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When we’re struggling with on-going singleness, it can at times be tempting to give in to discouragement – doing little to fight the good fight in the realm of the heart.
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But it matters. It matters what we believe about ourselves, about God, about how God is working in our lives. It matters because what fills our hearts will eventually affect our outward lives.
God’s Word should be informing us of what is true, not changing emotion.
But it takes effort for Scripture to soak into our hearts and stir change. A quick glance at the Word when we’re feeling desperate is not going to push us along the path to spiritual strength and maturity. We need to read and meditate on it purposefully, frequently, and prayerfully.
It might not always be easy – but it’s probably when we least feel like it that we most need to turn to the Lord - to read and think about His Word, to train ourselves to trust and rest in Him.
Let’s not allow the struggles of this season to sow seeds of doubt, impatience or bitterness in our hearts. Rather, let’s allow these struggles to push us closer to the Word, closer to our Lord, clinging to the truth of who He is and what He says.
It can be helpful to collect Scriptures that speak directly to your common struggles or doubts – to have them ready on one page to meditate on. Here are just a few truths from Scripture that have often steadied and strengthened my heart in this season (You can hover over the references to read the verses):
*Jerry Bridges does an amazing job of teaching through these points in His book, Trusting God
God’s Word should be informing us of what is true, not changing emotion.
But it takes effort for Scripture to soak into our hearts and stir change. A quick glance at the Word when we’re feeling desperate is not going to push us along the path to spiritual strength and maturity. We need to read and meditate on it purposefully, frequently, and prayerfully.
It might not always be easy – but it’s probably when we least feel like it that we most need to turn to the Lord - to read and think about His Word, to train ourselves to trust and rest in Him.
Let’s not allow the struggles of this season to sow seeds of doubt, impatience or bitterness in our hearts. Rather, let’s allow these struggles to push us closer to the Word, closer to our Lord, clinging to the truth of who He is and what He says.
It can be helpful to collect Scriptures that speak directly to your common struggles or doubts – to have them ready on one page to meditate on. Here are just a few truths from Scripture that have often steadied and strengthened my heart in this season (You can hover over the references to read the verses):
God does not hold back good from those in Christ. In His perfect wisdom, God knows what is and is not truly good for me right now. (Psalm 84:11)What Scriptures speak into your struggles related to being single?
God is my portion forever – I will never be apart from Him. When I draw near to Him, He draws near to me. (Psalm 73:26, James 4:8)
My burden-bearing God has strength sufficient to keep me from “being shaken”. (Psalm 55:22)
If God cares for something as insignificant as a sparrow, how much more does He care for me? God means for this truth to tell me, “Don’t fear.” (Luke 12:6-7)
God is completely sovereign, (Lamentations 3:37-38) infinite in wisdom, (Romans 11:33) and perfect in love. * (Psalm 103:11) So I can trust that God not only loves me and has a perfect plan for my life, but that He is powerful enough to bring that plan about.
*Jerry Bridges does an amazing job of teaching through these points in His book, Trusting God
4 comments:
Proverbs 3:5-6!
Jerry Bridges' "Trusting God" is an incredible book. I stopped asking many questions after reading his book. I came to know that it was okay not to have all the answers... after all I'm not God!
Akofa.
That's one of the impressions I was left with after reading this book...how big, and in control, and in many ways beyond our understanding God is. There's rest in knowing these things.
Hebrews 12:1-2, "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God."
The back of my church's bulletin a few Sundays ago had the following quotation from George Matheson as found in the book Streams in the Desert, and some of what you said about not giving in to our impatient or anxious emotions made me think of it:
"To run with patience is a very difficult thing. Running is apt to suggest the absence of patience, the eagerness to reach the goal. We commonly associate patience with lying down. We think of it as the angel that guards the couch of the invalid. Yet, I do not think the invalid's patience the hardest to achieve.
There is a patience which I believe to be harder--the patience that can run. To lie down in the time of grief, to be quiet under the stroke of adverse fortune, implies a great strength; but I know of something that implies a strength greater still: It is the power to work under a stroke; to have a great weight at your heart and still to run; to have a deep anguish in your spirit and still perform the daily task. It is a Christlike thing!
Many of us would nurse our grief without crying if we were allowed to nurse it. The hard thing is that most of us are called to exercise our patience, not in bed, but in the street. We are called to bury our sorrows, not in lethargic quiescence, but in active service--in the exchange, in the workshop, in the hour of social intercourse, in the contribution to another's joy. There is no burial of sorrow so difficult as that; it is the 'running with patience.' This was Thy patience, O Son of man! It was at once a waiting and a running--a waiting for the goal, and a doing of the lesser work meantime. I see Thee at Cana turning the water into wine lest the marriage feast should be clouded. I see Thee in the desert feeding a multitude with bread just to relieve a temporary want. All, all the time, Thou wert bearing a mighty grief, unshared, unspoken. Men ask for a rainbow in the cloud; but I would ask more from Thee. I would be, in my cloud, myself a rainbow--a minister to others' joy."
David
That's beautiful, David. Thanks for sharing.
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