My sweet friend, Kristen, shares some wisdom from her years of singleness. Kristen and I attended college together where I saw her thrive in contentment and pursuit of the Lord during her season of singleness. Now, married to her best friend, she is continuing to thrive in her love for Jesus. I pray her words will encourage you as they did me.
A
couple years ago, I spent a month reading Psalm 1. Verse 3 captured me.
He
[the man who delights in the Lord – v. 2] will be like a tree planted by the
rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season; its leaf will not
wither; and whatever he does will prosper.
Jeremiah
speaks similarly in Jeremiah chapter 17.
Blessed
is the man who trusts in the Lord … For he will be like a tree planted by the
waters, that spreads out its roots by the river, and shall not fear when the
heat comes, but its leaves shall be green; it will not be anxious in a year of
drought neither cease from yielding fruit. (MEV)
These
verses let us taste the kind of life God has for His children who delight in
and trust Him: abundant life, overflowing life, flourishing life. Jeremiah goes
farther than David. He assures us that we will get unfavorable and unsought
circumstances and yet those things don’t have to cause us to wither. We can
thrive with green leaves and succulent fruit in spite of difficult
circumstances because God has positioned us by Living Water.
Thriving
isn’t our natural response to difficult things. If we know someone is having a
hard week, we don’t go up to them and say, “So, how are you thriving?” No. We
ask, “How are you coping?”
What
is coping?
· To survive, subsist, carry on, get
through, scrape by, keep one’s head above water, muddle along
· Merriam-Webster: to maintain a contest or
combat usually on even terms or with success; attempt to overcome problems and
difficulties
· Implies maintaining the status quo, just
evading failure, static living
What
is thriving?
·
To grow, develop well, advance, profit,
make strides, flourish
·
Merriam-Webster: to progress toward or
realize a goal despite or because of difficult circumstances
Summary:
Coping
is surviving in spite of difficulties
Thriving
is flourishing because of difficulties
The
difference is subtle but significant, and is founded in our expectation of what
God is capable of doing in our lives. It’s easy to thrive in the things we like
and are good at, in the areas we want to find success in, in the things that
bring us benefit. But when it comes to situations that we don’t like, that we
wish we could change or eliminate, that cross our desires and purposes,
thriving in that is probably the last
thing on our minds.
Thriving
was the last thing on my mind when it came to a particular area of my life that
I wanted to change, that crossed my dreams and desires: singleness. I certainly
did not plan or ask for years and years of being single. Singleness has its
perks but no one ever caught me daydreaming about all the wonders and blessings
of it. Rather, I was often tempted to just scrape by, seek false fulfillment,
and use my status to excuse ineffective living. In short, I settled for coping.
The
abundant life that God wills for us is so much more vivid and powerful and
effective than living in a state of just coping, however. God’s will is for our
lives to be planted, not in our dreams for relationship and marriage, but in
Christ’s sufficiency. We can rest in Him, our roots sunk down into His Living
Water, knowing that the heat and drought will come, that circumstances and hard
things will buffet us, but that the difficulty can be turned into growth and
benefit for ourselves and our God.
Psalm
1:3 and Jeremiah 17:8 imply that thriving often springs from difficulty. I
would be lying if I said singleness isn’t difficult. I think what makes it difficult
for most single women is that marriage, romance and companionship are good
things – we are actually being image bearers in wanting those things. But, just
as we are made for relationship, we are also made for wholeness and holiness;
and none of those things will find ultimate fulfillment here on this earth.
(That’s so hard! This is where we do some Romans 8:22-23 groaning.) Why?
Because this world is not our home. God has put seeds of eternity in our hearts
so that we seek the One who is eternal rather than the things that will pass
away.
Over the years, God has continued to gently wean me of
myself and my ideas of what I need to be full and flourishing. He opened my
eyes to many of the ways He was using my singleness for His glory – often in
spite of my attitude. He planted in me a desire to see how He could use me because of my singleness. He challenged
me to blossom and bear fruit when I felt like singleness justified barrenness
and a survival attitude.
How do we nurture a thriving heart like David and
Jeremiah describe? How do we make our singleness profitable for God, ourselves
and others? How do we flourish because of
our relationship status?
David
says that thriving comes from deliberately meditating on
and
delighting in God’s Word.
