Does God call us to Singleness?

Love is a beautiful thing and if you know anything about me then you know I am a hopeless romantic. When my friends go on dates I am jumping up and down, when I get the privilege to go to a wedding my heart skips a beat, and when I experience it myself I am head over heels. Falling and being in love is delicate and truly is divine and like many of my single friends, it is something I long to experience.

But what if God has called me to singleness?

The world of believers remind us quickly that we are not promised a life with marriage. Repeatedly stating "Have you considered maybe the Lord has called you to singleness?"

And my response... when did singleness become a call?

And when did faith and hope turn into something seen?

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1

You see Hope is found in what is not seen. Faith is the action in which we take confidence in a gracious Father that loves us enough to listen to our greatest desires and needs. Desires that intend to bring glory to His name and enhancement to the Gospel.

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." Psalms 37:4

Now I hear the pushback in my head already... "well that passage is about Jesus coming back so it doesn't apply." And to that I will address the topic of this specified hope in a later post. What I also hear is " well marriage isn't guarenteed and shouldn't be the priority of living a good godly life."

My answer... I agree. We can live a perfectly good and God fearing life in singleness. It will be beautiful and honoring and filled with many mighty wonders fulfilled by the hand of the Lord alone. It will be filled with joy and love and peace that is provided and sustained by the one who is gracious and kind to give. While again pushing back to say, where does the Bible say singleness is a calling? And where does it say that after so many years we should give up hope, stop praying, and live a life convincing ourselves that we don't want marriage or desire it?

It simply does not, it simply says we do not know what each day will bring. However, it does say we are given the portion we need for each day. It does say that we are to hold tight to the Lord believing He is a good and gracious Father no matter what we recieve or what we don't. If it is too much for you to hold onto this hope then there is no shame in that, but your hardened heart to the matter is not the sum of what every heart should submit to feel.

My friends it is a beautiful desire to want to be married and to want to spend forever with the one you love the most in second to God. It is a beautiful thing to want to love someone intentionally and with pursuit in a way that you will never quite experience with anyone else. It is a beautiful thing to exemplify the relationship of Christ to His beautiful bride that is the church. What purer form of expressing the Gospel than in a relationship that was designed to embody, embrace, and reflect the unconditional, sacrificial, pure act of oneness and love that we find in marriage.

Sometimes God calls us to do things that at first do not bring us instant joy, but eventually it is everything we have ever wanted or could have dreamed of. It stirs a joy in our hearts that is unmatched and unobtainable by any other course outside of the will of the Father.

So back to our beginning question, does God call us to a life of singleness?

For myself? I know the answer because I know my heart and I know my God.

For you? I do not have a boxed in answer. I can not provide an answer without diminishing the character of God and His Word. I can not without overstepping my finite place in comparison to an all knowing and all consuming God.

What I can say is that if you long to be married do not allow this world to force you into deception with yourself or with others. Deception that says that you should be okay with never being married, and therefore telling yourself that you are. If you get to a place where you can truthfully say that; then that is a beautiful thing to rejoice in and praise God for.

For myself, I am perfectly content with my life of singleness, but I am hopelessly hopeful that one day I will fall in love with the man God has for me. And that is okay.

"Hope deferred makes a heart grow sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life." Proverbs 13:12

Remember, it is okay to feel downcast when life doesn't go the course we might hope for or expect. But when life doesn't go the way we expect, we continue with a steadfast heart and cling to hope in the one who is perfectly faithful in every season and every moment when we walk by faith.

Finding beauty in today and rejoicing all the more when the tree of life springs forth.