Growing and Serving in This Season

[This is part three of a three part series.]


“You should never get married until you are first happy being single,” she said. At the time I took her word for it, although I really didn’t believe her. Less than ten years later, she did get married and is happily married to this day.


After going through the program herself, my mom led a few sessions of the DivorceCare program at our old church. One of the topics the curriculum discussed was remarriage after the divorce was final. The program encouraged the newly single people to remain single for a long time. Remarriage too quickly was usually a sign of either infidelity during the marriage or a marriage out of loneliness instead of love and commitment.


As a single person, my mom’s words still hold true for me. I think you shouldn’t enter a dating relationship until you are happy being single. Cloud and Townsend write, “If you must be dating or married in order to be happy, you are dependent, and you will never be happy with whatever person you find.” They suggest “curing” the aloneness first, then dating. Never use dating to try to cure the feeling of loneliness. Their steps for the cure include strengthening your relationship with God, strengthening your relationships with other Christians (a “safe and healthy” group of people known as your “support system”), having a “full life,” and working to repair brokenness in your spiritual and emotional life.


In this blog post, I want to focus on the idea of a “full life,” which Cloud and Townsend describe as including “spiritual growth, personal growth, vocational growth, altruistic service, hobbies, intellectual growth, and the like.” In part one of this series of singleness, I mentioned the importance of college, career, and ministry as places to put your time and focus while you are single. At this stage in my life, for example, I can be anything. I have so many opportunities, so many chances to take risks and explore and try out new things that I really wouldn’t have if I was married and settling down. College, especially, is like that. Here’s a time when you are almost on your own, where you can do so much. Think of this time in your life as an open horizon or blank page. It’s why I made my 30 before 30 list. It’s why I’m going to China this summer. It’s why I can stay up late writing blog posts (or get up early, in this case)!


Hint, hint: Living a “full life” makes you a more interesting person. It gives you things to do, so you’re not always on Facebook. It makes life worthwhile. It gives you opportunities to learn experientially and to practice what you’ve been learning. And think about it: Aren’t the people who do something with their lives a bit more attractive than those who sit around and eat potato chips?


Now, for some people, stress is something they hide behind. The more they are encouraged to do, the more they will take on, eventually overloading and harming themselves. Do not be that kind of person, but allow yourself to take risks and to try new things.


So, what are you doing with your life? A friend once asked, “If you could do anything and knew you could not fail, what would you do? And why aren’t you doing it?” I have always wanted to co-lead a small group at my college called a Barnabas Group. I will be able to apply to lead such a group towards the end of next semester and I’m really looking forward to it, although I am nervous about the application process and the actual leadership of a group of freshman. Likewise, I’m nervous about China this summer. Things have and are falling into place, so I know God’s got this, but it is still intimidating to go for something so challenging.


Yet, look at the other side, friends. After this summer (spending five weeks in Asia), and my junior year (hopefully co-leading a group of freshmen girls), what kind of person will emerge? A stronger, deeper, healthier, and more Christ-like person, that’s my prayer. I made a list a couple months ago of qualities I desired in my future husband, but also qualities that I would seek to reach as well. One such quality was the ability to attempt difficult things. Challenging things. Things like ministering overseas, but also things like becoming yourself.


I think too many of us are afraid of who really are, but like my psychology professor always says: “There must be a ‘me’ before there can be a ‘we’.”A Relevant Magazine article discusses the importance of singleness as it relates to your individuality: “Making the most of being single means being on your own. It’s just you and God. Being single is about discovering who you are, setting personal boundaries, knowing your likes and dislikes, your passions and the desires of your heart.”


Let me close with something God gave me over a year ago. My first semester of college, God told me he wanted to do great and wonderful things in me and through me before there was a guy in my life. I believe he gave me three ministry and life opportunities at that point in which to serve him through my singleness.


Recently I realized I do not have any of those three things in my life anymore. At first, I became upset and I wondered (completely selfishly) if God had somehow forgotten about me. Then I realized that either this meant God was moving me out of a stage of singleness or he was giving me new opportunities to serve him in my current season. Right now I’m going with the latter, and I’m finding hope in the fact that God doesn’t give us the next three or four steps for our lives at once. Usually, God opens one door at a time and sheds light on one stone in the pathway at once. This time, he’s giving me a trip to Asia this summer that I doubt I would take if I was in a serious relationship, among other things.


