Dating advice, you get a lot of dating advice as a single and the advice that often comes is to explain to you what you’re doing wrong. You see, we’re fixers. Humans want to help so when there’s a problem there must be a solution. And if you’re single and you want to be married and you’re not, well then there’s a lot you’re doing wrong. You’re unmarriageable because…
I recently listened in on a conversation regarding this very matter and the great epiphany to fix our singleness was to settle. Our problem, we’re not settling when it comes to trying to get married. The solution, well wouldn’t you know lies in the very problem - just settle. Settle and you’ll be married.
I’ve heard this many times but this one poked at me a little more. Should settling be our line of thinking as believers in the all powerful, loving, and true God?
How one thinks about the solutions to life’s problems has grave impact on the answer given. For example, if I think I settled in marrying my spouse what kind of value and appreciation is placed on that spouse in years to come?
To settle means to accept or agree to something that one considers to be less than satisfactory (Oxford dictionary). Begin to imagine how this definition unfolds in your subconscious. Then add marriage struggles which inevitably will come. Do I need to write more? It should be easy to see how you think gravely impacts what you value. Your thinking has great power in either poisoning your mind and your view of life around you resulting in grumbling, complaining, bitterness, and resentment or healing your mind and your view of life around you resulting in thanksgiving, praise, delight, and joy.
When you fail to think biblically, you miss out on the precious value of everything in your life from God to you whether it be singleness, marriage, children, trials, etc. (Rom. 11:36).
Take every thought captive is a command from God. Why, because He knows the lethal devastation an ungodly thought has. Ungodly thoughts are sinful and have destroyed and will continue to destroy families, friends, homes, communities, countries, etc. Hence, He says take every thought captive and rather think on what is true, think on what is pure, think on what is lovely, think on what is commendable, think on what is excellent (2 Cor. 10:3-5, Phil 4:8, Rom. 12:2).
To settle is to consider my spouse to be less than satisfactory. And the question being begged to ask is ‘less than satisfactory to what’? Well, you see, here lies the real problem. Less than satisfactory to my standards. Trouble brews when my standards are the parameter instead of God’s standards. You see, my standards are unsatisfactory in and of themselves because they’re sinful. Until your standards have been sanctified and renewed in Christ than everything in life is less than satisfactory, because God is our ultimate satisfaction. There is no settling in God’s standards because there is nothing less than satisfactory in God’s ways. In fact, His ways are perfect (Ps. 18:30, Ps. 19:7-11).
So, whether single or married perhaps it’s time for a conversation shift. Instead of asking “have you thought about settling?” What if you asked ,“are your standards in line with Christ?”
I don’t want to settle. I want to put my choice in God. That means setting aside my preferences, my standards, and my satisfactions for God’s best. Did you hear that, God’s best. It is far superior to any satisfaction that I can contrive in my mind because He is God. He knows me, knows me better than I know myself. And He knows what is good and perfect and acceptable for me (Rom. 12:2).
Imagine how the conversation changes to the single desiring marriage. Imagine if the solution isn’t to settle but rather to trust God’s best for her (which does mean she must set aside her ungodly preferences, desires, thoughts, etc). Imagine how that thought (God’s best for her, which means bringing about her sanctification) will creep into her subconscious and overflow into her marriage years down the road. Imagine instead of looking at her future spouse as a settled spouse she sees God’s best for her. Imagine.
In all actuality, the worldly perspective in settling is a much easier solution. I don’t really have to change. I just have to lower my standards which somehow places the disappointment on the other person. But the Biblical perspective, now that’s harder because a heart assessment will reveal you do have work to do. You need to change your ungodly expectations, standards, and thinking to align with Christ. No doubt your preferences in a spouse need reassessing. Selfishness has likely been consuming your thinking. How to know? Well, if all your sentences start with ‘I need, I want, I have to have…’ than the answer is undoubtedly yes. Your only I want statement ought to be Christ. I want what Christ has planned for me.
Christ is at work to bring about your sanctification for His ultimate glory (Eph. 4, Col. 3). There is no better want than this and He knows just how to bring it about.
Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow (James 1:17). I do not know my future spouse, but I do know he won’t be a settled choice. He will be God’s choice for me and in that I can take great delight and offer heartfelt praise to my Lord. For now, His gift to me is singleness and in that too I must delight and praise Him. I’ll be the first to tell you my thinking is not always that and taking every thought captive happens daily. But know that when I do, my heart is at rest in my Lord.
So what’s your thinking be it your spouse, kids, singleness, life? Perhaps it’s time for a much needed biblical perspective shift. I’ve come to find when my thinking is of this world all hope is lost and darkness creeps in, but when my thinking is in my Lord my soul is completely satisfied. There is no settling in His perfect ways.
“Remember this in choosing a husband or wife, if you are unmarried. It is not enough that your eye is pleased, that your tastes are met, that your mind finds congeniality, that there is amiability and affection, that there is a comfortable home for life. There needs something more than this. There is a life yet to come.
Think of your soul, your immortal soul.
Will it be helped upwards or dragged downwards by the union you are planning?
Will it be made more heavenly, or more earthly, drawn nearer to Christ, or to the world?”
J.C. Ryle, Holiness
I Am Not My Own
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