Whole in One #8: Improving Singleness with More Lively Virtues

I conclude this “singleness” series with the remaining three of the seven “lively virtues.”

♦ Hope. Our hope is in God—period. There is no other reliable source. The Psalmist counseled his own spirit, “Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him for the help of His presence.” (Psalm 42:5 NASB) Talk to your heart. Hope ranks right up there with faith and love as life’s most enduring qualities. You can live expectantly even without defining specifically what you are waiting for: Only that God’s goodness be expressed. It is a lie of the devil that there are “hopeless cases.”

♦ Generosity. Being single, especially by circumstance and not by choice, tests your capacity to love selflessly against the most challenging odds. Some well-intentioned people—often those in the family circle or in the church—assume that the single person’s time and money is readily available to them. But being a servant of others does not mean being a slave to their whims. Singles struggle with balance just as much as married people with families; this issue often comes as the question, “Do I dare say ‘No’? I don’t have the excuse of family responsibility.” Single persons do have rights—to privacy, to time alone for reading and reflection and prayer, to opportunities for education, recreation, and esthetic experience. Don’t betray your inner self.

Singles can love inclusively. People are starved for attention and affirmation and non-demanding affection; who better than single persons to become agents of blessing in the Church? Be generous with your loving notice of people; give a gracious compliment now and then. And by the way, don’t stay away from family events—your own kin or the church family. You are not part of an incomplete unit; you may be a one-person unit, but you are a unit! Learn to relate intelligently to people; this may require some purposeful effort. Be such a whole person that you make the people around you “more whole”!

Learn friend-making. Choose some of your friends; don’t always let (or make) people choose you. Be wary of possessiveness, either given or received. To be a real friend is to treat the other person as a unique and wonderful individual, not as an object for your own satisfaction. In becoming a real friend to others, you are apt to find that you are abundantly blessed yourself with a fine set of friends—both men and women—some of whom you will cherish for a lifetime!

And be generous with yourself too. Love yourself and treat yourself with respect. Honestly evaluate your potential, and risk the attempt to come up to that. Give yourself permission to tap the resources of your mind and spirit, and allow yourself a few mistakes while working toward your goals. Don’t minimize your accomplishments: list them, look at them, congratulate yourself for them, thank God for enabling them, celebrate them! You are entitled to the best God has to offer you, all the fun that goes along with making the most of yourself, and all the security that comes from knowing you are okay!

♦ Faith in God. All the other virtues are just so much popular hype if you fail to take God seriously. Faith in God’s reliability and His resourcefulness can often be measured in terms of one’s enthusiasm for living. How can you think of yourself as less than whole if you accept the challenge to take God seriously? He says that Jesus came that we might have life in abundance, and so we do! He says He will not withhold any good thing from those who walk uprightly, and so He has not withheld anything from us! He says we are complete in Him, and so we are!

St Augustine said, “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.” To live the single life gracefully is to testify that there is no human love or earthly relationship that fulfills totally. There is more that the human heart seeks, and that more is God. What if we really could be instruments of God’s peace, sowing love where there is hatred, faith where there is doubt, and joy where there is sadness? We can indeed choose to be a benediction on the lives of those around us. Let us not withhold that blessing.

MaryMartha
(All rights reserved)

I no longer know all the sources from which I gleaned helpful thoughts; my apologies to any who may recognize their own words. Please allow me to give you credit. Scripture quotation marked NASB is taken from the New American Standard Bible, used with permission.

Email: mrymrtha@gmail.com

Whole in One #7: Improving Singleness with Some Lively Virtues

Few people are born with the traits we find attractive in them. No matter what their marital state, individuals who want to be healthy and whole usually must work at developing characteristics that will lead to that goal. Here are seven “lively virtues”—lively because they are full of life and growing; virtues because they are active, powerful qualities. I will share four of them today, and three more tomorrow.

