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

by Marshall Segal

Looking back, I’m convinced God did withhold marriage to discipline me—not to punish me but to prepare me and mature me as a man and as a future husband. I also believe he withheld marriage to draw me closer to himself and to allow me to use my gifts to serve others while I was still single.

I desperately want you to know that you were made for more than marriage—that marriage will never satisfy or fulfill your deepest needs and cravings. That hole in our hearts will swallow and destroy any relationship if we look to a person to make us happy or whole. And I say that as someone who chased marriage for years, relationship after relationship, searching for love, worth, and identity in a wife.

The shortest answer is that we were meant to show others a bit of who God is, to share and display the love we’ve experienced with him.

But all the hard things in life that might tempt us to doubt God and his goodness are meant by God to lead us to him.

Every trial is helping to prove the genuineness of your faith and joy.

All your pain is preparing you to care for others in pain. Blessed be the God . . . of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. (2 Cor. 1:3–4)

Over time, suffering will fuel, not hurt, your hope and joy. We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts. (Rom. 5:3–5)

Jesus never gets tired of caring for the tired. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matt. 11:28–30)

Suffering will give you faith and strength to endure to the end. Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2–4)

Not one ounce of your pain is meaningless but is producing glory for you. So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. (2 Cor. 4:16–17)

With his eyes fixed on the reward, and filled with joy, he suffered anything to give us hope in our suffering. Jesus can sympathize with us and carry us through anything we face, for however long we face it, if we’ll trust him and walk with him.

Unwanted singleness can be very lonely, and loneliness can be miserable. In those moments, the really compelling lie is that marriage will be the most satisfying solution. Sadly, looking to marriage and a spouse to fill the hole only God can fill will only leave us more depressed and hurt.

Our anxiety tells God we’re not happily content to have him and his fatherly plan (and timing) for our lives.

Follow all the fruits of the Spirit down to the root of your sin, whatever your besetting sins, and find victory while you’re still single. It will prepare you to date well now, and it will serve your future marriage and ministry in ways you cannot even comprehend.

God means for our lives—married or unmarried, student or employee, young or old—to run on the power of prayer. Prayer fuels the engine of our heart and mind.

We need God in and through prayer more than we need anything else. We will not do anything of any real and lasting value without God, which means we will not do anything of any real and lasting value without prayer.

How do we persevere through our deepest pains and disappointments? “Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray” (James 5:13).

What hope do we have for overcoming our sin and experiencing real change and growth? “To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power” (2 Thess. 1:11). We bring the desire, the resolve, and the faith, but God brings the power. We invite him to keep working on us, with all of his infinite power, love, and creativity, through prayer.

And that’s because he is utterly, relentlessly committed to giving his precious sons and daughters what’s best for them, when it’s best for them, and only if it’s best for them.

Father, show me more of yourself and shape my life to reveal your glory. As I walk back out on the raging sea of life and of singleness, still my faith in you and set my eyes on you, the one standing strong and reliable above it all. Reveal how much bigger and more beautiful you are than marriage, or any other dream or desire I might have.

Satisfy me so fully now that I never look to anyone else to make me happy.

You, Lord, are the only one who could ever truly make me happy. No spouse, no friend, no job, no amount of money could ever fill the hole inside of me made for you. You are more than enough for me, and yet my heart is still prone to wander. Order my loves according to your surpassing worth and beauty, and guard my eyes and mind from being preoccupied with anyone or anything besides you. Capture my heart again, and secure it against all of Satan’s lies.

Help me, Lord, to see every loss or disappointment, every moment of loneliness, every unfulfilled dream or desire, and every evidence of weakness as opportunities to remember and enjoy the strength, hope, and rest you bought for me with the blood of your Son. Remind me that you are working all this, every inch, in every way, for my good.

If you would have me marry, Father, prepare me to love a husband or wife with the love and grace you have shown me through Jesus and his cross. Give me clarity in dating, and guard me from all impurity. Let patience, selflessness, and humility mark every relationship—every date, every conversation, every step forward or backward. In every step of my pursuit of marriage, make it clear that you are God and I am yours.

Our waiting and longing should be shaped by and filled with prayer. Our search for purpose and direction in singleness should begin with prayer. Our pursuit of joy should be a journey of prayer.

What makes marriage worth having is that you, your spouse, and those around you see more of God and his love in Jesus.

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?

Do the people in each of your lives know and love Jesus more because you’re together? Do they see God’s grace and truth working in you and your relationship as you walk through life together? Are the two of you thinking proactively about how to bless your friends and family and point them to Christ? More and more, as the world is watering down dating, your relationship can be a provocative picture of your fidelity to Christ and a call to follow him.

The longer you long to be married and aren’t, the more likely you are to think the problem is with you, that you have to change or try something new. God may be revealing that to you, or he might simply want you to wait while he works.

Do you want to know why there are so many divorces, even among Christians? In part, it’s because so many people have tried to find ultimate happiness, significance, or ultimate belonging in the arms of a man or a woman.

Anyone who has experienced marriage will testify that it’s hard. That has been true across generations, cultures, and worldviews. Marriages never survive for decades on comfort and self-fulfillment, at least not happily. Marriages endure and thrive on unchanging, selfless mutual commitment to each other and to something bigger, stronger, and longer lasting than the marriage. Christian marriage, therefore, is an opportunity to show the world something—even better, to show them someone—strong enough to keep a marriage together and make it unbelievably meaningful and happy.

No, the beauty and joy of Christian marriage is Christ, shining in our joyful and unwavering commitment to each other, even when we’re least compatible and least deserving of each other’s love.

Keller says, “Wedding vows are not a declaration of present love but a mutually binding promise of future love.”8 Marriage is mainly a love declared, not a love discovered. Have you thought about your wedding day that way? The promises you will make before God, and before all your friends and family, have almost nothing to do with what you experienced and enjoyed in your dating relationship, and everything to do with the uncertain and uncontrollable months and years ahead. You’re not standing there together to say, “I really do love you,” but to say instead, “I really will love you”—whatever it takes, however hard it gets, whatever happens, however much I want to leave. That kind of love will stand out in the world, and it will last long after many have given up and walked away.

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...

We want our marriages (and our whole lives) to make Jesus look like our Lord, Savior, and treasure, because he is our Lord, Savior, and greatest treasure. We want our marriages to consistently and beautifully tell the story of the gospel, of God’s patient, selfless, faithful love for sinners. We want our marriages to make us more like Christ, slowly but surely molding us into something new, different, and holy. When we look for someone we can marry, we’re not looking first for something physical or financial or convenient or fun. We’re looking for God in one another and in our future together.