I’m also left wondering if I put a little too much emphasis on the “through me” part of God’s promise and forgot about the “in me” part. If I am not changed on the inside, molded to be more like him through the on-going process of sanctification, my outside actions are not going to look like him either. I also believe that your service, ministry, and vocation should come from what is inside you, meaning that what God wants to do in you is just as important as what he wants to do through you. Howard Thurman said, “Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”


If I’ve learned one thing recently, it’s that it is perfectly okay to need some time. It’s okay to ask God for help. It’s okay to need to spend some time working on your own heart. Let God begin to heal and restore you and stop fighting him. Ministering to others does not mean that you have to put God’s work in you on hold. Be moldable through your ministry.


Do something. Anything. Something challenging and maybe a bit risky. Something to benefit someone else. Love it and enjoy it. And grow closer and deeper in love with our amazing God. If it’s in his plans that you get married, you will, but better to do so while passionately in love with God, your friends, and your whole and full life, than desperate for someone to finally call your own.


Thanks for reading this three part blog series on singleness!
I have recently changed over to the new Blogger interface. Sorry about the huge line breaks - any help on how to change them would be appreciated. 

Learning From This Season

[This is part two of a three part series.]

During my one of two Old Testament classes in college, I studied 1 Samuel for the first time. Something I really enjoyed reading about was the movement from a theocracy to a monarchy in the nation of Israel in chapter eight.

Finally, all the elders of Israel met at Ramah to discuss the matter with Samuel. “Look,” they told him, “You are now old, and your sons are not like you. Give us a king to judge us like all the other nations have.”
Samuel was displeased with their request and went to the Lord for guidance. “Do everything they say to you,” the Lord replied, “for it is me they are rejecting, not you. They don’t want me to be their king any longer. Ever since I brought them from Egypt they have continually abandoned me and followed other gods. And now they are giving you the same treatment. Do as they ask, but solemnly warn them about the way a king will reign over them.”

(1 Sam 8:4-9)

On first glance, this is a judge named Samuel being petitioned by his people to give them a king. However, after I continued to read and pay attention in class, I saw how some details from this circumstance could relate to singleness.

The idea of Israel being ruled by a king was not outrageous. Passages like Genesis 17:57, 35:11, and 49:10, among others, hint and anticipate at a “Theocratic Kingdom” in Israel’s future. Numbers 24:17 uses a synecdoche (English majors unite!) when it says that “a scepter will emerge from Israel.” I found this interesting, because the vast majority of my peers will get married. Most Christian college students do. I’ve also heard from a few friends who firmly believe they will get married, like one who told me that a lady she had met at a Christian camp came up to her one day and prayed specifically for her future husband. There is a kind of prophetic vision in both the incident with a king for Israel and a husband for my friend.

One reason not to date? Because “everyone else is doing it.” One of the two reasons given for Israel wanting a king is that “all the other nations have” one (v. 5). And let me tell you, to God, that’s not enough reason to want something. In addition, the people wanted a king who would fight for them in battles, although we know that God fought for them. Sometimes we need to realize that God can and is already filling the void we may think is empty without a significant other. God desires that we trust him and rely on him above and beyond the things we think we need, although we must not underestimate his power to provide.

Deuteronomy 17:14-15 says, “You are about to enter the land the Lord your God is giving you. When you take it over and settle there, you may think, ‘We should select a king to rule over us like the other nations around us.’ If this happens, be sure to select as king the man the Lord your God chooses…” The Israelites did just that. God made provision for his people to have a king. Depending on your views on free will, God caused or allowed Israel to desire a kingship and gave them the resources to go about getting one. That issue of desire is significant. I believe that God provides us with what we desire, but that he also creates in us the desire for certain things (Psalm 37:4). And I would say that the desire to date and get married is probably a desire God has given most of us, a desire God has placed in our hearts. All of that to say that desires are not wrong. (Yes, there are people called to singleness, but I believe God makes that clear to them.)