♦ Purposefulness. A single person can defeat much loneliness or boredom simply by doing what needs to be done! It’s all too easy for the person living alone to get lazy to some degree in the absence of outside pressure to tidy up the house, do the laundry, and keep the refrigerator stocked with something besides Coke and sandwich meat. It’s all too easy to slip into the habit of requiring noise: the TV, radio, CD player, or computer.

Establish purpose in your life by setting and striving toward realistic, meaningful goals—or else, as time goes by, there is nothing to show for it but advanced age and a little accumulated experience! Some people are accustomed to goal-setting as part of life at work or school, but it is a new concept to a lot of people. To them I would say: Develop a plan of action to encourage the growth of your inner self. Decide on some long-term goals too. Seriously and prayerfully, what would you like to do before your life is over? Earn $100,000 a year? Live near the ocean or the mountains? Write a book or learn to play an instrument? Complete your college education? Serve God and the church in some significant way? Determine what steps you will have to take to get you from where you are now to where you want to be, and commit yourself to taking those steps, one at a time

♦ Constancy. This firmness of mind can be described in a number of ways: faithfulness, consistency, dependability, commitment. I don’t have to tell you that this is a Scriptural quality. But we are not born with it, and I’m sorry to tell you that God doesn’t just zap us with it either! It is instilled by training or discipline. Develop firm habits of prayer, Bible-reading, meditating on the Word, attendance at public worship. Try other classic disciplines too as a means of discovering grace (not obtaining grace): Silence, simplicity, fasting, giving, study, journaling, and others.

♦ Honesty. This is openness, guilelessness, candor. The most serious byproduct of dishonestly is that the “game” becomes more real than reality, and then the player himself/herself becomes unable to trust anyone. Honesty takes courage, but to experience others’ acceptance of you as you really are is an important and enormously warming human experience—worth the risk. The acceptance has to come from within yourself first, then from those around you who deserve you at your best—open, sensitive, and genuine.

♦ Sexual Purity. Many people have come to believe that abstinence is just not possible in today’s world. It does appear that the gap between sexual activity and genuine relationship is becoming wider and wider. More of the very young are becoming sexually active, while at the same time, many grownups have intimate relationships but delay marriage in order to finish their education or become established in their careers. Is it asking too much to say, ”Wait for marriage”? God says it is not. And because He invented sex, He gets the last word. Such a stand may seem out-dated and even quaint, but here is His Word on the matter. “There's more to sex than mere skin on skin. Sex is as much spiritual mystery as physical fact. As written in Scripture, ‘The two become one.’ Since we want to become spiritually one with the Master, we must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us more lonely than ever—the kind of sex that can never ‘become one.’ There is a sense in which sexual sins are different from all others. In sexual sin we violate the sacredness of our own bodies, these bodies that were made for God-given and God-modeled love, for ‘becoming one’ with another.” (I Corinthians 6:15-18) Although any sin is sin in the eyes of God, the effect of sexual sin on our present lives is more serious; it damages in a way that, say, theft or lying or anger, do not.

Delayed gratification is a valuable tool in dealing with all of life, and it works in sexual matters too. It produces purity and no bad memories. No relationship is completely devoid of sexual overtones, so get your sexuality in clear perspective: It is a basic ingredient of being human. Julia Duin, author of Purity Makes the Heart Grow Stronger (1988) and presently the religion editor for the Washington Times, says, “Unlike food, sex can be subjected to a long-term, even permanent fast. . . Abstinence from sex, like abstinence from sugar, results in a disciplined ability to do without it altogether. Abstinence becomes habit.”

This celibacy does not mean you are a sexless creature. You can develop your feminine or masculine energies in other ways, giving you the freedom to have deep friendships with the understanding that they won’t result in actions you will regret. It gives a deeper sense of your own value, knowing that you are worth God’s best, whether that is a mate or God alone. One further thought from Julia: “One major stand Christians can take that will make people stop and take notice of us is our refusal to indulge in casual sex that our secular generation considers to be a moral right.”

