7 Myths about Singleness

by Sam Allberry

Marriage is a picture of Christ and the church. So when we enter into the fullness of our relationship with him, when the church is finally presented to him as his perfected bride, the institution of marriage will have served its purpose. We will have the reality; we will no longer need the picture.

Like Jesus, we can live in a way that anticipates what is to come.

this future reality is so certain and so good that we can embrace it now.

It is a way of declaring to a world obsessed with sexual and romantic intimacy that these things are not ultimate and ...

If marriage shows us the shape of the gospel, singleness shows us its sufficiency.

remind us that the joy and fulfillment of marriage in this life is partial and can only be temporal.

The sexual consummation we long for can (if we let it) point us to the greater consummation to come. Our sexual feelings remind us that what we forgo on a temporal plane now, we will enjoy in fullness in the new creation for eternity.

our bodies talk to us about a greater reality of fulfillment and eternal blessing, and urge us to go there.

This is liberating. It means my sexual feelings don’t need to be met for their purpose to be fulfilled. When I feel that deep sense of longing, that feeling of sexual restlessness and frustration, I am to think of that ultimate restlessness that comes when we live apart from our Creator, a restlessness that has its answer in the one who promised deep and abiding rest for all who come to him. Sexual sin feels like the answer to that restlessness, but like all of sin’s pleasures, it is only temporary and fleeting.

But life is often the sum of trivial things, and the small details eventually add up and can have a large cumulative effect. Sometimes it is the small everyday things rather than the big dramatic moments that can be most painful. It’s the little daily reminders that we are doing on our own what feels like we should be doing with others. At times these are easy to brush aside, and we can just get on with things. But at other times it can feel overwhelming.

So remaining unmarried can alter how others perceive our maturity, and we feel the pain of that perception.

But few things change friendship quite as dramatically as marriage.

But the moment someone enters a serious relationship, all other friendships can be significantly demoted.

It is no surprise that weddings can be a little bittersweet for single people. We’re genuinely happy for our friends as they marry, but there can also be a sense of loss.

A single friend of mine in his late forties recently said that the marriage of one of his closest friends “felt like a bereavement.”

Being platonically dumped wouldn’t be so bad if people would acknowledge you have the right to be platonically heartbroken.

On one level, this is very touching. But when several say it, the cumulative effect, on darker days, is to make me hear it as, “We’re not going to be thinking of you or pursuing you. We don’t necessarily need you. And so you’re going to have to reach out to us if you want to come over. And it will always need to be you coming to us rather than the other way around.”

I need them. Hugely. But the fact is, they don’t need me in the same way. Many of them are the equivalent of family, but since they have families of their own, the familial sense I have toward them is not necessarily reciprocated. That might be good and right, as far as it goes, but it can also be painful at times.

having people to do nothing with is quite important for singles.

There are times when I feel emotionally tired but really want company, so it’s great to have friends you see often enough that you don’t need to spend your time together just catching up.

“God doesn’t play that game. He doesn’t inject hypothetical grace into your hypothetical nightmare situation so that you would know what it would actually feel like if you ever did end up in that situation.”5 He only gives grace for our actual situation. Replaying these scenarios over and over in our mind is therefore not at all helpful and actually factors out what God would be doing were it to ever happen. What we’re imagining is actually life in that situation without God’s presence.

All that we can’t understand about ourselves God is not only aware of but knows thoroughly and intimately. He knows my fears better than I do. And he knows my needs better than I do. When I am anxious, it is because I’m worried God doesn’t know what I actually need and might not pull through for me. I worry that he might not provide the friendship and companionship I long for, or that he might not know how much I need this and might somehow overlook it. So this is what I cling to and tell myself repeatedly: God knows me more than I know myself. God loves me more than I love myself. God is more committed to my ultimate joy than I am. So I can trust him.

The key to contentment as a single person is not trying to make singleness into something that will satisfy us; it is to find contentment in Christ as a single person.

It is not to wish him to be more like us, more aligned with our ways of thinking and acting. Instead we need to conform ourselves to him. He’s so much smarter than we are.

On my better days, I am sufficiently aware of that to pray the way Jesus instructs us to. Lord, please don’t give me what I want; give me what you want.

David famously reminds us, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me / all the days of my life” (Ps. 23:6). A more literal translation of “follow” is “pursue.” We’re not going to be able to get away from God’s goodness and mercy. They’re like a spiritual motorcade that will always accompany us. The more we grasp this, the less either marriage or singleness should ultimately matter to us. Let’s aim for more of God, assured that whatever happens, we will never outpace his kindness to us.

Notice the writer just assumes we will face this kind of temptation. It is assumed that there will be a sweetness and a smoothness to the lure of sexual sin. It sounds good. We sense it will taste good. Being tempted in this way is an indication not that we have failed as Christians but that we are normal ones.

So lesson one is this: sexual sin is attractive. Let’s not deny that. It has a texture and flavor that appeal to broken and distorted hearts like ours.

It feels natural, like it will meet a deep need, like it’s on your side. This is perhaps especially true of sexual temptation.

Sexual sin is also addictive. Look at how all this ends: The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin. (v. 22)

We’re wrestling with temptation, and this is just a way to get it all out of our system. We think we’ll then be able to move on and get back to where things should be. We’ve paid our dues, so the temptation will go away. But it doesn’t. The opposite actually happens. These are deeds that ensnare and bind us. Each time we give in to sexual sin, we are giving it more control over us. We are training ourselves to find sexual fulfillment in this particular way. We are giving ourselves to it. Like any appetite, the more we feed it, the more it grows. Over time it will take more and more for it to be satisfied.

It is easy to think that we’re the kind of person who can get close to this sin and then stop before it’s too late.

He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray. (v. 23)

Sexual sin is attractive and addictive, a lethal combination. It’ll send us into the tall grass and even into the grave. Any action and sacrifice are worth avoiding that.

Sexual sin seems so attractive now, but fast-forward to the very end, and it all looks different.

We know that the consequences of mistakes behind the wheel are potentially too serious to risk our kids making them. But the consequences of mistakes made in the bedroom can be just as serious.

Don’t be too proud to listen to wisdom. Don’t assume you know what you need to know about all this. Don’t think your instincts are sufficiently developed. However much you might have some of this figured out, the sheer tonnage of what you still need to learn is more than you could even imagine.

We need to uphold the Bible’s teaching in our own lives, honoring the marriage bed by living lives of purity. And we need to uphold the marriage we have in Christ.

All we do and say and think takes place in the full view of God:

For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the Lord, and he ponders all his paths. (Prov. 5:21)

He also sees every striving to be pure and godly. He knows when we are battling; he knows what we are going through.

There are times when we are assaulted by sexual temptation, and it can be distressing. We are devastated by some of the inclinations of our own hearts. We long for our desires to be pure and godly rather than disordered and base. We flee and we fight but are left discouraged and weary. God sees all this too. And more than that, as Hebrews goes on to remind us: Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

We all struggle in a variety of ways. It may well be that no one really seems to understand the kind of struggle you face or knows the pain you go through as you fight temptation. But Jesus does. He suffered with us. And he suffered for us. That makes him a great Savior to pray to. As we collect wounds from the battles of life in this world and come to him desperate for his help and protection, he does not roll his eyes.

He draws near to us as we draw near to him. As we strive to be faithful to him, often in the midst of an unsympathetic and scornful world, he sees us. Our labors for him are never unnoticed.