Overcoming a False View of God's Sovereignty & Embracing the Bigger Picture
Jasmine Baucham shares:
"I desire to get married, so I know I will!"
"The Lord does not give us more than we can bear, and I am not wired for a life of singleness, so I will get married."
These sentiments have all been uttered to me at one point or another by young women who desire to get married. They have been uttered by sixteen-year-olds who are convinced that the Lord will send them a husband by their eighteenth birthday. They have been uttered by twenty-eight-year-olds who just know that the Lord would not have them to be single in their thirties. They have been uttered by young women in their thirties who have become embittered towards the Lord because He has not kept His promise to give them the desires of their hearts.
In so many ways, this issue is the crux of discontentment. This is why I worry when I see a young woman at the tender age of eighteen becoming despondent because no one has asked for her hand in marriage yet. She is worried that something is wrong with her, and that this silence will set the pattern for years to come.
I worry for the girl ten years her senior, who has had men come and go, but does not think any of them have been the right man for her. She is wondering if she should settle for the next guy that asks her, because, let's face it, she's not getting any younger.
I worry for the girl who knows a young man that she would jump at the chance to marry, if only he would glance at her. She is turning down perfectly acceptable, godly young men because of the one guy whose attention she can't get, and she's perfectly convinced that God will send her the one she wants.
...I am not arguing that that godly young women will not have moments of battling with discontentment.
But I am arguing that it should be a battle! So many of us have given up fighting.
We have accepted discontentment as the status quo.
And while I know that many of us receive encouragement from our mothers, fathers, and mentors, I want to offer a bit of encouragement as someone who doesn't "remember all to well" what it's like to be in that single season--she's still right there with you...
In so many ways, understanding this point is solving the root of our discontentment problem:
We don't truly trust in the Lord's sovereignty.
While it's easy to say, "I trust the Lord to bring me a husband in his sovereign timing," it's harder to live those words out--to live, day by day, joyfully trusting Him. And while we might pretend to hold our dreams in open palms instead of clenched fists, and our lips may be saying, "I trust the Lord's sovereign will," our hearts scream out at the possibility that His sovereign will may not include a spouse in the near future--or at all. We "trust God's sovereign will" on our own terms:
If He gives us what we want, He's a good and loving God; if what we want doesn't end up aligning with His will, we play the blame game.
And instead of turning to Him for comfort, we turn to a daydream.
Whether your dream proposal includes Dean Martin crooning Volare while you sail through Venice on a gondola or you're thinking you'd like to go the Hollywood route and get proposed to in the rain on your front porch, our desire for marriage becomes the seat of our emotions.
Our every waking thought is directed towards someday, and we lose sight of today.
Worse, we lose sight of the Author of today.
And yet we still expect Him to satiate our longing for an idea that has become an idol.
Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.
Ps. 37:4
So many of us disregard the first part of that passage and cling hungrily to the second. "He will give me the desires of my heart!!" If I desire a husband, I'll get one, because husbands are good things, my God is a good God, my God is able, and He will not withhold my desires from me!
We completely miss the command in that promise:
delight yourself in the Lord.
Which entails placing our desires at the foot of the cross.
Which means placing our hope and trust solely in Him--squarely in His hands.
And when we trust the Lord with all of our hearts
(Prov. 3:5),
when we entrust our desires to Him, what we most wish for would be that
His will be done,
even if His will for us does not include marriage.
It's a lesson that we'll have to embrace throughout our lives, even if we get married tomorrow:
Truly trusting God's sovereignty means letting go of our plans in light of His will....
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But I am arguing that it should be a battle! So many of us have given up fighting.
We have accepted discontentment as the status quo.
And while I know that many of us receive encouragement from our mothers, fathers, and mentors, I want to offer a bit of encouragement as someone who doesn't "remember all to well" what it's like to be in that single season--she's still right there with you...
In so many ways, understanding this point is solving the root of our discontentment problem:
We don't truly trust in the Lord's sovereignty.
While it's easy to say, "I trust the Lord to bring me a husband in his sovereign timing," it's harder to live those words out--to live, day by day, joyfully trusting Him. And while we might pretend to hold our dreams in open palms instead of clenched fists, and our lips may be saying, "I trust the Lord's sovereign will," our hearts scream out at the possibility that His sovereign will may not include a spouse in the near future--or at all. We "trust God's sovereign will" on our own terms:
If He gives us what we want, He's a good and loving God; if what we want doesn't end up aligning with His will, we play the blame game.
And instead of turning to Him for comfort, we turn to a daydream.
Whether your dream proposal includes Dean Martin crooning Volare while you sail through Venice on a gondola or you're thinking you'd like to go the Hollywood route and get proposed to in the rain on your front porch, our desire for marriage becomes the seat of our emotions.
Our every waking thought is directed towards someday, and we lose sight of today.
Worse, we lose sight of the Author of today.
And yet we still expect Him to satiate our longing for an idea that has become an idol.
Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.
Ps. 37:4
So many of us disregard the first part of that passage and cling hungrily to the second. "He will give me the desires of my heart!!" If I desire a husband, I'll get one, because husbands are good things, my God is a good God, my God is able, and He will not withhold my desires from me!
We completely miss the command in that promise:
delight yourself in the Lord.
Which entails placing our desires at the foot of the cross.
Which means placing our hope and trust solely in Him--squarely in His hands.
And when we trust the Lord with all of our hearts
(Prov. 3:5),
when we entrust our desires to Him, what we most wish for would be that
His will be done,
even if His will for us does not include marriage.
It's a lesson that we'll have to embrace throughout our lives, even if we get married tomorrow:
Truly trusting God's sovereignty means letting go of our plans in light of His will....
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