However, after reading verses seven and eight from 1 Samuel chapter 8, it seems as if it was wrong for the Israelites to desire a king. Those two verses are God telling Samuel to go ahead and give the Israelites a king, even though they are rejecting God and have abandoned him to follow other gods. Yet God still tells Samuel, even after Samuel questions God once more, to give the people what they are asking for. Is this hesitation on God’s part? I don’t think so. Yes, the Israelites were not doing a very good job at loving and worshipping their Redeemer and Rescuer, the Almighty God who led them out of Egypt. They went after other things in an attempt to be filled. But notice that God did provide a king for his people, a king he had chosen. I think this was God acting like the father he is. Matthew 7:11 says, “So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.” God was aware that his children desired someone else to fill the “king” void that he was currently fulfilling for them, but I believe he wanted to give them a king.

Having a king did not make everything perfect for the Israelites. Getting married does not fix our problems, either. But the people of Israel chose a king God had ordained for them. We know that this king, Saul, was indwelled by the Holy Spirit (1 Sam 10:6) and that when David became king after Saul, the Holy Spirit indwelled him (1 Sam 16:12-14). Therefore, I believe it was God’s will that Israel have a king, even though they still had problems and issues. God had Samuel warn Israel about having a king and the difficulties that would arise out of a monarchy, and we should definitely consider the cost before dating and marrying. One thing this has taught me, though, is that while I should strive for wholeness, I don't have to be perfect to begin a relationship.

The difficult part comes in 1 Samuel 15:10, where it says that God was “sorry” he had made Saul king. The notes my professor gave us for the class state that “The people’s desire for a king was a mistake” and while I would hate to disagree with a PhD. (he’s a really nice guy, too), I have a hard time believing that desires can be “mistakes.” Desires can be sinful and acting on a sinful desire is wrong, but since God had made the provision for their future desire for a king and had not condemned the desire before (Deut 17:14), I would say that there was nothing wrong with this desire. In fact, the not-so-happy ending of Saul’s reign only made David’s reign something to look forward to and to enjoy that much more. Despite David’s sins, his rule was much more successful. Do not take this to mean that if you don’t like your spouse, you can get a divorce and marry another one (there are certainly Biblical grounds for divorce, although dislike is not one of them). Take it to mean that most people don’t marry the first person they date. And that's okay. My grandmother once told me I was practically required to date more than one guy. Since she only dated my grandpa, she was not as impressed and aware of his good qualities as she would have been if she had dated other guys who did not share those good qualities. She has a point, and it reminds me of something a friend once told me. After a difficult circumstance, she said, "Alex, God is just preparing you to be ready for the best."

The point of this post was to share what I learned about singleness from the story of the nation of Israel’s move from a theocracy to a monarchy: God's already got it figured out, "everyone else is doing it" is a bad reason, desires are not wrong, God is our father who gives us good things, marriage does not fix our problems (God wants to heal us), and don't settle for "okay," use it to be ready for the best. Strange that Israel's history would have comments on modern day singleness, huh?

Navigating This Season

[This is part one of a three part series.]

Maybe I’m just a biased, almost 20 year old college student, but none of these books or articles or websites or speakers on Christian singleness are really helping.

Last week, I found myself in the back of the library, sitting on a stepstool in the corner beside the “Devotional” section, hunched up and holding the book carefully so no who descended the stairs and rounded the corner could see the title. I held my breath whenever someone walked through the doorway to the stairs, hoping it wasn’t someone I knew. I spent an hour on that little stepstool (after I got my studying done, of course), reading books on chastity and singleness. It hasn’t been the easiest season of singleness recently, and I needed some kind of help that knew what it was talking about but wouldn’t judge and had time for me at 10:30 on a Sunday night. Enter the Christian experts shelved in my college’s library.

For the most part, I appreciated the comments. I found a good book by Lauren Winner, which I didn’t have time to read in its entirety. However, most of the books I located were published in the early 90’s (which isn’t surprising for my small college’s library), but I have a feeling things may have changed just a bit in the last 20 years.

