Today I am going to do something a little different, sort of play a devil's advocate in reverse. The bullet points list common ways that the Adversary of Holy Matrimony dupes some women into rationalizing their singlehood. My answers are geared toward the wedding that KatieLyn ran away from. Every couple is different, so don't get touchy when I'm not talking about you!
The devil hates a godly marriage and he has a lot of phony excuses to keep women from fulfilling their roles as wives.
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No, not if God already sent you one and you ran away from him. Not if you won't talk to the man but set up this crazy dysfunctional "filter all communication through my mommy" manipulation. God does not do everything He wants. There are blessings that God wants to give his children, but it could be that God cannot trust you to care for them properly.
• God has something else for me now.
Maybe. But if so, it is not because God changed His mind; it would be because you ran off in rebellion and your heart is now too hardened to return. God had planned for the Israelites to enter the promised land the same year they left Egypt, but they got "something else." Their "something else" of forty years wandering in the desert resulted from their actions, not God's. I would not consider their "something else" to be an upgrade.
• When God wants me to have a husband, He'll send one.
Not necessarily... Again, God does not do everything He wants. You have a role too. God won't give a husband to someone who is unprepared to receive one, and if you are not seeking, you might fail to recognize who God sent you! The promise of finding was made to the seeker, not to the sit-by-and-waiter. God responds to faith; the faith is our part of the equation. God will fill in the grace side of the equation when we are doing our faith part. 2 Peter 1:10 says, "Therefore, brothers, make every effort to confirm your calling and election, because if you do these things you will never stumble." If you haven't made the effort, or if you give up half-way through, don't expect a reward. God rewards those who earnestly seek Him in faith. cf Hebrews 11:6
• The only opinion that truly matters is God's.
That sounds all nice and pious. But you have to trust His "opinion" when you hear it. The Pharisees invalidated God's "opinion." cf Mark 7:13 Remember, you started doubting God's "opinion." God's "opinion" is this: 'I did not give you the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love.' So why did you react in fear and not walk in the power of love? God's command in Mathew 24:6 is this: 'See to it that you are not troubled.' But did you obey that command? No. If God's "opinion" really mattered to KatieLyn, then she would have respected it. (And 'opinion' is a poor word choice when referring to an omniscient God.)
• If I am focused only on God, nothing else matters.
No, that is just close enough to truth to be dangerous. Where is the Bible verse that supports that? Faith matters. Obedience matters too. Try this verse: Matthew 6:33, "But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." See? That is different. First, you are supposed to seek the kingdom, i.e. God's active rule over His creation. So, when God told KatieLyn to marry Joe as part of God's hands-on reigning… just sayin' … Yeah, well, her journey into unrighteous doubting wasn't exactly "focusing only on what He'd already told her." The claim that when she focused on God, that is when doubts came is nonsensical. God does not lead by doubts. The enemy leads by doubts. When you focus on doubt, you're not focused on God.
• Everything happens according to His will.
Girl, what planet are you living on? Not Earth! Where is your Bible verse that supports that? Try this one: Romans 3:23, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Do you want to say that happens according to His will? Maybe you are confusing this "everything" circumstance with the verses about the Spirit interceding for us. "He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God, and we know that God works together all things for good to those who love God." Romans 8:27, 28. When they added the verse numbers to scripture, they split this verse in the middle. In the original Greek, it is easier to see that the "all things" that "work together" are all the things that the Spirit is interceding for. You will not find a Bible verse that says "everything happens" according to the will of God. All things in the Spirit's intercession work together according to the will of God. If you think everything happens according to His will, you don't know God's will at all. IT WAS NOT GOD'S WILL FOR JOE TO BE ABANDONED BY A FEARFUL AND FAITHLESS BRIDE, BUT IT HAPPENED. Stop telling faerie fables!
• Having a husband won't matter if I'm finding my worth in Jesus.
Maybe. But that makes it pretty tough to follow the command to “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it," Genesis 1:28 Most people who say that "it doesn't matter" do so with a false bravado. There is a good reason that the Lord God said, "It is not good for man to be alone," Genesis 3:18 and, "Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor." Ecclesiastes 4:9 The fact is, most people are not called to be single. And any honest evaluation of KatieLyn's history points to God having spent years preparing her to be a good wife. Having a husband does matter when she is casting aside her faith and running away from God's will for her to have one.
(As an aside, it would be good if KatieLyn seeks her worth in Jesus; she does need to learn a bit more fully that she is complete in Him and does not need a husband to make her whole. Self-worth is something that, ideally, a parent would have begun to teach his child before the age of puberty and for which "advanced learning" is revealed by the Spirit of God.) The point here is that BOTH CAN MATTER; the one does not exclude the other. It would be wrong to use one's worth in Jesus as an excuse to ignore His will.)
• I'm happy being single.
Of course, I will not argue that. Hebrews 11:25 readily agrees that there is a fleeting enjoyment of sin, but this issue is more than being "happy" with a sin like getting high on drugs. At stake is more than even settling for being "happy" with coffee creamer in the powdered packets when the Lord has provided fresh heavy whipping cream only one step of faith further on. Happiness is a poor unit of measure when counted against the cost of following the Lord. Do you think Jesus was "happy" sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane? When you are out of God's will, any happiness is short-lived, and it is never a substitute for joy.
• I need to shop around.
The devil is really good at dressing up this excuse to sound like wisdom. It is a devilish deception. For someone who has been standing with patience for years, and for whom the Lord has answered her prayer point by point by bringing her a husband, to then turn on God's answer and scoff, "Well, I shouldn't just accept the first guy who asked! I need to shop around a bit," is not only foolish, but is incredibly insulting to the God Who Answers Prayer! Say that at your own peril! The devil will be gleeful indeed if he can use this excuse to lure you into experimenting with a series of men who God never intended to be yours. God does not answer prayer with a couple of false starts so that you can shop around a bit!
• I am at peace with being single.
Peace is not the same as being stress-free. It is fairly easy to be a stress-free single person when you are accountable to no one but yourself. If you have true peace, then you will not be restless. There is a story about an artist who was commissioned to paint a picture of peace. His masterpiece showed a rocky cliff on a stormy night. Tempestuous winds were raging. The sea was roiling. Waves were crashing. But in the rock face, just above the sea spray, a bird sat on her nest, head tucked under her wing, at complete peace in the midst of turmoil. The bird knew its place, its purpose, and its mission. That is what it takes to have peace. You have to be in the place where you can fulfill your purpose. You do not have to, (and it is impossible to) talk yourself into a Godly peace.
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