Single & Married Ladies – New Options?

Hi Ladies,

As a Believing single lady, you know that you must wait on God to act in the vital area of selecting a life partner. You’ve listened to the sermons, read Scripture, and heard during prayer times that your responsibility is to be obedient to the Lord, and ready to receive His promise.

BUT…there are several scenarios in which an otherwise rational woman can decide to try to push God into swifter action. Hebrews 10:36 advises, “For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.”   Instead, restlessness or a sense of urgency can overwhelm Holy Spirit’s cautions to wait. It’s never okay to take, or attempt to take, matters into your own hands. In doing so, you could opt for an ill-advised choice. But if you keep your mind open and remember that you’re a treasure from God, He may have a treasure awaiting you as well.

OVER 30 – REALLY?

Your life, interests and concerns are far different from the lives of females even just a few decades ago. You’re likely to marry at a later age, postponing nuptials until other goals have been accomplished or your career is better established. Compared to previous generations, you’re more educated, with a college degree, or pursuing advanced training. If not wed in your early twenties, you understand how to earn money and handle your personal affairs.

As an accomplished woman, when you do decide it’s time to marry, or perhaps remarry, you won’t seek the same attributes in a husband that may have guided such a decision earlier.   Good looks or having a perfect body become less important. You don’t expect him to provide total financial support, or to micromanage your life. And you probably won’t feel inspired by household chores or antiquated ideas of ‘wifely duties’. You’re a competent person with your own pursuits and successes, and possibly answering a calling from God upon your life.

As a fully functioning individual and potentially a stellar marital partner, you will be a tremendous asset to the man who finds you, a prize worthy of whatever effort it takes to win you. However, the pool of available men has slowly been changing.

In our twenties, the selection of males can seem almost limitless, and probably includes older guys with successful careers. If they are in our age range, we expect fellows to be ambitious and pursuing their occupational options. Our future mate is likely to be actively carving out his own place in the world.

Then comes The Thirties Dilemma. If your life has been rushing by in a blur of activities for school, career, church and recreation, you’ve probably been very happily busy. But as you’re maturing, the marriageable men around you have been in steady decline.   They’ve wed or become unsuitable for any number of possible reasons. The legendary handsome princes seem to be in precariously short supply, and the number of single Christian guys even fewer.

As a committed Believer, willing to trust God for your mate, you’re probably inclined to see all other Believers as having intrinsic worth and may place more value on the fact that a man is a Christian above all else. So, what if he has issues…who doesn’t? But some of those issues actually matter a great deal.

THE PITS AND THE FALLS

As the marriage threshold of thirty, established as a wedding deadline for many women, recedes into the distance, a young lady’s perspectives may begin to shift. Being in tune with Holy Spirit and open to His will, she’s probably accepted what appears to be the reality of her options. And she’s loosening the criteria that she’d have clung to in the past. Her choices now appear to be either to continue to wait for God’s “Best”, although she’s not quite sure what that is anymore, or to select her partner from men she previously would never have considered, even though they’re saved. In the next few blogs, we’ll look at some of these new guys and evaluate what may be at work here.

Until next week…Joy and Shalom!

Jo Lynne Pool