I know that through those lonely periods of life we come to know God more intimately.
   
4. Singleness can reveal our struggles with sin: seeking attention from members of the opposite sex, fantasizing, lust, etc.  My prayer is that all single people would have find community, and within community would have a safe place to confess their sins and receive accountability from members of the same sex.
   
5. Singleness teaches us about sacrifice. While we're single we will have to deny our desires for sex, intimacy and physical affection.  Jesus prepared us for this; he said that following him would surely involve sacrifice (Matthew 16:24-25).  When we deny ourselves and persevere through hardship, our faith grows.
   (Side note: We are not giving up love! God freely offers his love.  Also, he has given us other people through whom we can experience love.)

I believe that singleness, just like marriage, can bring us closer to God.  In fact, God can use any phase of life to transform us into a person who reflects more of his glory and his beauty. 

I think the key is offering ourselves to him.  Don't waste your singleness complaining about being single.  Instead, offer the time and energy you have to him so he can use it for his glory.

What do you think?  Is being married the best way to be conformed to the image of Christ?

Foolish forgetfulness

Some days, somehow, I convince myself that God has forgotten about me.  In the back of my mind I'm asking, "Why are my friends getting into relationships, getting married and having kids, and I haven't even started on that path?"

I think that's a pretty foolish way of thinking.  How often do we convince ourselves that either God has forgotten to bring us a significant other, or else he doesn't care enough to do so? The other issue that may pop up is that we think he's not actually in control, and isn't able to bring that person into our lives.

Lately I've been reminded that God is powerful.  It seems simple and obvious, but it's a good reminder.  God is so powerful that he created the earth and heaven and everything in them. And, the creator of the entire universe is powerful enough to bring me a spouse.

Isaiah 45:18 says:

 ¹⁸ For this is what the LORD says—
he who created the heavens,
   he is God;
he who fashioned and made the earth,
   he founded it;
he did not create it to be empty,
   but formed it to be inhabited—
he says:
“I am the LORD,
   and there is no other...

So, he has the ability, but does he care?
Scripture shows us countless examples of God's great love for his people.  I think we need to constantly remind ourselves that he loved us so much that he gave his life for us!  Jesus was tortured for us, while there was nothing in it for him (while we were still sinners); do we think he doesn't care enough about our desires?

Matthew 7:11 portrays God as a generous, loving father who wants to give his kids (us!) good gifts:
¹¹ If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

He does care about what we want and need.
 
I love the following passage; it talks about God knowing us before we were born.  The whole Psalm is good, but here's a snippet.

Psalm 139

1 You have searched me, LORD,
   and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
   you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
   you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
   you, LORD, know it completely.


If he knows us that well, then he knows what is best for us.  He is perfect, his memory is perfect, and he doesn't forget what we need.  In fact, he knows what we need better than we do.
 
He loves us, and we need to trust that not only does he have the power to bring that special someone into our lives, but he cares.  He's waiting for us to trust him with the outcome, whether it's singleness or marriage.

Single and free to make my own decisions

I feel blessed to be single at this point in my life. As I’m finishing my undergrad this month, and moving on to a new stage of life, there are so many decisions to make.  And, being single means there really are no limits to where I could go or what I could do.

At times I think I would like to have a special guy in my life.  At least if I was in a serious relationship, I think that my decisions wouldn’t be so hard.  I would choose to be wherever the guy was, and my options wouldn’t be so numerous.  (I get overwhelmed when there are too many options.  I would like someone to just make my decisions for me at this point.)

With these upcoming decisions and life changes, it would be nice to know that something is constant, something is stable.  (I'm thankful to God that he is the only stable thing right now, and that I'm forced to look to him for my sense of security.)

At the same time, with a relationship, my options would be somewhat limited.  If the guy wanted to move halfway across the world, would I stay here in Montreal?  If he was a homebody, and wanted to remain near his family, would I move to another province or country for a job opportunity? Not likely.

At this point, I have no relationship.  I am free to move, to travel, to work and to spend my money and my time however I would like to.

The single life is truly a blessing.