When God gives us desires to travel, to paint, or play an
instrument, to be a teacher, or a doctor, or a missionary, etc, we are often encouraged
to pursue those passions. And it’s considered a good thing.
When God gives us a desire to be married, however, there may be times
when we are discouraged or our motives are questioned when we choose to pursue
that desire. Why is that? Why is it okay to pursue other God given passions as a
life calling but to pursue the greatest calling of all – marriage – is frowned
upon?
I have heard people quote Matthew 6:33, “Seek first His
kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you� to
prove that pursuing or desiring marriage is sinful and that we just need to let
God make it happen if it’s going to happen. You shouldn’t seek a husband or wife – what you really should be doing is seeking the Lord.
But if marriage is a holy union that God Himself created and
even says in Genesis 2:18, “it is not good for man to be alone� then why is it
considered wrong to desire a husband or wife? People may argue and say that
verse isn’t referring to marriage, but rather it’s about being in community
with the body of believers – which I agree that intentionally placing yourself
in Spirit-filled community helps when you are single and waiting. But in the
context of that verse God is, in fact, referring to marriage because He then
creates a wife for Adam. Community itself began with a marriage.
Yes, Paul did say staying single would be more ideal (1
Corinthians 7:7), however he also states in verse 9, “it is better to marry
than to burn with passion.� If all scripture is inspired by God as
it says in 2 Timothy 3:16 then this is actually God saying this through Paul’s
writing. God wants us to marry and its okay
if we desire it. We shouldn’t feel ashamed or any less of a “good� Christian
just because we want to get married.
Now the Holy Spirit tells us
clearly that in the last times some will turn away from the true faith; they will follow deceptive spirits and teachings that come from demons. These
people are hypocrites and liars, and their consciences are dead.<sup value="[ They will say it is wrong to be married
and wrong to eat certain foods. But God created those foods to be eaten with
thanks by faithful people who know the truth. Since everything God
created is good, we should not reject any of it but receive it with thanks.
For we know it is made acceptable<sup value="[
by the word of God and prayer. 1 Timothy 4-1-5
I got saved in a church that had wonderful intentions on hoping
to guard the hearts of their members. But it wasn’t healthy. Dating was frowned
upon – unless you knew 100% on the first
date that the two of you would eventually get married, your motives of
spending any alone time together would be and often were questioned.
I adopted this belief of not dating because at the time it
made sense to me – but I later realized it was easy only because I still had a
bunch of unresolved wounds from men and keeping men at a distance and avoiding
any kind of intimacy or relationship with a guy other than surface level was my
idea of “guarding my heart.�
During this time, and for years afterwards, I felt
incredible shame and guilt for even having a desire for marriage. I did
everything in my power to try and “surrender� it to God, when in reality I was
just fruitlessly suppressing a God-given desire (super frustrating I might add)
that I should have just embraced.
God is teaching me a lot lately about embracing where I’m at
instead of striving to be in a place I’m not, because sometimes God strategically
places us in hard places for a reason.
I am now a firm believer that God uses everything – literally everything – in our lives for our good
(Romans 8:28), even faulty doctrines or misdirected intentions. I prayed and
begged God for years to “rescue� me
out of my singleness but He lovingly let me sit in it until I stopped fighting
Him and learned to embrace it. He
allowed me to believe that I needed to “give up� my desires for marriage so
that He could loosen the tight grip I had on it. He needed my plans to be
married with kids at 25 to go awry so I would learn to let go of my
expectations and trust that He is still good and loving no matter what. He needed me to face rejection after rejection
after rejection, so that I would learn to look to Him alone for love, healing and
affirmation.
Desiring marriage is okay, but ask yourself this, why do you desire marriage? This is
something God asked me several weeks ago, and based on my response the following revelation came to
me.
I realized it wasn’t the fear that I would never get married
that terrified me – but rather a fear that I would never know that I was worthy, that I was
wanted and desired, that I had purpose. When I realized I was looking
to marriage for all those things it was in that moment God whispered to me, “all
those things I can give you. Not a man.�
When I discovered my worth in Him, when I discovered joy and
happiness depended on having Him in
my life and not a husband, I finally felt at peace with my singleness.
