Never getting married is my worst fear about singleness.
Yes, I did just publish a book about being faithful, hopeful, and prayerful during singleness. Yes, I did say in my book that I believe God made (most) people for marriage. Yes, I do stand by what I wrote in my book. But I didn’t guarantee that my readers will get married because God’s Word doesn’t guarantee that they’ll get married.
Although God’s plan for me probably includes marriage, I don’t know for sure—and that’s why the question “What if I never get married?” haunts me. I simply don’t know. If this question haunts you too, I think you’ll benefit from this post (and the upcoming posts in this series). We’ll wrestle with this question together, friends. But we’ll start this series by focusing on this specific truth: Marriage is good because God created it.
A Good (and Unchanged) Design
As I emphasized in my book The Ring by Spring Ruse, marriage is good because the Lord created it. He created it before the Fall, allowing the first human beings—Adam and Eve—to experience it the way He intended all human beings to experience it. They held fast to each other, coming together as one flesh, without shame even in nakedness. (You can read the full creation account in Genesis 1-2.)
But when Adam and Eve sinned, everything became tainted by sin—well, almost everything. God remained untainted by sin because He’s perfect. For the same reason, His words remained untainted by sin.
God didn’t retract this statement He made before the Fall: “It is not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 2:24 NASB1995). He didn’t retract His command to “‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it’” (Genesis 1:28 NASB1995). He knew that imperfect men and women wouldn’t perfectly follow His design for marriage and parenting. Yet His design didn’t change.
Receiving God’s Gift With Gratitude
Of course, I don’t think that everyone desires marriage or that everyone will experience marriage. Scripture contains several examples of people who weren’t married, including the disciples (minus Peter) and Paul. They had meaningful lives, even though they didn’t have wives.
But I want to point out that singleness isn’t holier than marriage. Similarly, feeling indifferent toward marriage isn’t holier than looking forward to marriage. I believe singleness is an opportunity to serve the Lord without distraction (1 Corinthians 7:32-35), while marriage is an opportunity to represent His relationship with the Church (Ephesians 5:22-33). When God leads a man and woman together and they unite in marriage, they need to thank Him. The passage below—which comes from Paul’s first letter to Timothy—explains why.
Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer. (1 Timothy 4:1-5 ESV, emphasis mine)
When we read and study Scripture, we can know and believe what is true. Specifically, when we read and study what Scripture (not necessarily the Christian culture or the secular culture) says about marriage, we can learn to embrace God’s design for it. We can release our guilt about looking forward to it, and we can stop downplaying our desire for it.
I hope you’ll come back next week to read Part 2 in this series. I also hope you’ll order The Ring by Spring Ruse if you haven’t yet. It includes my personal experiences of dating and waiting, plus encouraging truths from God’s Word. (I also wanted to thank all the individuals who have ordered my book, including those who entered the giveaway for the Ring by Spring Bundle. The giveaway ended yesterday, but it was such a blast!)
Tizzie's Tidbits of Truth 