SINGLE-HOOD!

Singles become consumed with the idea of how wonderful life would be if they just had a marriage partner, and then they make concessions and compromises that lead to marriage out of God’s timing and out of God’s will. To feel accepted by another person and avoid the stigma of being single, they enter into unhealthy relationships and compromise values they once held dear.

The more consumed you become with the idea of marriage and/or sex, the more easily you can slip into a pattern of fantasizing. It might start as innocently as fantasizing about being with another person, perhaps someone at work or church. Then you might progress to fantasizing about the children you’d have together or where you would live. If they continue unchecked, your thoughts could become a full-blown X-rated video that stays stuck on replay in your mind until it replays in your life. The powerful feelings that accompany such thoughts can lead people into marriages God never ordained and intimate relationships He never approved.

The Bible declares that as a man “thinketh in heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7, KJV). What a strange thought! How can you think with your heart? We normally associate thought with the brain and feelings with the heart. The phrase “to think in the heart” refers to thoughtful reflection. Many ideas are briefly entertained by the mind without ever penetrating the heart. But those ideas that do grasp us in our innermost parts are the ideas that shape our lives. When our thoughts are corrupted, our lives follow suit. We are what we think.

If God gives you the gift of singleness, He may use that quality in a special way that would not be available to you as a married person—for a season or a lifetime. God’s sovereign will is always meant for your good and His glory. If and when God decides you can best serve Him as a team member with a life partner, you won’t need to change Sunday school classes, search the singles ads, or join a dating service He will work out the circumstances. “He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the LORD”(Proverbs 18:22). This favor of the Lord is what God extends to His children in arranging the circumstances for them to meet their life partners.

Deciding who you will marry is one of the most important decisions you will ever make. But the chief enemy you fight in choosing God’s best will be your own strong inclination to make a good choice instead of a God choice. A good choice will work some of the time; a God choice will work all the time.

A man who falls in love with a woman’s attentiveness may find it is the very quality that drives him crazy when he can’t get enough space. A woman who falls in love with a man’s drive to succeed may find that quality irritating and destructive when he spends more time at work than at home. What might seem like a good choice at the time may not be a God choice for a lifetime. If you “lean on your own understanding,” you will find out that the more you struggle, the deeper you go down. 

The question is not how to find a mate, but who will find the mate. God will direct you in choosing God’s best. Partner with God, don't do it alone!