Trust God In Your Dating By Pastor Santos

30-Something & Still Single By Pastor Jack Schaap

      There are many wonderful Christians  whom I know who I believe would make very good spouses and who desire very much to marry and build a family.  For reasons which often only God knows, they remain single and confused.  May I offer some gentle advice?

1.   Be sure jealousy and envy toward your married or engaged friends does not find a lodging place in your heart.  These are spiritual cancers that reveal themselves in subtle ways often noticed by spiritual men.

2.  Find a godly counselor who is willing to involve himself or herself in your search for the right man.  You may need to make some changes, and you will need to trust the sometimes not-so-subtle advice of a wise person.

3.  Realize that as you get older, your tastes become more defined, and you may find very few singles “acceptable.”  This is frustrating to a coulnselor.  Often, I arrange dates only to find an obstinate, highly critical analysis from some older single person who ought to use wisdom and not selfishness in this critique.  Date those people your counselor advises you to date and, by all means, reserve your judgement until after five or six dates with that person.  You need to borrow a little of the naive infatuation of 18 year olds.  Many adult singles have become so independent and self-sufficient that dating someone less than perfect appears to be a burden and intrusion into their secure lifestyle.  That’s the kind of selfish thinking that will keep you single or tempted to chase mature married men who appear to have it all together.

4.  Look for a man with solid character but who is unpolished.  A stable man with grimy fingernails and frayed clothing, but who possesses a balanced checkbook and a steady job might shine up with the right woman  polishing him.  Again, don’t look for a completed man.  Look for the good man who needs a woman’s touch.

5.  If you are well into your adult singleness, I recommend that you choose the single life.  Do not waste your years of health and strength with anger and resentment.  Choose the life you’ve been handed and use it.  Invest your life in others and, if it is God’s will, He is more than able to bring across your path a man who needs the talents and skills you have developed.  

 This is a chapter from Dr. Schaap great book “Dating with a Purpose”.  If you like to order this book call 219-932-0711 and ask for Hyles Publications to order a copy.

An Opportunity for Single’s By Pastor Brennan

 As a single Christian, you have a wonderful opportunity.

      “Opportunity? Yeah, it is an opportunity to be lonely, frustrated, and depressed. It is an opportunity to have your hopes dashed, your feelings hurt, and your pride whacked. It is an opportunity to always be on the outside looking in. It is an opportunity to watch your old friends start new lives with their families and leave me behind. It is an opportunity for continual temptation. It is an opportunity for hypocrisy as I try to pretend in public that being single doesn’t bother me. Yeah, that’s a really wonderful opportunity you’re talking about right there, preacher.” Now, throw in some text speak, say, ROFLOL, and an eye rolling emoticon and we start to get the picture of how some single Christians view my opening proposition.

        I understand their pain, I really do. At my college graduation the chancellor had the girls in the crowd sing this encouraging little ditty:

            If you don’t leave with a woman you don’t leave at all

            If you don’t leave with a woman you don’t leave at all

            If you’re so dumb that you can’t find

            A woman in the registering line

            If you don’t leave with a woman you don’t leave at all

I sat there in the crowd, rather numb, being one of the few who hadn’t found anybody. And that wasn’t for lack of looking, either, let me tell you!

         Yet at the same time I was smack dab in the middle of a wonderful

opportunity. Why do I say that? Very simply, my friend, because God said

so. In I Corinthians 7 the Apostle Paul is discussing family, marriage, sex,

and the single life. In it he makes several rather astounding assertions

regarding the single life. One of them is this, “But I would have you without

carefulness. He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the

Lord, how he may please the Lord: But he that is married careth for the

things that are of the world, how he may please his wife.”

      In essence, Paul is maintaining that the single Christian has more of an opportunity to serve the Lord than a married Christian does. That is a wonderful aspect about the single life that shouldn’t be overlooked.

      As a single man, I could spent 10 hours of my day off building a bus route. As a single man, I could use my vacation time to serve during our church conferences. As a single man, I could go soul winning at midnight. As a single man, I could give a substantially higher percentage than just the tithe to my church. As a single man, I could mentor teenagers one-on-one by the hour. As a single man, I could pick up and move to follow God’s will relatively easily. As a single man, I could start a church and live in the office. Now, as a married man with three children I no longer have that type of flexibility.

      My dear friend, I repeat, as a single Christian you have a wonderful opportunity. Please don’t view your life status as a burden. Rather, let me kindly encourage you to view it through a Scriptural lens for what it actually is – a wonderful opportunity to care for the things that belong to the Lord.