#Love&War Satisfied Singles
Life is filled with moments that affect us daily. Our days are filled with love & war. Each act of war and each reach for love highlights some of the difficult situations and inner pain we all experience. Today, I’m sharing with you a place to find someone if you are single and would like to marry.
I like to say “date with intention” meaning be friends until you know them well enough you still think “this could be the one” then date. Instead of dating to get to know someone =
Be friends to get to know someone,
then date to marry someone.
I think being single now is more difficult than it used to be. Yes it had its share of difficulties but they were different so the solutions were different. Today, we have multiple social platforms to engage with multiple people. The depths of our relationships have become shallower due to all of the multiplicity. So how can a single person achieve a depth in friendship that is healthy without dating? Someone who is funny, has a genuine relationship with Jesus, and has good character? Is it possible to be a satisfied single?
I have an idea.
John 10:10 says “My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.” (NLT) I believe God is genuinely wanting to see these singles in a place where they are satisfied and married. I’d like to suggest to you what that place is, although I have to be honest, it is not a comfortable place.
If I could sit down with every single person who is reading this and desiring to marry, I would look you softly in the eye and say that “I understand the loneliness and confusion” and if we had more time I’d suggest and elaborate about how “God has a dream for you in this season that is so perfectly tailored to you that being married is a distraction and unfitting, for now.”
The place I would suggest you arrive at is the place of refinement. Welcome the refiners fire in your life. Your future marriage will be the marriage the next generation wants! #GOALS
Here is how:
Many fun and healthy couples I know first served as friends before they dated. Trevin and I served at the same church. We were on different teams but we were always around each other. He was on staff on the facilities team, I was the administration assistant to the lead pastors wife. I served in children’s ministries, Trevin served on the worship team.
Serving with no recognition shapes a persons character and begins this refinement process. Refining reveals strengths and weaknesses, sense of humor, an attitude of arrogance or humility and shows if someone has respect for themselves and other people, among other things—
In today’s world that looks like not posting when you do a random act of kindness. It looks like staying committed when you feel under the weather (and aren’t contagious). It looks like saying “Thanks for the invite, I have some financial goals to hit so I can’t go out to eat with everyone.” It is holding the door for people, smiling, and so much more!
Trevin and I found ourselves choosing team names and t-shirt colors for youth camp year after year.
Serving continuously on a team shows if someone is responsible, if they have boundaries, and if they have integrity when no one is looking.
When you serve without any recognition there is a refinement that comes to our souls like nothing else.
Notice I say without recognition, not without appreciation. I hope you find a team that appreciates you and thanks you for your hard work, but when the demographic you are reaching doesn’t post about you, thats what I mean about “without recognition.”
If you aren’t volunteering regularly, if you aren’t weekly gathering with people in person may I suggest that you jump in and get involved with your church or a local nonprofit. God has someone for you. Will you be ready and satisfied with life when they show up? After all, you’re looking for someone who loves life too, yes? Go after it my friends and send this post to your friends, have them join you!
xo, Steph