I want to share my heart about renewed hope for love as a professional single.
Not a professional who is single (though I am a professional). I mean someone who has been single so long that I consider myself to be professionally single, someone who unwittingly has gotten “good at” being single.
Recently, I’ve had to ponder whether the Lord has called me to the gift of singleness.
Me: Do I really want to get married at this late hour? Also Me: Do I really want to get old alone?
I feel very content and comfortable within my singleness about 99% of the time. Should I keep hoping that one day I will get married or do I have a gift of singleness?
Where does my contentment come from? Am I just being selfish? Where does my hope come from? My hope of what? Do I even have any hope of getting married?
I wondered if Bible characters ever lost their hope. I immediately thought of Naomi and Zacharias.
In the book of Ruth, Naomi became embittered after she lost her husband and both of her sons to death. In Luke 1:5-23, Zacharias and his wife Elizabeth were never able to have children.
Naomi nearly lost herself in bitterness as she tried to drive both of her daughters-in-law 
from returning with her back to Israel. Though daughter-in-law Ruth didn’t have any human chance of being cared for in a foreign country that hated her nation, she refused to leave Naomi’s side.
Zacharias and Elizabeth continued to serve God in the temple. I’m sure they wondered why the Lord had withheld children from them in an agricultural society that needed and valued children.
From these four characters, I saw where my hope has always come from as a follower of Christ who just happens to be single. Each person in these two Bible stories has something to show us about hope.
I have five takeaways from these four for retaining a reasonable hope and honoring the Lord in my sustained season of singleness.
- There is no need to become bitter. Bitterness arises from disappointment and unbelief in the goodness and ability of God. Bitterness will steal the life from your very soul, like it did for Naomi (Ruth 1:19-21). And bitterness detracts from your presentation, driving away potential mates. If you want to keep your hope, fight against bitterness.
- Hope must be in God, not in man (or woman). Ruth turned from the empty idols of her Moabite nation and clung to Naomi’s God, although Naomi didn’t represent Him well. Ruth knew she didn’t have a human chance of marrying an Israeli man, but she was in love with Naomi’s God, Ruth 1:6-18. If you want to keep your hope, cling to the goodness, life, and light of God.
- Question the Lord from a limited understanding of how God could do something, not angry, rebellious unbelief and pressure based on your own limited humanity, which
Zacharias could not do. God is not afraid of our emotions. However, emotions sometimes cloud our view of God and make us go off on a real tangent. If you want to keep your hope, be honest with God and ask Him questions, based on who He is and His promises, not what we can do. Remember, both Zacharias and Mary, Jesus’ mother, asked God the same question, but Mary stayed out of trouble; Luke 1:18a and Luke 1:34a. - Submit to God’s known plan for your life and see what God does. Elizabeth went along with her husband’s sudden insistence for marital pleasure the night he returned from temple duty, though she might not have known immediately about the angel’s visit. We later read how honored and blessed she felt to finally be able to bear a child in her old age, Luke 1:23-25 & 1:57-58. We now know, but she didn’t know at the beginning of her pregnancy, that her son was the forerunner to the long-awaited, eternal Son of God. If you want to keep your hope, honor God in whatever you know He wants you to do today.
- The Lord knows and loves us thoroughly. He will give us the answers, resources, and assurance we need when we need it. While we’re seeking the answers, we will grow in Christlikeness, faith, and the fruit of the Spirit. If you want to keep your hope, cling to God’s wisdom, sovereignty, and love for each of us.
All four of these characters came at God from different places, and He loved each one back to Himself.
Have faith, my single Christian friend, that God has not abandoned you in your singleness, whether you’re called to singleness or marriage. No matter which character you relate to the most of these four, know that if you want to stay single for now, it’s okay. And if you want to get married, it’s okay. He can meet you where you’re at and take you where you need to go.
To my faithful readers, thank you for checking regularly in for inspiration, encouragement, and exhortation to love and good works. I have a short announcement for you!
NOTICE: Starting April 1, 2018, I will no longer post on Sundays. My first post for April will be Tuesday, April 3.
Bibliography
Mary Ellen Dykas. Single in Christ and a Sexual Being. Article for equip.org, vol. 37, number 01 (2014), accessed 3/9/18. http://www.equip.org/PDF/JAF5371.pdf
Betsy Childs Howard. Should I Be Content In My Singleness? Article for thegospelcoalition.org 5/22/2014, accessed 3/9/18. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/should-i-be-content-with-my-singleness/
