the susie solution

Anyone who sees me much knows I love wearing bling, especially earrings.  I have dozens, of all colors and shapes, made of both common and exotic materials, for every season, and for every style of dress from casual to glitzy.  I hate it when I lose an earring.  Since my piercings are in matched sets, a single earring does me no good. The worth of any single earring is tied to having the other.

Sadly, too many folks think of people that way– that our worth lies only in our relationship to having some other person in our life, that without that “other” we are, in fact, incomplete.

Society certainly tends to see it that way.  Whether having a bevy of beaus or a harem, serial monogamy, a long-term relationship, or marriage, the pressure to be with somebody is enormous.  Sadly, the church, in its desire to hold up the value of marriage, is often little better.  Remarks addressed in sermons to the adults in the congregation often assume, or at least infer, that “we’re all married – or will be.”  Most churches don’t know what to DO with their singles once those singles get much beyond college age.  Many churches’ singles’ groups function like a dating service.  If an adult is possessed of at least reasonable intelligence, moderate abilities, pleasant personality, and is considered to have relatively pleasing looks, yet stays single, s/he will often face the question, “How come a wonderful chick/guy like you isn’t married?” – as if the only reason God would even MAKE such a person is for s/he to be married!  Singles who don’t meet those criteria?  Well, if they don’t marry, they are simply objects of pity, stuck forever in a “less than” life.

But it’s a lie.  A bald-faced, straight-up, direct-from-the-Father-of-Lies-himself lie.

Way back in the very beginning, not long after God created Adam, observing Adam’s lack of true companionship, God said, “It is not good that man should be alone”, and the result was the creation of Eve.  For many people, that passage is interpreted as a statement about the pre-eminence of the marriage relationship as critical for the full human experience.  But pay attention to what God did NOT say.  He did not say, “Oops!  I left part of Adam out.  I better make the rest of him.”  God didn’t create Adam with a piece missing.  Adam was alone, but he was not incomplete.  Eve was to be Adam’s helper, his Ebenezer, his companion, but she was NOT his “finishing touch.”  Adam was a whole person just as God made him.  Eve was “bone of [Adam’s] bone and flesh of [Adam’s] flesh”, but although the process of her creation differed from Adam’s in that she wasn’t made “from scratch”, so to speak, she, nevertheless, was created a whole person in her own right.  Both male and female were required for reflecting the full image of God.  Companionship is required to experience the fellowship that exists in the Godhead – but just because the first man and woman married doesn’t mean that companionship can ONLY mean marriage.

Although the patriarchs of the Old Testament were (obviously!) married, we do not know the marital status of all of the O.T. judges and prophets; of those for whom there is no mention of a wife or children, it is reasonable to assume that at least some were unmarried.  We know Jeremiah remained single because he was, in fact, expressly forbidden by God to marry.  (Jeremiah 16:1 vv) John the Baptist did not marry.  Jesus Himself, of course, did not marry.  Only the marital status of a few of the apostles or men and women active in the ministry of the early church is referenced; it is more than likely that some of them were unattached.  The greatest evangelist and writer of the major portion of the canonical New Testament, the apostle Paul, was single – and adamantly so! How ludicrous to think of any of these as somehow living only half-lives because of they were not “conjugally matrimonified”, as it is put in Pirates of Penzance.

It is interesting that Paul, though single, is one of the most eloquent writers about the marriage relationship.  His instructions on marriage given in Ephesians were a radical departure from the cultural attitude of the time.  His assertion that marriage is to be a reflection of the relationship between Christ and the Church elevated marriage to a high new spiritual plane.  Yet even so, Paul made very clear that there is not a higher value in being married than in being single.  Indeed, throughout I Corinthians 7, Paul’s preference is decidedly slanted toward singleness.  (Note that this prejudice is predicated on a belief in the imminent return of Christ, however.)  His strongest point in favor of being single is that it enables one to be focused solely on serving the Lord.  If you’re married, decisions are a two-party process; if you’re single, you have only the Lord to consult.  If you’re married, there are schedules to coordinate; if you’re single, there’s only ONE calendar.  Singles have a freedom of time, emotional energy, and resources that married couples do not – time, emotional energy, and resources which they may devote to the Lord and His work.

I am thankful to have in my own family several wonderful examples of singles living full lives, both women and men, never married, divorced, or parted from their marital partner by death, who I have never seen repine over their status as singles and who have embraced the freedom of singleness to engage in ministry, formal and informal, that would have been difficult or impossible were they married.  Any reading of missionary stories will likewise yield a plethora of examples.  For some of these, singleness has been a deliberate choice, made early in life.  For others, although they would not have objected to marriage, the opportunity just never came up. For others, it was a struggle, as they would very much like to have married.  As did Paul, all of these singles grasped the understanding that both singleness and marriage are simply roles we may be called to play, and their contentment in singleness involved a willingness to accept whichever role God would call them to play:  if to marry, then to marry, but if to be single, then to BE single – not consider themselves as simply in a holding pattern until “real life” – marriage – began.

Whatever roles God calls us to, His purpose for us is always the same: to conformed to the image of His Son (Romans 8:28-29.)  He has promised that He has, does, and will continue to give us everything we need for this to be so.  Ephesians 1:3-14 is just one passage expounding on those promises.  We have been blessed with every blessing in the heavenly places, chosen before the foundation of the world, predestined for adoption, blessed with His glorious grace in the Beloved, redeemed through His blood, forgiven our trespasses, lavished with wisdom and insight that make known to us the mystery of His will.  We have obtained an inheritance and been sealed with the Holy Spirit.  Note not that a word of that carries a caveat, “ … – if you’re married, that is.”  Roles are not our identity.  Roles do not – indeed, cannot – complete us.  Our completion is in Christ.

Not married?  Then be “single-minded” and determine to fully exercise the completion experienced in Christ to bless the world in a way that only those with the freedom of the single can.

No one in Christ, married or single, is ever sentenced to an incomplete life.