Video Transcript: The Single Life as God Intended

It's awesome to be here. I'm happy to be here, taking up the baton, fighting for singles. 

When we talk about single in the church, it's not really something that's celebrated. You get those comments like, Lena, why aren't you married? You're so lovely. You know, you're probably just too independent and strong, too picky.

You don't feel celebrated. Why is that? 

You know, I don't know why that is, but I think it's shocking to me, because 52% of at least North American Christians are single. Now, maybe in Toronto, statistics are different, but I think you're fairly close to my city, Chicago, and so it's not uncommon to walk into church and have literally half the church be single. And Valentine's Day is such a sore point for so many singles, because it just reminds you of what you don't have, and that you're still in the waiting. If you know me for 10 seconds. I hate waiting, and so it is a constant challenge. Why does God make us do something we don't like to do? 

And you're already struggling, and then you've got people kind of judging you and sometimes even excluding people from ministry. I mean, that happened to me when I was younger, totally excluded because I didn't have a husband. 

Well, you don't know where you fit in. And I think very little is truly focused on singles, and the church recognizes that. I think, for what it's worth, I have a lot of pastors who email me and ask, like, how can we minister to singles? It's almost like a language. They don't know how to speak yet. And most pastors, of course, are married, which is a healthy thing. God wants us to be married. But the fact is, now you've got singles being led, like singles groups being led by 22 year old pastors  who've been married for three years.

The only purpose of it is basically to get you married.

And sometimes it works, and that's great. But the unfortunate truth is that it's a lot more complicated than that. In 2006 17 now, yeah,

So we look to the Bible, and one of the most prolific writers, founders of the church, Paul says that it's better to be single than to be married, and that's kind of happier, in a sense. Now, right? Okay, so I'm sure some people are falling off their chairs. Oh yeah. Does the Bible actually say that?

He actually does in 1 Corinthians 7, the last verse, that he puts in parentheses, and he really says it as this is my opinion. But Paul really had, I love the Apostle Paul. I always said I would date him if I was living back then, even though I had this point so we would be a perfect match. But, you know, it's funny. I do think that there's wisdom in what he said, and I think he really meant it from a kingdom gospel perspective. And I think that's what many singles forget, is that, yes, we're single, and yes, God might have created us for marriage, but for whatever reason, I think of it this way, even in a world that is half single, how can the church not? I mean, if we were all married, who would minister to the singles outside of the church? And I find that I have opportunities to share the gospel to people that would never hear it from someone who is very traditional and married with kids, and so there's so much potential. And I think that's what Paul meant. There's freedom, there's potential, there's, you know, my whole book, actually, is on that chapter, really, and unpacked some of the riches of being single.

And I think what happens is, when you grow up, since a little girl, especially women, you know, told like your prince is going to come, it's going to be you're going to have this fairy tale wedding, Disney, the whole thing, right? You end up waiting for your life to begin until that man comes. Oh, I want to go to Italy, but I want to have that for my honeymoon, right? Oh, I want to do this, but I'm going to wait till I'm married, right? And then all of a sudden, the years are going by, and you start realizing, like, for me anyway, like, this is my life. My life's happening right now. I need to go live it.

Absolutely. There's no doubt that there's a point where you;ve just got to make the most of every day and stop waiting. And I think really, that's the whole point of being single is that you can do so much for Lord, you don't have to wait for that person to come. But I think a lot of singles just need to hear that more and more, and to be encouraged. And if you're in a place where there's not a place for you to minister as a single, find a place. There's so many people that are just crying out for someone to come and help, support them and come alongside them. And it's hard. I mean, I myself, you know, my story, of course, isn't I thought I'd get married twice. I was engaged the first time, I ended the engagement two weeks before the wedding. And so, you know, I understand what it feels like to be heartbroken. I understand what it feels like to sink in self pity, to struggle with unforgiveness and bitterness towards someone who you thought should have treated you differently. But I think what the Lord did in those moments was really helped me to understand his love for me. And I don't know why, sometimes we hear God the best when we're hurting, but I found that to be true in my life.

It's so true. And you know, in your book, thrive the single life as God intended, which, by the way, is a great read and so positive you talk about, one of the things you have to get over as a single is that bitterness, because sometimes it just doesn't seem fair that other people are getting what you want. Especially as a follower of Jesus, God, why are you giving this person the gift of marriage and not me? What's wrong with me?

It's so subtle, too, because you don't think you're bitter. You just think it's like, you know, you're just you. I think now we're living, again, in an age where everyone's life is up close and personal, and you know how Satan works? I mean, I go on Facebook and I'm not getting, you know, 10 people listed in my updates that are like, worse than me. I always get, like, the 10 that I went to high school with whose lives are flourishing, and it's uncanny, the three people that get on my last nerve, whose lives are perfect. That's who shows up in my feed. I don't understand how it works, but it's the truth. And so there's a constant kind of that root of bitterness and until you pluck it out completely, I think you're not going to find that joy. And that's all biblical. I mean, it's not stuff that we're making up. That's what Paul says. Or whoever wrote Hebrews, I tend to think it's Paul, but he says, Don't let a root of bitterness spring up troubling you because it kills you and I think that's one of the things that I think we have to confront. There's a lot of 'me' stuff. My biggest thing is, I think self pity. I always talk about the three enemies of singleness. Is me, myself and I, and if you can't get your mind around the fact that the whole struggle with the Lord, when it comes to our singleness, is my rights, what I thought should be; my dreams, versus what God has; the situation that God has allowed, for better or for worse, he's allowed us to be single in this time. So now, the question is, why Lord, what do you want me to get out of this season, whether we were treated fairly or not? What is it that the Lord is trying to accomplish? And how can he use us in our place of singleness? 