MaryMartha
(All rights reserved)

Thanks to Julia for permission to quote from her book. Scripture quotation is taken from The Message. Copyright © 2003 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Email: mrymrtha@gmail.com

Whole in One #6: Affirm Singleness with Gratitude

Be grateful for who you are in Christ! We affirm that race doesn’t matter to God, age doesn’t matter, status doesn’t matter, even gender doesn’t matter. But then we let marital status matter! The Apostle Paul said in regard to “differences”: “Were you Jewish at the time God called you? [i.e. circumcised] Don't try to remove the evidence. Were you non-Jewish at the time of your call? Don't become a Jew. Being Jewish isn't the point. The really important thing is obeying God's call, following his commands.” (I Corinthians 7:18, 19) Loving God, keeping His commandments—that’s what matters. The Scriptures speak of being mature, perfect, entire, whole. Those are words for each of us as individuals, not contingent upon being part of a couple. For however long you are assigned to your position as a single—the rest of this month, or this year and the next, or a lifetime—rejoice that God has made you complete in Him!

It takes a good deal of courage to establish and cling to one’s identity as a single person in a society whose institutions, including churches, are geared heavily toward the family, even though the structure of “family” varies hugely. It takes a good dose of motivation to be self-reliant when one is surrounded by others whose burdens are eased to some degree by interdependency on one another. Single adults must sometimes try harder, persevere longer, cope with more subtle discrimination, exhibit more strength and patience, and establish more impressive credentials in order to reap the same rewards and benefits as their married counterparts.

The desirable traits to be developed as a single person should be evidenced by all Christians, but they are singularly impressive in the life of a single person. It is a special joy, even a wonderment to many, to behold the single who does not suffer from feelings of incompleteness for want of a companion, the single who takes personal action to fill the empty places in life (which practically every person, single or married has!) without bemoaning the failure of others to do it for him or her, the single who is well-rounded, productive, and content. For this kind of single adult, marriage, if it does one day come, is an enrichment of an already meaningful life.

MaryMartha
(All rights reserved)

Thanks to Dr. David Jeremiah (Turning Point) for permission to use the outline of his radio sermon on I Corinthians 7 and quotes from his book Core Vales of the Church: Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, Volume 2. Many years ago during an extended period of singleness, these were a great help to me.

Scripture taken from The Message. Copyright © 2003 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Email: mrymrtha@gmail.com

Whole in One #5: Activate Singleness for God

Since your single state may very well turn out to be temporary, what can you do for God now that you may not be able to do later? The Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, “I want you to be free from the concerns of this life. An unmarried man can spend his time doing the Lord’s work and thinking how to please him. But a married man has to think about his earthly responsibilities and how to please his wife. His interests are divided. In the same way, a woman who is no longer married or has never been married can be devoted to the Lord and holy in body and in spirit. But a married woman has to think about her earthly responsibilities and how to please her husband. I am saying this for your benefit, not to place restrictions on you. I want you to do whatever will help you serve the Lord best, with as few distractions as possible.” (I Corinthians 7:32-35)

Paul was not against marriage. He was just a very smart man, recognizing our human tendency to get wrapped up in whatever we are involved in, whether that is job, home and family, or the Kingdom. A person has only so much time and energy to put into life’s events. If a person has a family, that has to be a priority, but if he or she is serving God with real intensity, there is going to be a problem having time and energy to do it all. Without a marriage and family, that energy can be dedicated to the things of God. During the time you are single, however long that is, you can be totally involved with Him.

I am convinced that one of the most important things an unmarried person can do is to demonstrate to the Church and to the world that it doesn’t take any thing to be happy. Jesus is enough. He really is. During my longest period of singleness, God challenged me to be an example of His sufficiency in the life of a single person. People actually said to me from time to time, with wonder in their voices, “You’re happy, aren’t you?” As if to say, “You crazy lady, why are you so cheerful?” No, it isn’t easy. I cried sometimes with loneliness and frustration just as others have. But I considered it an honor to be entrusted with the responsibility of being an ambassador for the sufficiency of Christ.

