Published: July 23, 2008
The following article is part one of a two-part article by Rob Eager.
Stay plugged into You129.com for part two!
Jennifer was a disgruntled, single woman at my church. She was thirty-six years old and complained that her life was slipping away. Six years had passed since her last boyfriend, and her dating life remained in limbo.
Jennifer wondered whether her heart still had the capacity to love. Beneath her jaded disposition festered an undercurrent of resentment toward God.
After attending church regularly for over two years, she suddenly disappeared. Three months later, I bumped into her at a restaurant and asked her whether she had moved to another church. She replied, “No, I’ve quit church altogether. I just can’t bring myself to worship a God who would leave me in such loneliness.” Jennifer concluded that if she was ever going to let God back into her life, He’d better bring her a husband-and fast.
Does God promise us a spouse?
The Bible says “yes” by describing Christians as the spiritual bride of Christ. Our true spouse is Jesus. Yet, many of us say, “I’m glad to be spiritually married to Christ, but I can’t feel Him. Wouldn’t it be better if I could enjoy God’s love with someone else? I want Jesus with skin on.” So, we pray for God to bring us an earthly mate.
The Gripe for Love
My search for a spouse turned into a cycle of frustration as I encountered numerous relational struggles and a wife who abandoned me six months into our marriage.
I started to wonder if God actually cared about my romantic relationships. Whenever I felt particularly upset about being single, I would sit in my den recliner and gripe to God about the injustice of my social life.
Knowing He possessed omnipotent power made it seem logical to expect a wife from Him. Whenever I demanded that God rush me a spouse, He seemed to whisper this question in my heart:
“Rob, is the love of Jesus Christ enough for you? Have you allowed My complete forgiveness and unconditional acceptance to satisfy your heart?”
In tears of resignation, I conceded, “I appreciate Your love, Lord, but all I really want is a wife.”
I still believed that my heart needed the affection of a person in order to feel complete. In essence, I valued human love more than God’s love.
One day, I began to look back over my life and the numerous dead-end relationships from my past. In each situation, romance had started out with a bang but fizzled under the weight of performance-based love.
No matter who I met, either I was too demanding or she couldn’t accept me for who I was. Suddenly, something clicked within my mind.
I thought, “Why am I chasing marriage when it cannot provide the unconditional love that my heart craves? Only Christ offers everything I need.”
With this new perspective, I relinquished to God my demand to get married. I still wanted to find a spouse someday, but I no longer considered marriage necessary to complete my life. If I remained single for the rest of my life, that was okay-God promised to fulfill my heart.
When we demand that God bring us a mate, we block His love from enhancing our social life. The anger that we harbor builds a wall between us and Him. If we are honest with ourselves, we realize that our demand for marriage is a refusal of God’s love because we want our selfish desires met.
God will never stop loving us, but we ignore Him when we desperately seek a human being to make us happy. Furthermore, whatever we depend upon for our happiness will wind up controlling us. If we believe that we need a human spouse to be satisfied, then people, rather than God, will dictate our lives.
God is in control of everything, but He does not intervene just to make our lives easy. He had no intention of making a woman magically appear and fall in love with me. Instead, God wanted to use His power to mature me into someone who would initiate sacrificial love towards other people. I wanted to get love, while God was teaching me to give love.
Use the following questions to consider if your desire for marriage has become a demand:
* Am I dating to find someone who can make me feel better about myself?
* Can I feel content and thankful to God in my singleness?
* Am I cynical about relationships with the opposite sex?
* Am I afraid of the possibility of never getting married?
* Is the love of Jesus Christ enough for me?
If your desire for marriage has turned into a demand, find encouragement by meditating on these verses: Philippians 4:6-13; 2 Corinthians 12:9-10.
Rob Eager is an sought-after speaker and consultant, and the author of the widely popular book, Dating With Pure Passion. His knowledge in the area of relationships has featured him on such shows as the CBS Early Show and CNN Radio. He is has contributed a number of articles in such publications as Christian Women Today and Single Adult Ministry Journal. For more information about Rob, log onto www.robeager.com.
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