Welcome back ladies! Today we’re discussing chapters six and seven of Part 2 of Sacred Singleness. These chapters were jammed packed with nuggets of wisdom on how to live a content life as a single woman – or really as a woman in any stage of life.
Next week we will wrap up Part 2 and only discuss one chapter – Chapter 8.
Question 1: On pages 80-81, Leslie reminds us of the story of Abraham and Ishmael – the son he had with Sarah’s maidservant. Abraham could not understand how God could give him and his wife a hand in their old age, so he decided to help Him out.
“Are you trying to create an Ishmael of you own making? Are you attempting to give God a hand in finding a guy and getting married?” p. 81
“Here is the truth that many of us hesitate to really believe: If and when the time comes for us to be married, God will orchestrate the love story. But in the meantime, our focus is to be on serving Him and pouring our life out for Him, not on getting serious about getting married. The timing is up to Him, not us.” (Sacred Singleness, p. 78)
Chapter six opens up with the discussion of how much, if anything, women should do to find a man or get married. I was the queen of trying to orchestrate my life so that I would be in the perfect position to find a man. I moved three times while I was single, and if I’m honest it was mainly due to my discontentment and the fear of my future husband not being where I lived. The funny thing is that my husband lived 50 miles from where I lived when we met. Obviously God was in control!
And God is in control in your life too. All we are asked to do is trust Him. That does not mean that we can sit in our houses day in and day out and expect Mr. Right to just come knocking on the door. We need to build community through serving and building friendships, but not with the motive of pursuing marriage. I often say that anyone can find someone to marry. Getting a man to marry you is somewhat of the easy part. That is one reason that there are so many marriages that are not successful. It is waiting on God’s timing, God’s best for each us as individuals, and entering into marriage as a covenant with God that requires us to lay down our lives and be patient until He is ready to bring us our husbands.
Question 2: Ask God to help you, and examine your heart right now. Is marriage and dating an obsession for you? Do you think about it all the time? Dream about it? Play scenario after scenario in your mind? Worry about when he’ll call again or over-analyze ever word you say to an unhealthy level?
“The Bible is perfectly clear: Anything that captures our heart, time, focus, and affection above Jesus Christ is an idol in our life. The desire to get married is not an idol in a young woman’s life, but the obsession with getting married is.” (Sacred Singleness, p. 96)
As a single woman, marriage was a definite idol in my life. I loved the idea of marriage and a husband more than I loved God. Yes, that’s a pretty profound statement, but it’s the truth. I have had to repent and ask for forgiveness. Idols, however, leave a person always wanting more and never being fully satisfied. Even if you are engaged to a man that God brought to you and is a part of His plan for you, if that man is an idol in any way, then you will feel the same void that you would feel without him. Only God can fulfill the longings of our hearts.
It is important to also mention that idolatry does not end in marriage. We can make idols out of anything – even good things like husbands and children. Ask God now to reveal to you whether you are making marriage and a husband an idol. Ask for forgiveness and help in turning from idolatry. Getting into the pattern of recognizing idolatry will help you not only now, but throughout your relationships.
Question 3: Surrendering your desires to God without becoming obsessed takes practice, and it is supernatural. Review Leslie’s list on page 97 of ways you can begin surrendering your desires to God. Which of these do you most need to do?
“I began to practice surrendering my feelings of attraction into God’s hands. Rather than obsess or fantasize about a guy, I learned how to pray for him and for his future wife. If I ever found that those emotions and desires started consuming me, I prayed for unsaved loved ones or meditated on Scripture in order to ‘take every thought captive’ and not allow my feelings to distract me from Jesus Christ. The more I put this principle in practice, the more it became habitual to submit my emotions and desires to Christ and not allow them to control me.” (Sacred Singleness, p. 97)
There are two principles that are so important for you to understand in this section. One, surrendering desires to God is supernatural. So often we feel like it is impossible and something we have to accomplish on our own. It is impossible. It is impossible to take a human, good, desire and give it back to God. That is without the Holy Spirit. But as Christians, we have everything we need within us through the power of the Holy Spirit.
The second principle to understand is surrendering takes practice. For me it is was, and still is, a daily occurrence. Every day I have to make the choice of whether I am going to surrender this life of mine to God’s will and purposes or continue to live like it’s my own. There is no doubt that God can, and sometimes does, take a burden from us once and for all. But more often He does not. He is more concerned about our growth than He is about our immediate happiness.
What has this post or these chapters made you think about? How do you respond to these questions or the other ideas in chapters six and seven? Please share with us in the comments!
Next week we will discuss chapter8! Get the discussion questions here:
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