Coming home for Christmas break, I found my huge collection of books I’ve loved, as well as those I just haven’t had time to read yet. In the want-to-read-but-haven’t-yet pile, I found many books, including the “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” (Harris) and “I Gave Dating a Chance” (Clark) dichotomy, as well as “Boundaries in Dating” and “Lady in Waiting,” not to mention my “Wild at Heart” and “Captivating” bookshelf back at school. So, why do I have all these books? Because the books from high school (like “Dateable”) aren’t cutting it for the college student I have become. Because if I’m honest with myself, marriage is no longer foreign and far away. Suddenly I find myself almost twenty and searching for a few answers.

Let me clue you in. This is what I’m looking at right now:

1. Being single, I can devote more of my time to ministry than to a boyfriend/husband/family (1 Corinthians 7:34)
2. This season of life can be used to plan for the next. There should be an enjoyment of this season with anticipation for the next season, but not a focus on it (Ecclesiastes 3).
3. The desire for dating and marriage is not inherently wrong, and I would do well to find a place to put it (more on that later) instead of stuffing it (Psalm 37:4, Song of Solomon).

That is what I believe. Yet, I find that many of the resources available and/or prized highly for Christian singles are not saying what we need to hear. Many of the Christian sources I found told me I just needed to be a stronger Christian or I needed to have more purity, and I would be okay until marriage. I heard the ever elusive “Don’t awaken love before its time” (Song of Solomon 2:7, 3:5, 8:4), but "love" has already been awake for a while. Let me give you another example: I gave away my copies of “Passion and Purity” and “When God Writes Your Love Story” because I was so upset at their messages. I got the impression that I should just sit here and wait for God to hang a flashing neon sign above the head of the guy I should marry. While that’s probably not what the authors were intending, that’s the message I got.

Elisabeth Elliot (author of Passion and Purity) praised the womanly virtue of patience, which seemed to me more like sitting here waiting for the guy God told we’re going get married finally come around to asking me. She admits in the book that her future husband (the first of three) even began “talking” to some girls at the college he attended while they were physically separated before their courtship began. I may be female, but I am not called to sit here in silence while he makes all the moves.

Note: I am not asserting any feminist tendencies here. This issue here is not about submission as a wife, but rather the concept that relationships take two people, not just a pursuing guy. Anyway, learning to submit to God, who loves me enough to die for me, has taught me some lessons that will be valuable in the future.

In the meantime, however, let me propose some places to “put” the desire for dating and marriage that I really feel neither our worldly culture nor our Christian culture has, for the most part, provided. I believe these places are healthy outlets and safe places for the Christian single.

• Friendships. Having healthy and positive relationships with both guys and girls has made singleness a good thing for me. We will need our friends before, during, and after dating relationships. And until that boyfriend becomes a fiancé, your girl friends come first any day. I would add that we need friends of both genders who are both single and taken, and we desperately need same-gender single friends to hold us accountable and provide support and encouragement (Ecclesiastes 4:12, Proverbs 27:17).

• College, Career, and Ministry. If one more person mentions going to college to her get MRS degree, I’m going to get really angry. Yes, it would be great to marry a guy who will graduate from such an awesome college as mine, but I have a life apart from marriage. I have a job I’m excited about and a future career into which I desire to invest. I have obligations here at college that I long to fulfill. Life is not about getting married and having kids, and although I desire that, I will not make it my aim. In addition, there are multiple ministry opportunities, places of service, jobs, and callings that are only available to single people, and we can minister in those capacities in our seasons of singleness (1 Corinthians 7:34).

