The Single’s Advantage in Marriage
Does that sound puzzling, the Single’s advantage in marriage? I hope so. My aim is to get us thinking about the advantages our time being single gives us, advantages for the benefit of marriage. Everybody is destined to be single. EVERYBODY. Most singles experience desires for a marital companion. Desiring to not be alone is a holy desire God Himself stirred in the first man who stands as a blueprint for the rest of humanity. The Genesis 2 story shows us the divine set up of desire stirred by God and God’s provision for it in Eve. God provides for the desires we share with Him. Simple math, right?
Romantic desires kick in early for us. Before we are even considered adults we experience the desire to love and be loved beyond what friends and family have provided so far. We are immediately encouraged to consider pursuing romantic relationships way before we’re old enough to handle the distraction it becomes, ride the emotional rollercoaster without getting sick, and rightly discern what is best for the future. We are pushed to consider romantic love interests and rarely exhorted to embrace the tension of desire and take advantage of our single time.
How many things would have been different for most of us if, when we first experienced the desire for romantic companionship, our parents or leaders would have celebrated the desire and announced the great advantage singleness was going to add to it? What if the time of singleness, which everyone will experience, was highly regarded as the best advantage to marriage rather than a time in life to get out of as quickly as possible?
If I was to answer that question I’d say we would have a population of young adults strong in the Lord, self-control, wisdom, identity, and purpose. A population experiencing a first-love relationship with God that enables them to marry from love, not for love. Living out the tension between unmet desire and undistracted devotion to God is incredibly transforming and maturing in the selflessness needed to do marriage well. Fulfilled Singles make for fulfilled marriages. Again, simple math.
We believe the desire for romantic love and marital companionship is God-given and are first meant to draw us into Christ Who loved us first (1 John 4:19) When Christ becomes our first love it prevents us from settling for less than what He is preparing us for. When we see God as the Creator of these longings, we can start cooperating with His will. God-given means only God can fill them to overflowing. Within this understanding, we can see the advantage of embracing our time of singleness for the sake of our hoped-for marriages. Everything you will need to embrace marriage you can master in your singleness.
God’s timing for our marriage was much later than we imagined it would be. Coming together with a long history of singleness many times people ask us how hard was it to go from living on our own to living for the sake of one another. The answer is always easy. We never lived on our own, we lived single fully for the sake of another who is Christ. Living fully submitted to the desires of God in our lives, instead of chasing revolving romances, was the best pre-marital education we could have experienced. We embraced an undistracted devotion while single and we are reaping its advantages in our marriage.
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