MaryMartha
(All rights reserved)

Thanks to Dr. David Jeremiah (Turning Point) for permission to use the outline of his radio sermon on I Corinthians 7 and quotes from his book Core Vales of the Church: Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, Volume 2. Many years ago during an extended period of singleness, these were a great help to me.

Scripture quotation is taken from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. United States of America. All rights reserved.

Email: mrymrtha@gmail.com

Whole in One #4: Allow Singleness for Growth

When the Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, he addressed several problems. One seemed to be, “Now that I’m a follower of Christ, all my relationships are upside down. What am I supposed to do?” His letter said, “Because of the present crisis, I think it is best to remain as you are. If you have a wife, do not seek to end the marriage. If you do not have a wife, do not seek to get married.” (I Corinthians 7:26, 27) In other words, his response was, “Just hold steady.”

What was the present crisis? Christians often suffered for their belief; they were persecuted and Paul perhaps felt it was easier to endure such pressure yourself than to see your loved ones facing it. In those times people believed, even more than they do now, that Jesus was returning at any moment. Why be encumbered with a family? “The time is short,” Paul told these Christians, “so everyone needs to love and minister to everyone else.” He was not opposed to marriage, but he didn’t see it as a prerequisite for advancing the cause of Christ.

It’s easy for those who are not married simply to follow the course of what everyone else seems to be doing—getting married. Especially as a few years go by, the single person may begin to focus more and more on finding someone to marry. This is a dangerous thing! “There are a thousand things worse than being single,” a wise college professor told my class of relational studies students. “Nine hundred ninety-nine are being married to the wrong person,” one who doesn’t share your passion and commitment. Someone who is consumed with the idea of finding a companion is not in the best position to recognize “the right person”; instead one should let the experience of singleness be a time of growth, concentrating on being the person God has intended.

One of the fears of singles is, “If I’m happy and contented as a single, no one will know that I really want to marry!” Fear not! No one is born with the traits we find attractive in people: purpose and faithfulness, contentment, honesty, purity and generosity. It is quite impossible to have too much of these for our own good! Develop good stuff in your life. If God intends marriage for you, you will discover that. If it does not come as part of His unfolding plan, your search for someone to marry is not going to add to the quality of your life in any worthwhile way!

MaryMartha
(All rights reserved)

Thanks to Dr. David Jeremiah (Turning Point) for permission to use the outline of his radio sermon on I Corinthians 7 and quotes from his book Core Vales of the Church: Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, Volume 2. Many years ago during an extended period of singleness, these were a great help to me.

Scripture quotation taken from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. United States of America. All rights reserved.

Email: mrymrtha@gmail.com

Whole in One #3: Accept Singleness As a Gift

To be single is a special gift from God. You may find that hard to believe—I did—until I assure you that marriage too is a special gift from God. Whether we like it or not, this is the Biblical position. When this truth first came to me as a long-term single, I said, “But God, it sure doesn’t look like a gift to me!” It was not some cruel accident that there had not been the “right one” for me; it was a gift, but it took me quite a while to accept it. (It’s worthy of note that usually the people who tell us that singleness is a gift are married themselves! What are they saying? “Just be happy, you poor thing!” Or maybe, “I should be so lucky.” Interesting thought!)

Sometimes God gives the gift of being married, and sometimes He gives the gift of being single. Both are gifts: endowments and grace in our lives. If you have been single a long time, you know that it takes grace. If you have married a long time, you know that it takes grace! The Apostle Paul wrote, “Sometimes I wish everyone were single like me—a simpler life in many ways! But celibacy is not for everyone any more than marriage is. God gives the gift of the single life to some, the gift of the married life to others.” (I Corinthians 7:7 MSG) The Living Bible paraphrases that verse, “God gives some the gift of a husband or wife, and others He gives the gift of being able to stay happily unmarried.” I appreciate the emphasis that version gives to being happy; neither state is intended for our sorrow.