• Preparation. I know I bashed many Christian singles books, but there are also some good ones. I would recommend “Boundaries in Dating” by Townsend and Cloud. In addition, people are usually better than books any day, so I would encourage you to go to other Christians, those who are single, dating, and married, and ask for advice and encouragement. A pastor once said that if you don’t start thinking and planning for marriage when you’re eighteen, it will probably be too late to start by the time you’re twenty-five. (Proverbs 16:9)

• God. “I will make you my wife forever, showing you righteousness and justice, unfailing love and compassion. I will be faithful to you and make you mine, and you will finally know me as the Lord” (Hosea 2:19-20). Have we forgotten how much God loves us? He is wooing us like a patient lover. Before you get all up in arms about singleness, return to God. Let him love you. Now, loving God does not always mean that your longing for a guy or girl will be eliminated. I believe that if God has not called you to singleness, you will still yearn to get married. But God provides fulfillment until he opens the door for marriage. Like a good father, he wants to give us the desires of our hearts, but he wants us to first be satisfied in him. (Psalm 37:4, Luke 11:13, 1 Samuel 8:4-9)

Finally, know that we were never meant to be alone and that the desires within you to date and get married are not wrong. They will never be wrong unless they take the place of God in your heart. Also know that loneliness is a possibility. I’ve felt so lonely at periods when I was surrounded by people. It takes a close Christian community and a growing relationship in Christ to combat loneliness. But never let loneliness force you into a relationship. Go into a relationship when there is a measure of wholeness, not out of your own brokenness.

Trust that God guides us on the best path (Psalm 32:8). After all of this, I still believe that God has a guy picked out for me, and me for him. And I believe that God knows what he’s doing when he works out circumstances and relationships the way he does.

After writing this entire post and going back over it multiple times over several days, one line from my devotional reading this morning really stuck out. It was about love being the true fellowship of two souls. I spent a while reading through 1 Corinthians 13 and I was convicted about the terrible job I’ve been doing at love. It’s easy to end a conversation with a friend with: “Bye, I love you!” But do I really love them?

I once heard a friend say that he felt like he had so much work to do on his heart and in his life before he could get married, because he didn’t think he was mature enough or Christ-like enough to love his wife and treat her right. When I heard that, I laughed, because I know we’ll never be “good enough” for anything, if that is our goal. But it started to make sense to me when I looked at what I could be doing so much better. Maybe God knows what he’s doing when he requires us to wait a seemingly long time for a romantic relationship. In our deep struggles connected with the opposite gender/love/families, there are issues we must work through on our own and there are issues we work through with our spouses. Maybe God’s “holding off” because I’m still working on me. Because He’s still working on me.

And that’s okay. In fact, it’s awesome. I still fall short, but God is in the process of restoring me. When his timing is right, a guy and I will end up running the race together and being perfected by God together. Jeramy Clark writes, “You’re running on your own, then one day you notice someone running next to you at the same pace and in the same direction. You can run together without hindrance because your course is the same."

For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. – Philippians 1:6 (NASB)

P.S. I welcome any suggestions for books and articles on this or any other subject.

Fully Restored

In the past week or so, more than two people have told me, verbatim: “God is faithful.” None of these people know that since this past Easter, God’s been showing me that he’s faithful.

Somewhere along the line, I forgot that God was faithful. I started having doubts again. I was so fearful and uncertain and worried. Things happened in life that almost took away my joy. Surprisingly, as soon as I made the decision to stop fighting what God was doing and allow Him to keep working, joy and peace and hope instinctively took over.

It was like the difference between night and day. Suddenly, I noticed the birds singing in the trees, I noticed how blue the sky was, I marveled at the bright stars. God is faithful.

God is faithful to always be here. I felt so far from him the past few weeks, but he is still here and he has never left. I may feel far away because of circumstances or choices or a lack of a Christ-focused mindset, but God is here.

And God is faithful to redeem and restore us. He will not leave us in the broken state in which we find ourselves. He will not leave us in the sin wrapped around our wrists. Our goal should be to become more like Christ – and through this God is repairing those broken pieces. We will always have scars, but those are just reminders of what God has done in saving us.

I have begun to acknowledge this amazing hope and joy in my heart today, and as I do, the things that threaten it seem both more menacing and yet so small in comparison. I am reminded that I cannot do this alone. We cannot think positive thoughts about negative things by ourselves. It takes an amazing God. And yes, it hurts. Restoration hurts a ton, but it is so beautiful. We must let God into the darkest, deepest places and surrender that which he calls us to give up, and he will make us whole again.

On the day when we meet Christ Jesus, we will be fully restored. We are not there yet, but that is where we are moving. And that makes me so joyful. Because my God is faithful.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

– Philippians 4:8