We make things more complicated and stressful than they need to be, am I right? I have a lovely young Christian friend who claims one day to be full of contentedness in her singleness and doesn’t want to be married at all-maybe ever, to the next day is stunned to realize that she is actually infatuated with a guy who has asked her out twice, but to whom she has declined. Such is the nature of youth at times I suppose. What is going on here?
Marriage is good. In fact, it’s very good. Not just speaking from experience here, though it is both very good and is also very challenging. Those challenging elements will have to be for another post another day, back to the “very good” part. In Genesis 1-2 we learn of the first marriage and when God had created them, commanded them and blessed them the next thing we hear is that it was very good-speaking of all that God had made including marriage. Which I might also point out in case it wasn’t obvious, God made and instituted marriage. It was his idea, not man’s.
Why did that even need to be stated? In my little life I’ve been coming across this sense in young Christian women that they have this subtle belief that they have some sort of edge on holiness if they can manage not to desire marriage. Going so far as finding themselves pursued by a Godly man and instead of looking to God for his blessing, they push back and ask God to take away those feelings, claiming that they don’t want to like this guy. What is happening here? If marriage is good, and God has made it and further we know that God works all things together for the good of those who love him (Rom 8:28), how then can we say to God, “Nah, I don’t want to want the good thing that I’m wanting that you made and said is good”
She realizes her own humanity and is frustrated by the fact that she cannot turn off who she was made to be. That she is not her own master. Suddenly the idol of being single and above other woman leads her to fall and see that she did like this guy in question when someone else begins to step in and her feelings reveal themselves and she is appalled and the feelings that could have been rightly placed are now turned to jealousy and bitterness. Or perhaps she suppresses these feelings for so long about marriage in general that she gives the impression that she is not interested and in swoops the attractive non Christian man whom she thought she had the willpower to say no to, because after all she’d been saying no to these eligible Christian men. It is a belief in self that is misplaced, we ought not to refuse the good gifts that God has given us.
If you are a Christian girl finding yourself hesitant in these matters, I would encourage you to do 3 things:
- Go to the Lord in prayer. I’d take it a step further and ask another person to pray for you in this area, it is not when all else fails, then pray. Don’t strive and struggle in this without bringing it to the throne of Grace!
- Jumping off of the thought of asking another to pray for you, I would take this farther and look to an older Christian woman to confide in and give you advice. The Bible tells older woman to train the younger woman, it even tells us that the older woman should train them how to love their husbands. That’s a laughable thought at first glance, you mean, it won’t be all rainbows and butterflies and it could at times be hard and we might need?!? God has built in support for you inside of His church, are you using it?
- Read. First and foremost read the Word of God and ask God to help you have an understanding of a Biblical view of marriage, singleness, male and female roles etc. Dig deep into why you have this hesitation and repeat steps 1 and 2!
I want to add that I know of many woman who are single, not by choice, who desire and long for it, who have prayed and waited and who are not in this boat. Singleness is not bad. This post is geared toward the hesitant woman that has an untrue belief the marriage is a worldly thing to be resisted.
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