Going from Single to Married Is A Process

My friend, Sasha, says she’s not desperate to get married, but it’s pretty high on her priority list. She’s been divorced for 12 years, and often tells me that she’s tired of doing things on her own. She wonders why God is taking so long to send her the partner that He’s ordained for her life. After dealing with tremendous hurt over her ex-husband’s infidelity and addiction, she thought she had lost the desire for marriage altogether and had sworn it off, but a desire for marriage has been rebirthed in her heart. She told me she’s committed to remaining celibate, but it’s not always easy, and she’s ready for this whole single thing to be over

Sasha wants to meet the partner she can finally spend the rest of her life with, and she prays about this often. It’s not like she hasn’t met anyone in the past 12 years. She has. A few times she met men that seemed to check off all the important stuff on her list—loyal, loves the Lord, intelligent, good sense of humor, hard-working, and easy on the eyes. Oh, and absolutely no substance abuse of any kind—for her this is a deal breaker because of what she's gone through in the past. Twice she met guys that seemed wonderful in the beginning, and because they hit it off so great, she assumed they were sent by God. They were saying all the right things, and she took this as a validation of her faith, but after a few months, things fell apart.

Hebrews 11:6 tells us it’s impossible to please God without faith, and often we use faith as the scapegoat for not seeing the results we’d like. Sasha thought that she didn’t have enough faith, and that God was withholding the blessing of a husband because of it. Nothing could be further from the truth. 1John 1:5(NLT) says, “This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all.” God is love and light, and He doesn’t punish us, but it is true that we sometimes punish ourselves, and because we can’t see this, we look for other things to blame.

Everything that happens to, with, by and through us has a reason. Nothing happens by happenstance. We are on this earth to learn spiritual lessons, and to the extent that we refuse or neglect to learn them, we are punishing ourselves; because these lessons will be on repeat.  Essentially the same situations and set of circumstances continue to cycle back until we learn the lesson we’re meant to learn.

Spiritual lessons teach us to produce the fruit of the Spirit, so that we can more effectively express the love of God and introduce His supernatural Kingdom into the physical realm of earth. This mission has to be anchored in our cores, and sometimes it’s not. What’s at our cores is very often our own personal agenda to have a warm body next to us, and we allow this desire to swallow up most of the room in our hearts and minds.

In Mark 12:30(NLT), Jesus Christ tells us the greatest commandment. He said, “And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.” God tells us in Romans 8:37-38 that overwhelming victory is ours through the Lord Jesus Christ, who loved us so much that he sacrificed his life for our sins. Nothing can separate us from God’s love, not death or life, not even the powers of hell. His love is so powerful that once it is anchored in our hearts, we infect everything we touch with it.

Going from single to married is a process, because it takes time for us to learn the lessons of God’s love that are required for marriage. Colossians 2:7 tells us that our roots must grow down into Christ, to the point that our very lives are built on him. Then our faith with grow strong, and we will overflow with thankfulness. Through God’s love we are being transformed moment by moment. Therefore, Sasha, and all those that are single and faithful, must shift the focus of their prayers away from being married and on to learning what is required to be a bride of Christ. They must ask God to show them what actions they need to take to be ready to partner. He’s a generous God and wants to speak to His people directly. He will answer every single person that desires to know what they need to do, as long as they are committed to get it done.■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“Going from Single to Married Is A Process” by Alexandra Copeland. Copyright©2020. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.