Every
once in a while, I take inventory of my go-to meditations. When I have “mental
free time,” where do my thoughts go? What things fill my mind? If there is any
unbiblical worldview, any daydream that coddles selfish desires, any thoughts
that are inconsistent with the holiness and heart of God, any patterns of
thinking that take their cue from pop culture, any media messages that create
dissatisfaction with what God has given me, I want to make a plan to put these
off and replace them with a mind and heart that contemplates God’s Word. We
become like what we contemplate, so let
us all, with unveiled faces [eyes and heart that have been freed from the
world’s philosophies and deceptions], behold
[contemplate with scrutiny, peer at intensely] as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, being transformed increasingly more
like the same image, by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Cor. 3:18 NASB paraphrase).
I also monitor my delights. I ask myself, “What in my
life sways my contentment? What do I need, or think I need, to be happy?” My
affections can become misplaced so gradually that I don’t even see it
happening. Colossians tells us to actively direct our affections to things
above where Christ is. Yes ladies, we have to throw out the princess movie
philosophies about following our heart and all that fluff. Instead, we should
wisely choose the appropriate object for our affections and develop a plan to
get there. Experience tells us that we develop delight in something as we
nurture deeper understanding and commitment to it. Study of God’s Word develops
delight in God’s Word.
Understanding God’s nature develops delight in God’s
nature. When we carefully direct what we meditate on, we are helping ourselves
grow to delight in the right things.
Jeremiah
says thriving comes from trusting in the Lord.
In
our singleness, we have probably all questioned if God really knows how to
manage things better than we do. Before we doubt the personal, tender,
purposeful care God has for each detail of our life, read Psalm 139:14-16
(MEV).
I will praise you, for I am fearfully
and wonderfully made; marvelous are your works; you know me completely. My
frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret and intricately put
together in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw me unformed, yet in
your book all my days were written, before any of them had come into being.
This
blows my mind every time I read it. Before I was even formed, God wrote out a
description of my days. Not an outline of my years. Of my little days! Our
lives are intrinsically valuable because God made us on purpose, and He made us for
a purpose. This fundamental truth separates the Christian worldview from
all worldly philosophies. It is the basis of our ability to trust our days and
years and efforts to God’s divine ability to make them matter.
It
is easy, if something we “need” isn’t showing up, to become manufacturers and manipulators.
I was single quite long enough to know how to manufacture and manipulate
situations that at least got me male attention. I knew how to be in the right
place at the right time so as to “just happen” to run into the right guy; the
success rate of that tactic is pretty small (in my life, 0%), probably because
that’s not a method that displays God’s glorious ability to orchestrate and
carry out His will. Many women go to dating sites to look for a relationship. A
few months after my 29th birthday, I registered for a free week on
Christian Mingle. Again, I know this works for some people. Personally, I was
alarmed at the level of artificiality and the endless “window shopping” without
investing that seemed to go on. I responded to seven of maybe two dozen
messages and maintained a few days worth of chat with the men, wondering in
turn how many fires they were feeding at the same time (back up plans, you know).
There just wasn’t any feeling of security, no accountability, and little
possibility of building trust. In less than a week, I was scared off. All this
to say: my attempts to manufacture what I believed I needed were never blessed.
Sometimes I did get what I wanted, but always apart from peace and intimacy
with God.
In
those times, I had to reestablish my mind and heart where I knew it should be.
I had to stop all my frantic planning and problem solving to ask myself one
question: “What do I really want?” What desire can I confidently pursue that
supersedes these lesser, circumstantial ideals? I knew what I wanted to want. I
wanted to deeply desire and pursue the thing God had already guaranteed me
because it was His desire and plan
for me: to be conformed to the image of His Son.
As
Elizabeth Elliot so frequently said, “we must give up our right to ourselves”:
our right to romance and marriage, our right to make ourselves happy, our right
to comfort and convenience, our right to earthly security. Giving up that “right”
frees us from the stress of managing and negotiating our future. God has given
us all we need to live godly in Christ Jesus and be in His perfect will today.
In that security, we can focus on more than attaining marriage – a set of
circumstances which is largely outside our control anyway.
We
can focus on living abundantly for God because
of the unique freedoms and opportunities in singleness.
So
how do you intentionally thrive in singleness? Consider and pray over these two
questions:
·
How can I use my singleness as a tool to
encourage and serve others?
·
How can I use this season of relative
freedom (aka singleness) to grow my abilities and develop areas I am weak in so
that I’m as equipped as possible for any future?
Ladies,
don’t let singleness shrivel and shrink you. You are planted by rivers of water
that enable you to be a fruitful and thriving daughter of God. Redeem the
opportunity.
Kristen lives with
her husband in Virginia where she seeks to build relationships with women of
all ages and in all stages of life. She and her husband enjoy reading, making
breakfast, inviting people into their home, and exploring historical sites.