Jesus too taught that the ability to remain single is a gift from God. “[Marriage] requires a certain aptitude and grace. Marriage isn't for everyone. Some, from birth seemingly, never give marriage a thought. Others never get asked—or accepted. And some decide not to get married for kingdom reasons.” (Matthew 19:11-12 MSG) Other translations state, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given.”

David Brainerd was single, Amy Carmichael and Mother Teresa were single—powerful influences for God. Robert Murray McCheyne was a Scot of deep prayer and piety, a preacher, pastor and poet, and a lasting influence on evangelical Christianity. He too was single. Could these men and women have been as effective had they been concerned about spouses and children? Dr. John R. W. Stott, called by Billy Graham “the most respected clergyman in the world today,” has influenced countless thousands with his prolific authorship; he himself acknowledges that with the responsibility of a family he could not have written, traveled and ministered as he has. Henrietta Mears, a powerful force in Christian publishing, has led some very influential men and women to Jesus Christ. “There probably wasn’t a man alive who was capable of marrying Henrietta without stifling her creativity, so God kept her single,” and she shook her world, writes Dr. David Jeremiah. There are, as well, a number of men and women who created traumatic lives for their families who might have done better to remain single as they endured the hardships encountered in their work for God.

If you are in a season of singleness, accept it as a gift. In a special way, at least for now, you are a gift to the world in which you live.

MaryMartha
(All rights reserved)



Thanks to Dr. David Jeremiah (Turning Point) for permission to use the outline of his radio sermon on I Corinthians 7 and quotes from his book Core Vales of the Church: Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, Volume 2. Many years ago during an extended period of singleness, these were a great help to me.

Scriptures marked MSG are taken from The Message. Copyright © 2003 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Email: mrymrtha@gmail.com

Whole in One #2: Acknowledge Singleness As Good

Say what??? Yes, when I first heard, “Accept Singleness as Good,” I too said to myself, No way!

You may be lonely, bored, frustrated or restless—forgetting that you have remarkable freedom in many areas. Freedom from many constraints on time, freedom to choose a simple lifestyle, freedom to focus on the things that are important to you, freedom to develop friendships and interests, freedom to serve God without distraction. Would it help you to know that some of your married friends envy your freedom!

Single women can have pink sheets on the bed if they want to! Fellows can leave the seat up all the time! Either can have chocolate cake for breakfast and adjust the thermostat to the perfect level and roll the bathroom tissue the “right” way. (I am only partly joking.) But seriously, we need to look at what the Scripture has to say.

Several times in I Corinthians 7, the Apostle Paul assures us that single living is, in fact, good. Verse 1 says, “It is good for a man not to marry.” (NIV) We read in verse 8, “Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am.” (NIV) And verse 26 urges, “Because of the current pressures on us from all sides, I think it would probably be best to stay just as you are.” (MSG) He further adds in verse 35, “I am saying this for your benefit, not to place restrictions on you. I want you to do whatever will help you serve the Lord best, with as few distractions as possible.” (NLT) Your singleness, and mine, is an advantage allowing you personally to choose the focus of your energies. It can be used in wonderful ways for your own benefit and it can be profitable for the Kingdom as well. Most of all, your love and loyalty can bring joy to the heart of the Lord.

“God sees your singleness as a positive, not a negative. You are not second class, nor are you something less than [is] a married Christian. Christ was single. Paul may have been married at one time, but it certainly sounds like he was single when he wrote this letter. Being single allows you to focus your life completely on God. Accept singleness as being something good.”

More thoughts next time.

