1 John 4:16-18
Here are 5 things the Lord may be telling you to do if you are someone who wants to be married one day but you are also dealing with the fear that it will never happen for you.
1. If You Fear You Will Never Get Married, Decide in Your Heart that You Will Still Passionately Follow the Lord No Matter What
Marriage is really important. God loves marriage and he has called most Christians to get married. But marriage is not the main focus for God. Rather, God’s own glory is God’s main focus.
Ultimately, God did not make us just to get married, to have children, and to live happy lives. God does want us to do these things, but he calls us to marriage, to have children, and to live happy lives so that we bring glory to him. Marriage is a path, not an end destination. Marriage is meant to bring God glory. Marriage is not meant to be the main focus of our lives.
Therefore, no matter what does or does not happen in your life, you have to decide to always glorify God. When you are determined to live for God’s glory in whatever situation God has placed you in, whether single or married, you will lose your fear and you will be fanning the flame of faith God has given to you through the Spirit.
Don’t let anything ever stop you from glorying the Lord. As 2 Timothy 1:14 (NIV) states, “Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.”
2. Spend Time Unpacking What Deeper Fears Are Fueling This Worry About Never Getting Married
What does “getting married” represent to you? Is it the solution to your loneliness? Is it the answer to your lust? Is getting married a way of disproving the lies your mom or dad said about you when you were young? Is having a husband or wife the thing that you believe will make you feel valuable? What other desires have you attached to this desire to get married?
One of the reasons you fear not getting married is because marriage has come to mean something extra to you. The idea of getting married has attached itself to your identity. We only fear those things which have some power over us. What power have you given to the idea of “getting married”? Once you take back that power and give it to God, then you will lose your fear of not getting married.
If you believe marriage is the only way to solve your loneliness, you have to take back this belief and choose to believe that God is actually the only one who can cure your loneliness with his presence. Have you come to believe that having a husband or wife is the only way you will feel loved, valuable, and accepted? If so, take back this belief and choose to believe that God is actually the only one who can make you feel loved, valuable, and accepted.
Spend time unpacking what marriage has come to mean to you and then spend time remembering the truth that only God is the one who can truly give you everything your heart desires. As Psalm 16:1-2 states, “Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.”
3. Accept the Possibility that You May Indeed Never Get Married So You Don’t Fear the Unknown of What that Possible Future Looks Like
We fear what we don’t know. Therefore, when you just can’t imagine a future that involves you not getting married, you will fear that future. But if you can imagine a future where you never got married but which you also continued to thrive in the Lord and lived a meaningful life, then the fear will lessen some.
I’m not advocating that you try to be happy about a future where you never get married if you are someone who really wants to get married. It’s not healthy to deny how God made your heart and to deny the way you actually feel. A healthy person who wants to get married but never does should be sad and disappointed. But then they should also choose to keep walking forward and to keep living a meaningful life for God’s glory even though it looks different than the life they thought they would get to live in marriage.
When you can accept the possibility of singleness, it allows you to imagine yourself still thriving even without marriage. When you know you will keep living a meaningful life even if you never get married, you will no longer have that fear that comes along with things you don’t know about. Again, we fear what you don’t understand. We fear the unknown.
God doesn’t command us to always be happy about everything that happens, so it’s okay to be sad about never get married. But he does command us not to fear. As 2 Timothy 1:7 states, “. . . for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”
4. Use Your Fear About Never Getting Married to Fuel You to Do the Things You Have Been Too Afraid to Do in Order to Pursue a Relationship
While Christians should never fear anything in this world, we also need to recognize our feelings rather than trying to deny them because we think they are wrong. For example, if you feel anxious about a test you haven’t studied for, that anxiety is not a sin because it’s actually right for you to feel anxious because you haven’t prepared for the upcoming test. If you cheated your employer out of some money and now you are paranoid that you are about to get exposed, your paranoia is appropriate because you are hiding a secret that is making worried about getting caught. If you feel guilty because you are having premarital sex, your guilt is healthy because you know you are breaking God’s commands.
Anxiety, paranoia, and guilt are appropriate responses when you are doing something that deserve these types of feelings. So the way you would deal with these feelings is not by denying them. Rather, you should study for the test so you aren’t anxious about it, you should tell the truth to your employer so you don’t need to worry about getting caught, and you should confess your sins to God and stop having premarital sex so you can feel at peace with Jesus.
God wants us to feel negative feelings if we are doing negative things because these bad feelings motivate us to change. I say all that because it’s also possible you should fear never getting married if you are doing something that would prevent you from getting married that God is telling you not to do. Perhaps you know you are being so passive that it’s impossible for you to meet anyone. If you feel God has called you to marriage but you also know you are choosing to live an isolated life and thus you are wasting time that you could be used socializing and meeting people that could result in a relationship, you probably will have a fear of never getting married.
Don’t fear never getting married if you are doing what you can to pursue marriage. But if you are neglecting something God is telling you to do so he can bless you with a marriage, use your fear of never getting married to motivate you to do this thing you have been putting off for too long. As James 4:8-10 commands:
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.”
Live in truth. If you are doing something you know is not right or you are not doing something you know is right, repent. Then you will have nothing to fear. When we humble ourselves before God, then he will exalt us.
5. If You Fear Never Getting Married, Pray
Whenever we have fears, it’s a call to prayer. Fear cannot exist in the presence of God, “God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him . . . There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear,” (1 John 4:16-18).
Bring your fears to God in prayer. Spend time in his presence. Through prayer, God will take away your fears by telling you what to do to pursue marriage, what not to do as you pursue marriage, and he will comfort you with his loving presence.
