Tag Archives: God has someone for you

A Good God And Singleness

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In my last post I shared some thoughts in response to what Scott Sauls wrote at Relevant’s site about why we in the Church focus so much on the nuclear family.  The focus of that post was to point out that we need to focus on God’s family not the nuclear family.  Simply saying that the nuclear family is not the savior or necessary for salvation is not a good enough starting point.

Today, I want to talk about the idea that God is running every aspect of our dating lives.

I want to again say that I’m not trying to go after Scott but simply saying that what he writes, while better than what a lot of Church leaders are doing, is frankly not enough.  I believe he represents what many people in leadership are thinking.  There are assumptions here that I believe are at best short sighted.

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God The Great Withholder

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I want to revisit one of the beliefs that I think can really hurt us as singles and even as marrieds.  It’s the idea that God has one person for me that he is going to provide but just hasn’t done it yet.

This idea is everywhere.  It is in books on dating.  It’s said from the pulpit.  It’s encouraged in small groups.  “You just need to be patient – God will bring you the one”.  “God will in His perfect timing, bring you the perfect person for you.”  “Just live your life and don’t worry about it, because God will provide.”  “Rejection is God’s Protection – she just wasn’t right for you.”  The list goes on and on.

People try to use scripture to back this idea up.  They use situations like Isaac and Rebekah and say see God will provide.  Yeah I’ll just send my servant to a well. You have to make some major leaps to make this idea scriptural.

The heart of this usually comes in one of two places.  Most people are mainly trying to be comforting.  It’s a quick, painless way out of a the “why are you single” conversation. It’s what I call help you sleep at night theology.  While it might help you sleep, it probably won’t help you find a wife.

The other place it comes from is the good hearted place of wanting to recognize that God is our provider for all things.  Well He is, but the problem is that we don’t treat that the same way in any other place.

If I came to you and said, I’m broke and I need a job, would you tell me to sit tight – that God will provide the perfect job that is just for me at the right time?  I should wait for the perfect job, and for sure not settle right?  Obviously this would be a bad idea.  You’d tell me to go look for a job.  Or maybe you’d say I need to go back to school to train for a different job.  What you wouldn’t likely do is blame God for my joblessness.

I think this whole idea is dangerous to us personally on a lot of levels.

First of all it perpetuates the idea of the Christian Soulmate.  This idea that there is this one person that God has for you.  This to me is not scriptural and frankly more a mix of bad Calvinism, Oprah theology and romance novels.  Nowhere in Scripture are you promised a wife, let alone a soulmate.  You do not have a soulmate.  In fact Jesus specifically says that there won’t be marriage in heaven.  The other funny thing about the soulmate is that the focus is typically on how they will be perfect for me, not so much the other way around.

Second is that many end up in fear of choosing wrong.  What if I marry someone that is not the one perfect person that God has for me.  This can also become an excuse where every person I date just “isn’t the one“.  Not to mention it’s a great excuse after marriage for leaving the marriage.  I mean if I meet someone who seems more like the perfect one, well then I must not have been right the first time right?

It can keep us from working on the things that get in the way of us getting married.  Our (and other people’s) sin, insecurities and/or lack of ability to communicate with the opposite sex.  It’s not anything that I’m doing, or the choices that I or others around me make.  It’s God’s fault.

But perhaps the worst thing about it is that it turns God into the Great Withholder.  God loves you and has someone for you, He just isn’t bringing them to you.  Really?!  This always get’s explained as you’re not ready or they’re not ready or something to that affect. But people get married all the time.  God thought they were ready but you aren’t?  All this does is create unnecessary anger and frustration with God.

It would also mean, as I’ve mentioned before, that God has changed His mind about marriage.  Now I know logic is dead in our culture but hang with me here.  For thousands of years, people got married young.  As recently as 40 years ago if you were 18-29 there was a 60% chance you were married.  Now there is only a 20% chance that you are.  So God used to think it was good to “provide the one” in your early 20s or teens, but now He waits to do it until you are 30.  Really?!

Now here’s the thing.  God is the Great Provider.  But His provision looks a little different than this.  First of all we need to get in our heads that He is not as much our provider as He is literally our provision.  Read that again.  God has given us all we need regardless of our context because He has given us Himself.  We need to start here or all else is foolishness.  The beauty of living in this is that I can live life to the full in any context including single or married.  If I get this, then I am free to search for a wife, instead of The One. If I get married, I’m more free to actually love my wife.

