LIVING AS SINGLES, THOUGH MARRIED -- Devotional for October 5, from "Good Seeds"

One who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, and how he may please the Lord; but the one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, and how he may please his wife. His interests are necessarily and properly divided. (I Corinthians 7:32-34)

Two opposite syndromes are making a foray into marriage these days. They are opposites, though actually different sides of the same coin. One is seen when two people are married but the lifestyle of each resembles more the way single people live. The other is when people who are single are living as if they were married. Both are a desecration of marriage as God intended it to be, and neither will bring happiness to man or glory to God, because both ignore the basic foundation of marriage. Let’s look at them one at a time. The apostle Paul was unmarried himself, and he strongly recommended the single life to those who wanted to be single-minded in their service to the Lord. But not all people have the gift of celibacy: the ability to live alone – and live a holy life – without craving intimate companionship with the opposite sex. Indeed it is a very small portion of the human race that would purposely choose such a life. And this is surely of God, for wasn’t it His command from the beginning that His creatures multiply and fill the earth? Paul acknowledges this and says that if you’re destined and determined to be married then do so. But if you desire to be a servant of God, just know that your work for Him will be interrupted by the necessary TLC required by your spouse. In the lives of Christian married couples, though each individual’s DEVOTION must be to God first, and one another second, still the WORK done for God must necessarily come second, while the nurture of marriage and family must be first. This is not a compromise or a contradiction – it is God’s way! But so many people, good people, even godly people, miss this, to the hurt not only of their own happiness but of their witness before a world that hasn’t a clue what marriage is really all about! Though only a tiny portion of people are intended and gifted by God to be single, the trend toward the single life is growing at an alarming rate. How can people who long to be married, and are made so by God, nevertheless remain indefinitely single? Only by living the married life, without the commitment. This is the “Jet Set Generation” adults seeking out intimacy without permanency. Don’t they know they can’t have one without the other? They long for the advantages of marriage but loathe giving up their precious freedom. Isn’t it just like Satan, to counterfeit and desecrate the good things of God? And isn’t it just like people to fall for it, thinking the devil’s got a better way than God’s way?