I recently came across a song about singleness. It was brutal in its honesty. The singer articulates the yearnings of singleness in the face of attending the wedding of a friend and daydreaming about the future, in the hopes of getting married. Sample the chorus below:
Sometimes I feel like I’m the last one standing,
I look around and all my friends are falling in love,
I’m scared to death I’ll end up empty handed,
Can’t be the only one thinking,
When’s it gonna happen, happen to me,
Know it’s supposed to happen naturally,
When’s it gonna happen to me.
To my knowledge, the author isn’t a Christian, but she does put to words what even Christian singles feel about their singleness. I have felt this at some point in my life. (I am writing these raw thoughts out desiring your empathy, not your sympathy.) In a world where culture paints a picture that marriage is the best that every single person should aspire to and work towards, contentment in singleness can be hard to achieve. If what I keep thinking is “When’s it gonna happen to me”, I’m not likely to be rejoicing in the gift that my singleness is.
So, how can I be growing in contentment in my singleness? God’s been calling me to put more trust in His sovereignty.
God’s sovereignty refers to God’s supreme rule over all creation (including me), as He wills and pleases. This is undergirded by the fact of God’s creation of all things. As Maker of all things, He has every right to govern all things. This is good news when we consider that God does this in his infinite wisdom, goodness and power. Scriptures like Psalm 104 and Isaiah 40 attest to God’s supremacy and rule over all things from the weather, provision of water and food for plants and animals respectively, to the rulers of the nations. There is nothing outside of His control. Even in the wake of sin and evil, God’s rule remains firm as expressed in the revelation of His good and eternal plan centered on Christ for the salvation of sinners and the glory of God (See Ephesians 1:3-10).
But how does this help me cope with my singleness? Firstly, it helps me by reminding and assuring me that my singleness is part of God’s plan. If nothing happens outside of God’s plan, this includes my singleness. While we might be tempted to think that there are more pressing issues in the world for God to deal with, the Great and Almighty God is concerned even for the minutia of our lives, including the seemingly ‘small’ issue of my singleness. When I believe that where I am in life is because God is pleased to have me there, then I can accept His good pleasure, knowing that this is the best for me.
The alternative, obsessing about where I want to be, i.e. married, is to assert that God is not good and that His plan is not for my good. Discontentedness tends towards sin for this reason: it speaks against what God has revealed of Himself and aims to elevate us to know better than God (in effect making us god). While the desire for marriage is not evil, an obsession for marriage and grumbling against God for not making it happen for us is sinful. We need to try and stop believing the lie that culture propagates about the ‘necessity’ for marriage and choose to believe God’s truth that marriage and singleness are both gifts He gives according to His good pleasure; and He doesn’t get things wrong.
. . . my singleness is part of God’s plan.
Secondly, God’s sovereignty helps me to get away from the pressure that I am single because I haven’t done enough to get into a relationship that leads to marriage. I think this is one of the harshest accusations against single people. It asserts that if we just worked hard enough to get ourselves ‘out there’ then we’ll get married in no time. While I believe in human responsibility for actions, this assertion leaves no room for God’s will while propagating unlimited human freedom. We cannot outrun God’s will for our lives, so if God wanted me to be married, I would be. If He wants me to be married in the future, then it will happen – whether or not I position myself “in the best possible way”.
But I also know of some very ‘well-situated’ people who are single! The uncomfortable truth is that our free will is not as free as we like to think of it. Remaining in the realm of our flesh, we do not and cannot do all we want to do. All I have to do here is ask about your new year resolutions. Apparently, January 19th is the average date for abandoning most new-year resolutions. Did you make it passed the 19th? Although we willed for many things, we fail in achieving most of them. Also, the achievement of our wills does not depend only on us but also on the prevailing circumstances in our environment, which either enable or hinder us. The actions of others also affect the opportunities and hindrances available to us.
Thirdly and finally, believing in God’s sovereignty draws my eyes higher to God’s plan and the great end that He is working towards. In Ephesians 1, Paul reveals that God has richly blessed believers with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (v3). Among what is revealed there, we are meant to see the greatness of the love of God in choosing a people for Himself, whom He makes holy, having adopted them to sonship and redeemed in Jesus and sealed by the Holy Spirit as a guarantee of future inheritance (v4-14). Furthermore, Ephesians 1:10 tells us that God’s plan for the “fullness of time” involves uniting all things under Christ. Revelation 20-22 fill this out for us. At the end of time, God will save those who are His and judge all who have rejected him, bringing about a glorious New Creation, where Christ will reign with the Father and dwell in perfection with those who are His. The distinguishing feature of those who belong to God is that they believed in the testimony of Jesus and persevered in their faith till the end.
This puts my singleness in perspective. In truth, it doesn’t matter that much. What matters more is that I believe the words of Jesus and continue to trust in them in all of life until the end. “Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates” (Rev. 22:14). This is in contrast to those who continue in sin and who are kept outside of the New Jerusalem (22:15). The criteria of who enters heaven is not about singleness or marriage, but about believing Jesus for righteousness and continuing in this faith till the end, despite all the challenges that arise. My focus should be to live devotedly for Jesus in the state in which I find myself, singleness now, or marriage later should God be pleased to make it happen. This reminds me of something a friend said recently, “Singlehood is not a problem to be fixed or a disease to be healed! What matters most is if someone has been born again. If they have, then God has dealt with the greatest threat in their lives.”
The pursuit of my life, therefore, isn’t to be getting a marriage partner, but what pleases the Lord. The greatest good that I could chase after is not marriage, but God’s pleasure. Truth be told, marriage is not forever, but temporary. It lasts only as long as life on this earth persists, thus the vows end with, “Till death do us part”. Jesus testifies to this before the Scribes in Matthew 22:30, “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.” When we rise from the dead, there will be no marriage. The only marriage that matters in heaven is that of Christ and His bride the church; it is after all what all marriage was pointing to (Eph. 5:31-32).
So to the lady feeling the particular sting of that chorus at the beginning, the encouragement is that you don’t have to worry about “when” love and marriage will happen for you. Trust God to be writing a good story with your life, whether or not that includes marriage. As Piper has said, “Occasionally, weep deeply over the life that you hoped would be. Grieve the losses. Feel the pain. Then wash your face, trust God, and embrace the life that God has given you.” He also quotes Psalm 84:11, “For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.” The reality of that verse is that whatever God gives (like the shining of the sun) or whatever God withholds (as covering us with a shield), He does for our good! May God help us to really trust that. Dear single lady, remember also that you are not empty-handed. You have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Eph. 1:3). There is nothing you lack that lasts to eternity. Hold on to that!
I’ll finish with a quote I started this year with, “going somewhere, in God’s grace, according to plan”. This, to me, is the best summary of a life that testifies to trust in the sovereignty of God. While I do not know all the details of what my life holds, I can trust that whether it involves a life of singleness or marriage (or whatever other things), God is in charge of it and will provide the grace to face and even delight in it all.
