4 Reasons God Is Not Taking Away Your Desire for Marriage

Proverbs 16:26

It can be extremely painful when you want to be married but no matter what you try, you remain single. Eventually it’s natural to just ask God to take away your desire for marriage so you no longer need to feel the ache of this unmet longing. So why doesn’t he?

Here are 4 possible reasons God is not taking away your desire for marriage.

1. God Will Not Take Away Your Desire for Marriage Because He Uses It to Motivate You to Pursue Marriage

One of the main reasons God does not take away our desires for those things which we want but do not have is because through the unmet desire itself God leads us down the path to the fulfillment of that desire. For example, when you feel hungry it motivates you to eat. Our daily needs actually help us stay motivated to perform the daily tasks we need to do to have those needs met. For in Proverbs 16:26 it says, “A worker’s appetite works for him; his mouth urges him on.”

The same is true when it comes to marriage. If God took away your desire for marriage during your season of singleness, you would always remain single because you would then lose your motivation to take the hard but necessary steps needed to actually get married one day. It’s not easy to socialize, to get to know someone, to go through all those awkward and confusing seasons during dating before you actually get married. If you lost your desire to be married you would never put yourself through all that.

So God will not take away your desire for marriage if he has called you to be married because God uses that desire to motivate you to take the necessary steps that will lead to you actually meeting, dating, and marrying the one he has for you.

2. God Will Not Take Away Your Desire for Marriage Because the Lord Gives Us Strength to Control Our Desires More Often Than Just Taking Those Desires Away

As we just discussed in point 1, God often gives us certain desires to accomplish a specific purpose in our lives. So rather than just take away our desires when they tempt us into sin or they become difficult to manage properly, God will instead mature us through the Spirit so we can honor him with rightly using those desires as he intended. As Romans 12:1-3 states:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.”

It’s easy to be led astray by good desires. It’s good to want to be married but this desire can also be used by Satan to tempt you into worldly living. Therefore, you must be careful “not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Relationship desires are powerful and can be very confusing, thus you will need to continue to mature in the Spirit so you can rightly discern what God’s will is for you.

3. God Will Often Not Take Away Your Desire for Marriage Because a Desire for Marriage Is a Good Thing

It’s reasonable to ask God to take away any sinful desires you have. He may just take those desires away from you or he may allow those desire to remain but empower you to resist those desires. But it is a very different thing to ask God to take away a good desire that is not sinful. Asking God to take away your desire for marriage because you are in a season of being single is like asking God to take away your desire for a good church family because you are in a season where you are looking for a good church to be a part of.

God won’t just take away an unmet desire if that desire is God given and good. As Proverbs 18:22 states, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.” Your desire for marriage is good. Humans didn’t create marriage. God made marriage. Humans didn’t create the longing in the heart to be with a man or woman in a covenant marriage bond. God made the covenant marriage bond and put that desire into the hearts of men and women.

Certainly pray about this desire. Ask God to fulfill this desire. Ask him to help you glorify him even if that desire never goes away as you remain single. But don’t feel bad for wanting to be married. God made this desire and it is good when used for his glory.

4. God Will Not Take Away Your Desire for Marriage When He Is Using This Season of Waiting to Maximize Your Enjoyment of Your Future Marriage

Like most people, I’ve eaten a lot of fruit in my life. So if you asked me if I remember each specific piece of fruit I’ve eaten in my life, I’d tell you I couldn’t do that. But there is one plum I specifically remember eating as a teenager. It was the best tasting piece of fruit I have ever eaten. But there is a backstory for why this plum was so delicious.

My dad is a cyclist and when I was younger he used to take me out on rides with him. We had just completed an 80-mile bike ride on a hot summer day. Half way through the ride my gears broke so I had to peddle home without the full range of gears, which made this grueling ride even harder. I could not wait to get home. Normally long-distance cycling was just a little bit tortuous but mostly fun; but this was no fun and just torturous.

Needless to say I was incredibly hungry and tired when we finally got home. And that plum was the first thing I ate. Because of the long wait and striving I had just went through to finally get home, the flavors of that plum popped like I’ve never tasted anything before. It wasn’t just that the plum was ripe and ready to eat. It tasted so good because of the hard ride I had just completed and because of the physical exhaustion I was currently in.

Likewise, when we wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait for something that we desire, when we finally get it, the waiting we went through actually makes the enjoyment of that desire even better. As Proverbs 13:12 states, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.”

So one reason God might not be taking away your desire for marriage is because the waiting and the suffering you are going through now will actually make your future marriage that much sweeter and appreciated.