MaryMartha
(All rights reserved)

Thanks to Dr. David Jeremiah (Turning Point) for permission to use the outline of his radio sermon on I Corinthians 7 and quotes from his book Core Vales of the Church: Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, Volume 2. Many years ago during an extended period of singleness, these were a great help to me.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright©1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. Scripture marked MSG taken from The Message. Copyright © 2003 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. Scripture quotation marked NLT is taken from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. United States of America. All rights reserved.

Email: mrymrtha@gmail.com

Whole in One #1: Addressing Singleness

I have been single for most of my adult life—the better part of forty years, in several different time frames—so it seems natural for me to share some of my thoughts. Over the next few weeks, I will be writing on that topic from time to time.

Despite the flood of media-hyped misconceptions to the contrary, single Christian adults—just like everyone else—yearn to discover a way of life that will not only fulfill their own needs but will also validate their place in the church and in the general culture. There is incredibly strong pressure to marry, as true in the church as anywhere else. To many people, including some singles themselves, being single represents an incomplete, less-than-optimum, condition—a failure to develop normally as a human being.

The Scripture does not agree with that perspective. Although God said, “It isn’t good for the man to be alone; I will make a helper and companion for him,” that does not constitute a mandate for marriage. Such a misconception would imply that Adam, created in God’s own image, was nevertheless deficient until Eve appeared on the scene. It might even suggest that Jesus Himself was somehow incomplete, since He was single! God relates to people as individuals, not as half of a couple. At best, marriage is only a temporary part of human existence, as Jesus said there will not be marrying or giving in marriage of resurrected believers.

The reasons for anyone’s singleness are, as is every other factor of life, quite complex. One may be single because of:

My own choices, both the good and the not-so-wise. The network of a hundred decisions, a thousand small choices, have fitted together to make my “now.” But I will remember always, “It is God who works in [me] to will and to act according to his good purpose,” and “In all thing God works for the good of those who love Him.”(Philippians 2:13; Romans 8:28 NIV) God is in the business of redemption, “buying back.”

Someone else’s decisions, perhaps even mistaken and cruel. Some of the factors of my singleness may be beyond my own decisions, other people’s actions having determined some of my own opportunities. These I can entrust to God, saying, “The Lord is my helper, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me?” (Hebrews 13:6 NLT)

Circumstances beyond my control. When something as major as singleness happens in someone’s life, you can be sure it not just by happenstance. If I carefully reflect on the events that led to my singleness, I may discover directives for the future that I would not have found otherwise. I will rest in His providence. The Apostle Paul wrote, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation . . . I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” (Philippians 4:11-13 NIV)

An accident. Even so, God is here. Would the God who has numbered the very hairs of my head let me stumble about in the dark, trying to find my own way? “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11 NLT)

A temporary condition that will change eventually. “My times are in your hands,” and I will “be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.” (Psalm 31:15; 37:7 NIV)

A problem that needs correcting. The past does not always predict the future. Perhaps the past had fear or selfishness as the motivation, or there were other limitations either self-imposed or other-imposed. There can be good growing and changing ahead as I see my single self more clearly. Whatever the future is, the Lord says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” II Corinthians 12:9 NIV)

The calling of God for my life or for a portion of it. Singleness is right and good for those individuals for whom it is indeed right and good. The Apostle Paul wrote, “I am saying this for your benefit, not to place restrictions on you. I want you to do whatever will help you serve the Lord best, with as few distractions as possible.” (I Corinthians 7: 35 NLT)

A gift. Paul again wrote, “Sometimes I wish everyone were single like me—a simpler life in many ways! But celibacy is not for everyone any more than marriage is. God gives the gift of the single life to some, the gift of the married life to others.” (I Corinthians 7:7 MSG)

Until next time,
MaryMartha
(All rights reserved)

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright©1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. United States of America. All rights reserved. Scripture quotation marked MSG is taken from The Message. Copyright © 2003 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Email: mrymrtha@gmail.com