Mixed messages abound in the Christian-singles-world about the desire for marriage.

You’re expected to desire marriage and pursue it above all else when you’re young. Marriage is the ultimate goal, and there’s no greater calling on a person’s life. That is until you start squeaking up against 30. Then the rules change.

As you get older, and marriage is still unforeseeable, you’re told you should just quit pining over it and move on, that the desire dilutes your love for God and reveals a heart of idolatry, and Jesus should just be enough.

I’m here to tell you, both of these messages are wrong. Why? Because they’re rooted in shame. Shame on you for not getting married right out of college and then shame on you for even wanting to get married. Jesus is the antithesis of shame.

Our culture tries really hard to make up rules of our lives when it can’t understand the reason this happens or that happens. It tries to put everything in a box of a + b = c, but God isn’t in a box, and it’s His story we’re living. A girl can do “everything right” – whatever that means – and still wake up on her 30th birthday single. And a girl can be 40 years old, love God with all her heart, soul, and mind – be completely surrendered and sold out – yet still desire marriage. Yes, this is possible. And her desire for marriage is good.

God created marriage, and all of His creation is good. So why would He not want you to desire something good that He created? When you desire marriage, you desire the goodness of God.

We are not called to pursue marriage.

Where the shame sets in is when we start pursuing marriage. There is a difference between pursuing marriage and desiring marriage. We were never meant to pursue marriage. When we pursue marriage the reference point is taken off of God and onto ourselves. We become our god. We begin to operate under a works-based mentality that we have to make our lives turn out the way we want them to because no one else will. When they don’t turn out the way we want them to, then the shame sets in.

I lived like this for many years.

There is a verse that I call the single woman’s mantra – at least I know it was my mantra. “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4). I believe it is one of the most misunderstood verses that we memorize. The word “delight” in Hebrew is `anag. It means to be “soft, delicate, dainty, to make merry about, to take exquisite delight, to make happy about, make sport of.” When we are soft, delicate, dainty, as opposed to hardened and immovable, then God gives us what He wants us to desire. And look at the definition “make sport of”. That means we make sport of God. We pursue God – not marriage. It’s through pursuing God that our desire for marriage should come.

We are only called to pursue God.

I was afraid to ask God to make my desires His desires for me because if He changed my desire for marriage then where would I be? I felt like I was better off just taking matters into my own hands, and so I pursued marriage over God and now  I live with many regrets.

Dear friend, don’t give up on your desire for marriage. God is the creator of marriage. He is the sustainer of marriage. He uses marriage to represent His relationship to His children.  If you are delighting yourself in the Lord, and your desire for marriage continues and even increases in intensity, then that desire is His desire for you. Hold on tightly to it. So tightly that it draws you even closer to Him. Seek Him with all you have. This is living surrendered, so yes, you can live surrendered to God and desire marriage.

Remember, marriage is a calling and singleness is a calling. Marriage is never a temporary calling, unless separated by death, but singleness can be. Some people are called to singleness temporarily, and some people are called to singleness for a lifetime. However, I know this with every fiber of my being – if you are delighting in the Lord, totally surrendered to Him, He will prepare you and equip you if He calls you to a lifetime of singleness, and you will have peace with that calling. 

Remember, pursue God and allow the desire for marriage come out of your relationship with Him.