If we walk with God, He will provide opportunities.  But we have a role to play in that and we live in a fallen world where we and everyone we interact with (including someone we could marry) make mistakes and bad decisions.  I believe that God indeed brought my wife and I together.  I fully believe that He was in that.  But I also believe that we both chose to do something about it.

Here’s what we really want.  We want a system where either we don’t have to do anything or where we control everything.  But neither of those are right.  Neither require actually walking with God.

You Are Not Your Marital Status

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When I was a young kid what I wanted more than anything was to be good at sports.  I practiced a ton.  I played imaginary games in my driveway and back yard.  I dreamed of playing for my favorite pro and college teams.

When I got to my freshmen year of high school I was still dreaming.  I wanted to be a star.  I wanted people to notice me and I wanted to win.  I remember seeing the seniors in their letter jackets with patches for championships and individual awards.  Oh yeah I wanted that.  And I got one.

I lettered in basketball my sophomore year and got my jacket.  My junior and senior year I racked up awards to sew on and newspaper articles to put in the scrap book.  And I had a couple of championship patches as well.  I wore that jacket with pride.  People knew who I was, not just in my town but the ones around it.  I had “arrived”.

Here’s what funny.  I graduated in May, went to play football in college.  Do you know how many times after May 31 1991 that I wore that jacket?  Exactly zero.  Because now I had new things to drive me.

Now there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be good, working hard and accomplishing something.  And really so what if I then made new goals.  But here was the bad part.  The whole way, I thought if I could just get good enough, my life would be full.  I thought it would mean a lot more than it did.

The truth is that my identity was wrapped up in it.  It wasn’t just what I was doing, or the context I was in.  It was who I was. And that is why the empty feeling when it’s over.  It’s a feeling most of us know.  The big project is over, you hit your bonus and get to buy that item you wanted, you meet a ministry goal, or heck for that matter, your favorite teams wins a championship.  You enjoy it and then it’s gone.  If your identity is in it, there’s emptiness.

This is a huge trap when it comes to singleness and marriage.

First of all, if you have marriage as an idol you’re in trouble.  In other words if you think that if I can just get married then life will be ok, that’s going to make both singleness and marriage (if you get married) rougher than it has to be.  Marriage is not the answer to “what is missing”.  That’s setting yourself up to fall.  I’ve known people who have gotten married (accomplished their dream) and then thought, “now what?”.  That is a rough place to be. Marriage is a beginning, not an arrival and that’s understating it.

But as a single, there is another trap.  That is that your identity get’s wrapped up in the whole thing.  It is so easy to make one of two big mistakes.  The first is to be dominated by the desire to be married.  The second is to shun the whole process.  Both of these are desperate and often angry, places to be.

Usually what I would do was swing wildly back and forth between the two.  In my early 20’s I was constantly desiring a spouse.  I wanted to find the “one“.  Or I thought I had met her and of course then had to chase her down.  But then in my late 20’s after crashing and burning over and over, I just decided to shun the whole thing.  F it.  I would bury myself into work.  Of course I still wanted marriage, but I wasn’t going to actively pursue it.  God would just “bring me someone” anyway right?!

I spent a lot of time mad.  Mad at God.  Mad at other guys who didn’t deserve what I should have because I was a “good” guy.  Mad at women who weren’t attracted to me (because they should all be attracted to me right?).

But in the middle of all of it, it became my identity.  It was constantly a part of my prayers, conversations with friends, heck conversations with anyone.  What can we pray for?  A wife.

Whether I was constantly pursing or saying F it, it was still what I was about.  And that is the trap we have to avoid.

The reality is that we need our identity in Christ.  We need to know that married or single that comes first.  As I’ve pointed out before, you can get married next week, and two weeks later your spouse could die in a car wreck.  Are you a single person?  A married person?  Know what I’m saying? Not to mention as long as you need someone, you can’t love them well.  They have too much power.

We are not what we do.  We are not our marital status.  Our identity should not be defined by what we do, or the context (marital or otherwise) we live in.  Our identity should play out in what we do, and in the context we are in.

What is your identity in?  Are you dominated by the search?  Are you hiding by doing nothing?