Single, Dating, Engaged, Married: Navigating Life and Love in the Modern Age

by Ben Stuart

We must get a relationship with God right before we can get a relationship with a guy or a girl right.

Facts!

What you have now is freedom and time. These are resources granted to you when you are single that will diminish over time. You have more freedom and more time than any other kind of person on the planet. Children don’t have the kind of freedom you do. Old people don’t have your level of freedom. Married people don’t either. You have an unprecedented amount of discretionary time in this fast-dwindling season that you are in right now.

You have more freedom and more time now than you will likely have in the future. I want you to maximize it. You may not be in vocational ministry, but you know the pain and awkwardness of being young.

But whether your season of singleness is long or short, you can know that God has granted you this season as a gift, and it is a gift with a purpose: to pursue an undistracted devotion to him. All that is left is for you to ponder the question: What will that look like for me?

Encouraging

Dating is not a status to dwell in, but a process to move through. It is a series of actions meant to lead us to a particular end—discerning whether or not we are meant to marry a particular person. Dating exists for evaluation.

No human being will meet every need, solve every problem, heal every wound, or eradicate every insecurity.

Dating is the modern process of evaluation we use to find that person to marry.

“Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.”

Too many times I have witnessed the sobs of those who married someone for looks and charisma and—after the flames of infatuation have died down—find that they are bound to someone with whom they have very little in common. I want better for you. Please don’t settle.

I definitely won't

Your pursuits may not be identical, but they do need to be compatible. This is an important factor in discerning whether or not God has ordained this relationship.

I’m not saying to marry someone you find repulsive, but I am saying you’d do well to marry someone who scores a ten on character and an eight on looks, rather than a ten in looks and a zero in character. Be smart.

trust that the God who saved you can provide a mate for you.

Amen!

True love is stronger than death, more powerful than the grave. Wait long enough to make sure that conviction is present.

He is the hero who came for you, fought for you, died for you, and rose for you so that you could have life. He is the One who builds a structure in which you succeed and a kingdom in which you flourish. If you learn to trust him, he will make you the kind of person you are meant to be, and the world will be better for it.