Check out the video on this topic:

At the church events I’ve been to post college, there is at least a 2 or 3 to 1 ratio, females to males. So, from my experience, there haven’t been all that many men around, let alone the kind that would visibly reflect that Jesus is their Lord, Savior, and King in their day to day lives. That is a must for me because I’d be bound to this person for life. I don’t come across lots of single guys at church who have a really strong commitment to the Lord that endures hardships.

Now, God is sovereign over all these things, who I meet and who I don’t and the fact that I’m 29 and single.

Still, sometimes when I look around at other wonderful solid women I know who are single into their late thirties and early forties, something wells up within that says, ‘this isn’t how it was intended to be.’ Maybe I’m wrong. I don’t know. Obviously, there is some emotion behind my thoughts, so it’s tougher to discern if I’m on track. But I think for some of us, singleness happens because of the result of sin in the world. Too many folks who are ‘growing’ up self-focused and put off maturity for several years, too easy of access to sex without commitment, a negative feeling about marriage due to so much divorce in our parents’ generation, other women who are willing to compromise Christianity to be in relationships, other priorities that folks have when they are done with college, etc.

So, just recently, I switched from a small community church to a large church with more single people. Guess what? When I’ve talked to them, the majority of the ones I’ve spoken to actually attend other small community churches for Sunday worship, but go to this church specifically for the weekly young adult fellowship with other singles because their churches didn’t have many singles, either.

Given what the Bible says about singleness there is absolutely no reason to think that God is upset with you or withholding from you because you are single. Paul says he wishes everyone could be like him, because they would be more able to engage in ministry. If we are here on earth to glorify and treasure God supremely, someone who is single is absolutely free to do that. Marriage doesn’t necessarily make you more able to worship God. So singleness is a blessing that I try to encourage people to make the most of because it does seem that most people will end up married, but I often encourage singels–don’t waste your singleness angry cause you are single.

Your second comment there is good advice I think.

I talk to people all the time who are unsure if they are where God wants them to be and I think a lot of that stems from this unbiblical understanding of the will of God. I tell people all the time that I can tell them exactly what God’s will for them is–it is for you to love Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And you can do that in just about any profession and with just about any believer of the opposite sex as your spouse.

The rest comes down to wisdom. You can’t mess this up either, whoever you marry IS THE ONE and you are free to grow in oneness with them and free to grow in compatability and attraction to them.

I find it very very sad when people break off marriages because they “fall out of love” or somehow discover that the person they married was “not the one.” I feel like those folks need to hear some difficult but very important truths about what it means to become “one flesh” and “what God has joined together let not man separate,” “submit one to another,” and “husbands love your wives like Christ loved the church.”

Christ doesn’t fall out of love with his bride and He will never determine that she is not the one.

I’ve seen people lean to far in either direction. My aunt is in her 50′s and still expects a man to magically fall into her lap but she doesn’t go anywhere outside of her circle, won’t shorten the list of “must-haves” for her potential mate, and won’t consider things like online dating. I also have friends who sleep with attach themselves to unhealthy guys who are completely inappropriate, but they consider it to have been “God’s will” now because they made it to the stage of marriage.

As a sidenote, I also do not appreciate people telling me that if I ‘get right with God’ or ‘prepare myself for my husband’ that he (the one) will come. The assumption being that “I’m married because I did something more right than you did” which is not necessarily the case.

So then, possibility is not the problem. The problem is figuring out what you want, to what degree do you want that, and to what degree you are willing to compromise what you want for what you can reasonably expect. Well, that’s the first problem. The second problem is motivating yourself toward what you want (i.e., wanting what you want enough to overcome the comfort of passivity, which is a whole other kind of want).

@Drew – Another aspect of the Myth of the One is wrapped up—and wrapped up powerfully—in the concept of God’s personal will for our lives. If one presumes both that in every decision God has a Best Choice for the individual and that God’s will in these matters is discernable, it is perfectly reasonable to deduce that The One is a very real and biblically sound notion. Following through, it becomes incumbent upon the believer to seek that will especially in matters of such great import as Choosing a Spouse—it becomes vastly important for the believer to discover if the person in view is the one God wants one to marry.

Of course, the idea of God’s will in such matters is extrapolated errantly from a theological system. I wrote about the difficulties of this version of Finding God’s Will for My Life seven years ago, but I think the topic’s still apropos: http://www.nowheresville.us/arch/bestof/vex17.php

And here is a link to Challies’ article on the site: http://www.challies.com/archives/sponsored/marry-well-a-better-path-to-marriage.php

Great question and one that I am actually trying to help a couple of friends think through. If you have the desire to get married, I don’t see any reason why it would be wrong to pursue avenues where you could meet godly men that are potential mates.

I don’t buy this whole, “when you stop looking, God will give you a spouse.” I have heard that story a lot but in reality, the people who tell that story never really stopped looking and why should they? Did God not say that “it is not good for man to be alone”? Singleness is not a curse but a blessing no doubt (ala 1 Cor. 7 and Matt. 19) but marriage certainly is a blessing too and generally speaking it seems that the Bible assumes most people will get married.

So I don’t know exactly what to say, it could be that God is calling you or any other person in a similar place to singleness and you need to embrace it, I don’t know cause I don’t have the ability to see into your heart and know God’s exact plan for you, however, I would say as well if there is a strong desire in you to marry, the Bible gives us no indication that such a strong desire is wicked or untrusting of God. Of course if that desire consumes you to the point where you can have no joy in Christ, then it has become idolatrous, but I think you can have a strong desire there and not be in sin.

So to answer your question, I would say that unless you live in a really small town, there probably are some godly Christian singles where most people live, you just may have to get a little creative about meeting them. A lot of people scoff about this but I think parents, mentors, pastors can be great match makers and there is nothing wrong with “being set up.” I know a lot of folks who have met their spouse that way.

I would also say that I think for some Christians online dating can be a viable option. I think you have to be careful (you have to be careful in any type of dating/courtship) and invite accountability, but it could be a way to meet someone. There is a new site called Marry Well that sounds intriguing–it is a dating/courtship site dedicated to connecting marriage-minded Christian singles. I think you even have to get some recommendation letters from folks at church or pastors or something. Tim Challies wrote about it not too long ago. There are probably other sites that do this well.

Anyway, I hesitate to say much more because again I don’t know where you are at spiritually etc., but the stop looking and accept singleness may or may not be for you. It could be that you haven’t found anyone because you haven’t looked hard enough (again I don’t know, just throwing out the possibility).

That is the best advice I can give right now–I will probably think about it later and have much more helpful counsel, but thanks for the question!

I completely agree, when we live in marriage the way God designed it, when we cherish it as a permanent union as long as we both live, we find joy in that.

Obviously, the latest Romantic Comedy can put unrealistic expectations on your own romantic vision, but people are looking for answers. And “the one” gives an answer, flawed though it may be: “Find the right one and it will work out. If it’s not working for you, then you probably chose the wrong one. It’s certainly not your fault!”

Christians can just fall into the Christian version of “the one”–looking for the “God-sent” person–rather than following biblical boundaries and relationship roles.

DISCLAIMER: I, too, believe in the Sovereign nature of God over every situation. And now I am going in search of THE Chick-Fil-A sandwich that God wanted me to have for lunch. Ok, that might be a bad comparison.