Not Yet Married: The Pursuit of Joy in Singleness and Dating

by Marshall Segal

We’re in the pursuit of joy, not marriage. Before anyone could ever make us happy in marriage, we have to have already given our hearts away. The surest love, the fullest happiness, and the highest purpose are all available to you in Jesus, just as you are. Find them first in him, and you will have a far happier and more meaningful marriage,

delicious dream must end. The problem is not that we are hungry but that we’re hunting in the wrong pantry. The cravings deep inside us are a mercy from God meant to lead us to God. God is trying to give us unconditional love, indescribable joy, and unparalleled purpose, but many of us are just trying to get married.

“In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Ps. 16:11). No greater joy. No expiration date. Happiness and love like this are free—“by grace you have been saved” (Eph. 2:5, 8)—but it is not cheap. It takes patience, hard work, and perseverance—day after day, pouring ourselves into God’s Word, sacrificing for the sake of others in his name, and surrendering ourselves to his will. Paul calls the Christian life a fight and a race (2 Tim. 4:7). It can be hard, and it may hurt along the way, but we’ll never regret it. Jesus may ask a lot of us between here and heaven, but whether we ever get married or not, he will give it all back a hundredfold and more (Matt. 19:29).

The God who loves you also made you. He designed you—your physique, your personality, every inch of you—and knows you completely (Ps. 139:14–15). You were not an accident. You were created in love and on purpose.

When our lives tell others he is our greatest treasure, he begins to look as great and glorious as he truly is. God made us to show us his glory, and by showing us more of himself, he planned to make us the happiest people who have ever lived.

I realized that the gospel was a story for me but that it was not a story about me. This good news—the news that rescued me from hell and promised me heaven—was not about God making me happy apart from him and his glory, but about satisfying me now and forever with himself.

With the Spirit in you and the calendar clear, God has given you the means to make a lasting difference for his kingdom. You’re all dressed up, having every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (Eph. 1:3), with literally everywhere to go.

Most of the time, instead of pursuing greatness through sacrifice, I find myself expecting God to make life a little more comfortable, or relationships a little easier, or ministry a little more fruitful, or affirmation a little more regular. But he says, instead, “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all”

True greatness isn’t the kind that appears in bold letters on our favorite website. No, it shows up in the details of other people’s lives, in lives like Will’s. If we aspire to be great, we need to give ourselves to the small, mundane, easily overlooked needs around us.

The problem with so many of us today is that we have close to no anxiety about spiritual realities and endless anxiety about the things of this world.

We ought to be painfully anxious and passionate about spiritual realities—about Jesus, heaven, and hell. We do not need to be so anxious about everything else. That kind of anxiety will only weigh us down and make us ineffective in life (Prov. 12:25).

He is lovingly and violently shaking us out of our complacency and entitlement to awaken us to the realities of life deeper and more important than our circumstances.

Knowing Jesus outweighs everything you could have or lose in this life. I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him. (Phil. 3:8–9)

wasn’t only a self-control issue. The fruits of the Spirit don’t work or grow like that. Our broken desires for images or videos suggest all the fruits are rotting, not just self-control. Our fight for purity is not merely a fight for self-control. It’s also a pursuit and expression of love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and joy.

Don’t just fight for self-control. Fight for joy. Those who choose to see less today will see more forever (Matt. 5:8).

prayer is not a side dish for followers of Jesus. It’s the oven. God meant for every other part of our lives to be prepared and refined through prayer.

Satisfy me so fully now that I never look to anyone else to make me happy. Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. (Ps. 90:14)

5. Give me faith to trust you even when I walk alone through pain and disappointment. A thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2 Cor. 12:7–9)

Marriage is worth having because you get God in your lifelong commitment to one another. Marriage is about knowing God, worshiping God, depending on God, displaying God, and being made like God. God made man and woman in his image and joined them together, giving them unique responsibilities to care for one another in their broken but beautiful union. What makes marriage worth having is that you, your spouse, and those around you see more of God and his love in Jesus. If you’re not experiencing that with your boyfriend, break up with him.

Has our boyfriend or girlfriend matured enough to have any idea what they might be like as a husband or wife for the next fifty years? Have we? Will one or both of us be able to provide for a family financially? Has his or her faith in Jesus been tested enough by trials to be confident it’s real?

Guard your heart and imagination from running out ahead of your current commitment.

Are the two of you thinking proactively about how to bless your friends and family and point them to Christ?

While you wait and date, hope in Jesus more than marriage. Make it true first. Spend lots of time satisfying your soul in all that God has become for you in Jesus.

The best marriages will be the hardest to explain—not because you are so different (you might be), but because you’re still loving each other so patiently, sacrificially, and passionately after years of inconvenience, conflict, and sacrificing so much. How do they still love each other so much? Well, because we have been loved like that and more.

A lot of the heartache and confusion we feel in dating stems from treating dating mainly as practice for marriage (clarity through intimacy), instead of as discernment toward marriage (clarity and then intimacy).

God did not mean for us to risk so much in our pursuit of marriage.

We want our marriages to consistently and beautifully tell the story of the gospel, of God’s patient, selfless, faithful love for sinners.

One piece of the clarity we need in our own hearts is a personal, subjective sense of calling—a sense that our desire to get married to this person is a good desire that’s a result of God’s work in us

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Ps. 37:4). When God is our greatest joy—our greatest desire and greatest priority—we can begin to trust the desires of our hearts.

Physical attraction is real but flexible. God has wired us to appreciate beauty in his design—to find people of the opposite gender physically appealing—and that is a real and important element in our pursuit of marriage and eventually in our flourishing within the covenant.

But mutual faith in Jesus Christ should be the most stunning and appealing thing about any potential spouse.

Christians should be cultivating hearts that are more attracted to faith and character than anything else.

First, monitor how much you talk and how much time you spend together.

Second, think about what you talk about when you do talk. Limiting your time will focus your conversations; at least it did for us.

You don’t have to talk about your relationship every time you talk, or even half the time. You don’t need to remind each other every fifteen minutes why you like each other. You really don’t need to talk much about marriage until it’s reasonable that you might actually get engaged and married soon.

Pray and ask him to show you new and deeper dimensions of all he means marriage to be for you and your (future) spouse. 1. May we enjoy God more than anyone or anything else, including each other (Ps. 16:11). 2. May we pray and pray and pray (Matt. 6:9–13). 3. May we have and raise joyful, godly children, if God wills (Ps. 127:3–4). 4. May we be bold ambassadors for the gospel wherever we go and always be winning worshipers for him (2 Cor. 5:20). 5. May we meet God together regularly in his Word (Ps. 19:7–10). 6. May we make our home a safe, inviting, and life-giving place for others (Rom. 12:13). 7. May we be a blessing to the families God has given to us (Eph. 6:1–3). 8. May we find ways to learn from marriages more mature than ours and to invest in marriages younger than ours (Eph. 5:18–25). 9. May we live worthy of the gospel, cultivating shorter cycles of correction, confession, repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation (Heb. 3:12–13). 10. May we develop, enjoy, guard, and model a healthy and pure sex life (Phil. 2:3–5). 11. May we maintain a healthy rhythm of rest, knowing that God loves us and runs the world (Ps. 127:1–2). 12. May we always love and invest in the local church (Heb. 10:24–25). 13. May we disciple younger men and women and raise up leaders for God’s church (2 Tim. 2:1–2). 14. May we support God’s global cause through world missions (Ps. 67:3–4). 15. May we hold what we have loosely and overflow freely in generosity (2 Cor. 9:7–8). 16. May we sing (P...