87 Things You Should Do Before You Get Married In Order To Actually Get Married.

I follow a lot of blogs on Bloglovin.  Speaking of, you should probably follow mine!

Shameless plug.

Anyway, about once a week I’ll get a blog that’s something to the effect of: “Five Things to Learn About Yourself Before You Get Married.” Or, “Twenty Things That God Wants to Teach You Before You Meet Your Spouse.” Or “Three Things You Need To Start A Healthy Relationship.” Or “Thirty-Seven Voodoo Rituals That Will Get You Married in 2015.”

Just kidding about the last one...

I follow a lot of Christian Blogs and not all of them are even for single people.  So that leads me to believe we might be a little overly obsessed with the whole “marriage” topic.

Now don’t get me wrong, I write about my singleness as christian quit often, so clearly I am tapping into the very intense (yet unprofitable) “I wish I was married and I don’t understand why I’m not” market.  But somewhere along the lines getting married has become the destination as opposed to a chapter in our life stories.  I think that’s what worries me about these blogs.  When marriage is treated as the end all be all of our sanctification process, what happens after the marriage? Heather Lindsey says all the time “when you make an idol out of marriage then your husband becomes your God, and a husband makes a terrible God.”

I’m pretty sure no matter how holy I am (or think I am) before I get married, I’ll step into that relationship and suddenly figure out there was a whole slue of crap that I have to deal with about myself.  And then, adding fuel to the fire, I now have to figure out those icky things about me in the context of a relationship. Which makes things twice as messy.

My problem is that I read those articles, and then think, “If I was just a little more holy, God would bring me my husband.”

Then, the next thing you know I’m waking up at 4:00 am so that I can translate the whole book of Leviticus from it’s original Hebrew into Greek and then into English and then into Quechua so I can spread the gospel to the unreached people of Ecuador, all before going to my job.

But then I just end up crabby, which is the opposite of holy, because while I am a morning person, 4 am is pushing it, pretty much no one likes reading the book of Leviticus and I don’t know Greek, Hebrew or Quechua.

And I got God all wrong.

See I’ve been guilty of negotiating with God, “if I do A, B and C, God will give me X, Y and Z.”

That sounds so dumb as a write it out.  Because I know it doesn’t work like that.

Then why do I still do it?

Because, I like control.

I like to know what’s going on, and I like to have a plan.  That’s probably why I still get sucked into reading those “Five Things To Do Before You Meet Your Spouse,” articles.  I want to believe that if I do those 5 things, at the right time, generally at midnight the night of a full moon, my future spouse will pop out of the ground.

It never works like that.

Mostly, because people don’t pop out of the ground.

But, actually it’s because God and I are in a continual wrestling match for who gets to be in control over my life.

And guess what?

God always wins.

I mean he cheats a little because he’s God and he’s all “omnipotent” and crap …

But I’ll get over it.

And, he’s also God.  Yes, I did repeat myself, but the fact that he’s God means that he is inherently good, he loves me, he knows me, he cares for me, he likes me and he wants the best for me.

Sounds like a great guy to give up control too.

During my quiet time this week I read a scripture in Luke that stuck out to me;

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God.  Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered.  Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.

If God doesn’t forget about sparrows, he’s not going to forget about me.  If he’s taking the time to count all the hairs on my head, which I don’t even have time for, then I’m pretty sure he’s going to know what’s best for my life.

And today, that doesn’t include a spouse.

It probably won’t include one tomorrow either.

Beyond that, I don’t know, but God does.

But today,  I’m going to work on giving control to him.

Check out Diary Of a Single Girl: Great Expectations

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