And it's walking that line. Because, you know, marriage is a good thing, and we need to support it more than ever in this culture where it's under assault, but at the same time, there's benefits to being single. And I think I've always thought that there's benefits and drawbacks to both states of being married. Friends tell me, you know, they wish they had the freedom to do what I do. It's ironic that people wait for their life to begin, and yet when you get married, you have less opportunity to do all the things you could have done when you were single, especially for the Lord and global missions. 

And no doubt about it, the work that I'm doing right now in ministry has just been amazing. I don't think I could do a 10th of it. Just most recently, in the last two years, I've been doing work with Syrian refugees in Lebanon, that's my home country where I was born. And so imagine also I'm single, I'm Lebanese, like every Lebanese gets married. And so there's so many layers to being single that you don't even think about. It just kind of takes you by surprise. Now I'm going back to my home country, serving the Syrians, and people are like, wow, you're still single. They're still trying to marry me off. And you're like, No, really, I wouldn't be able to come here and do this work if it wasn't for the freedom that I have in my singleness. And so, there's so much opportunity. I think the big thing is contentment. I talk a lot about it. In fact, my favorite quote in the book, I think the best thing I've ever written, is that sentence related to contentment. It is, and I think this is a struggle for us as singles, I think a lot of times we say, Okay, I'm content, but we look at it as like sort of a resignation. So I'd say contentment is not the resignation of the hopeless. It is the bold affirmation that My Father Knows Best. And I think the minute you understand that it's not a punishment, you're not playing Be God. It isn't like waiting to make your good life happen. But right here, right now, is God's goodness, because He loves you, somehow he's going to work the situation out for your good and for His glory and for His kingdom, and you're going to find fullness in that. And that's awesome.

I think what you said, you know, you use the analogy in your book, that it's like being picked for a sports team last. You know, how you're kind of waiting: everyone's getting picked, and you're like, please don't let me be last. But you are right. And I think sometimes people take on a cloak of shame, like I am unwanted, I am not picked. How do you overcome that? Because that's not the story God's writing for us. 

No, it's a lie. I honestly, I think it's a lie from the devil. And I think, we all watched those movies of the person who gets picked last, and then they show up and they're  the star. We just watched a Super Bowl in the US. Yeah, I think. But this is a common story, and you'll hear these singles that are doing these awesome things. Every time I go to the global mission field, I see the people who are doing the most, and they're typically singles who said, You know what, my life is not my own. How can I serve? How can I do something that counts? And they're living, you'll never hear their names, they'll never show up on any TV show. But man, they are living, thriving abundantly, the life that God has for them. Ask any of them, and I guarantee you, none of them will be like: man, this life stinks. We're so no, but it's because they've accepted where God has them. 

You know, I used to do my singles, my Valentine's Day single rant, which was all what you said about Paul and being singles better. But also, one of the things that I said is that there is a place of intimacy with God that you can find as a single that I don't believe that you find as a married person, because God has to be your husband. And if you make the choice to press into God, there is something beautiful that happens that you have when your needs are being met by someone else.

Yeah, loneliness.

We have30 seconds left. Your book is. Thrive. What is your best advice to people watching today that are single, how they can thrive? 

Speaker 1  

So I talk a lot about loneliness in the book too, because I think that's a true feeling, like at the end of the day, Friday night comes Saturday night comes. The older you get in your singleness, your friends are no longer college friends, they're married, they're having families. You really do get lonely. It's a reality. I found that loneliness is really God's cry to singles to be like, come to me in that loneliness, and so even that has been absolutely what you said is, is our drawing to God and knowing him in a way. Most of my friends who have gotten married have said, what we miss the most about our singleness is that undiluted time with the Lord, where nobody disturbed us, it was quiet and we knew we had his attention. He had ours. 

Know that God loves you so deeply, and we have so many resources for you to help you to know that right now we have with Valentine's coming up, I really want to take that opportunity to help people. So we've put together a big campaign called valen thrive, a play on words. But really, we want you to thrive, but more importantly, God wants you to thrive, and you are not forgotten. God loves you and is for you. You know,

Lena, your voice is so important. About this, we need people speaking up. Thank you so much for coming and just being such an encouragement. 

Oh, it's awesome to be here. Thank you.

And if you know, I've done a lot of interviews, and the one thing I've learned is that the one thing that changes whatever you're going through in life, wherever you're at, is how you look at it. It's that shift in perspective. Lena is here today to shift your perspective. I hope we did that for you, that you can look at whatever is going on in your life differently. And hey, if you need someone to pray with you, to talk with you, to kind of help you make that shift, to maybe overcome that self pity or that loneliness, we'd love to do that. Give us a call. The number is on your screen. 1-866-273-4444, we'd love to pray with you. You.