“Stop looking, and God will bring you your person.”
“God will bring you someone when you learn to be content with your singleness.”
“Your person is out there—God is simply still working on him!”
As a forty-eight-year-old single woman, I’ve received a lot of dating advice like the above statements, as have most of my single friends. One time, in a Christian article, I read this piece of advice:
“If you aren’t married, get immersed in the type of work God wants you to do, the calling He has placed on your life. That’s the best way to find the best one—live your mission now and see who ends up living it with you.”
While I believe that people have the best intentions in making comments like these, they’re not helpful. More importantly, they’re not biblical. These well-meaning words can plant false hope in people’s hearts and even lead people to believe lies about God’s sovereignty and purposes.
This is probably why, when I first read the quote from the article above, a wave of emotions flooded my heart and mind. I felt hurt and frustrated—not just for myself, but on behalf of other singles who have longed for marriage and children but who are weary of counsel that only leaves us empty in the end.
Marriage is not a promise from God. It’s a gift.
The Bible is full of wonderful promises from God, but marriage is not one of them. There is no promise or formula in Scripture that says “abide in me + live out your calling = marriage.”
If there were such a formula, then why after being in full-time ministry for nearly twenty-five years—of living out my mission from God—am I still single? With this mindset, one would conclude that there’s something wrong with my life and walk with the Lord. I’ve had single friends desperately ask me, “What is wrong with my life? What am I doing wrong?” That’s why the advice and statements like those above miss the gospel.
Marriage is not to be our goal in life.
We cannot make marriage our end goal or the reason we do ministry in any context. As Tim Keller reminds us, “If anything becomes more fundamental than God to your happiness, meaning of life, and identity, then it is an idol.”[1] Formulaic thinking about marriage—or any good desire—is a slippery slope toward idolatry.
Do I want to be married? Absolutely! Marriage is a beautiful picture of God’s love for his bride, the church. As a young girl, I dreamed about being married and being a mom. But then I became a Christ-follower, and I realized that, as much as I desire to be married, there is more to life than marriage and children.
Married or single, we all have unmet desires for good things. I have married friends who are struggling with infertility or waiting for their adult child to turn to the Lord or desperately wanting their spouse to turn away from sin so their marriage can be restored. In all of these circumstances, there are unmet desires for objectively good things.
Every stage of life is full of good desires that require a season of waiting, even if it is twenty years or longer. When it comes to waiting for good desires to be fulfilled, our counsel should point more to Christ and knowing him than to a formula or well-intended advice that may lead to disappointment. A relationship with Christ is our life’s goal—not our desires.
Singleness is not second best! It’s also a gift.
Contrary to what many in society and the church think, singleness is not plan B for life! Singleness displays God’s love and grace in ways that marriage cannot, and there is just as much beauty in that as the marriage covenant.
In her book The Meaning of Singleness, Danielle Treweek helps her readers make meaning of singleness—and I would argue marriage as well—through the eschatological lens we should all use as Christians:
. . . reforming meaning of singleness relates to the idealistic (and, I would suggest, too often idolatrous) positioning of the nuclear family, and thus also of marriage, within the contemporary church . . . . It calls the community of faith to see both marriage and singleness as equally valuable and yet distinctly challenging forms of discipleship now, in light of a new creation whose radiant glow of present and eternal blessing in Christ will render all earthly sorrows, griefs, complexities, and “costs” long forgotten.[2]
While I cringe at unsolicited dating advice, I do want to encourage the single people reading this with one thing I’ve learned through my own experience and walk with the Lord: Don’t waste your life waiting for marriage!
If you are single, your life is fulfilling and good! Consider this: How are you pursuing God and growing in godliness? How are you pursuing community in the body of Christ? How are you serving others? Are you mentoring someone younger than you, or are you being mentored by an older brother or sister in the faith? Are you loving your neighbors?
Single or married, our goal as Christians is to live out the greatest commandment and pursue the Great Commission.
The greatest commandment is a foundational principle of Christianity:
“And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, ‘Which commandment is the most important of all?’ Jesus answered, ‘The most important is, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:28-21)
We are called to know the Lord and to make him known (Matt. 5:13-16; 28:18-20; Mark 16:15; Acts 1:7-8; 26:18), and we don’t have to wait for our circumstances to change to love God, love our neighbors, or begin fulfilling the Great Commission.
When asked how to know God’s will, John Stott, the bachelor theologian, aptly mused, “Go wherever your gifts will be exploited the most.”
Whether single or married, let’s all live on mission for the glory of God. Because that is our greatest goal in life!
And, single friend, if you do get married one day—praise the Lord! Receive that gift from the Lord as a new means to continue living on mission for him.
Adapted from Jill Henry’s original article published in Revive Magazine, Life Action Ministries, Buchanan, Michigan, 2018.
[1] Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods: When the Empty Promises of Love, Money, and Power Let You Down (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2010).
[2] Danielle Elizabeth Treweek and Kutter Callaway, The Meaning of Singleness: Retrieving an Eschatological Vision for the Contemporary Church (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2023).
