I often cry about being single. I mean, there are good things about it, and I get to know Jesus in suffering and whatever. But it just dawned on me a few weeks ago that I actually chose not to be married. Choose it. I choose it.
I don’t like that. It’s easy to think of celibacy as something that happened to me, something that was chosen for me. I like to think that, if it were up to me, I would choose marriage and my family. However, 33 years into this life, I have not done that.
For example, when my best friend asked me to be his girlfriend, I refused. More than once. When a guy I met again after 10 years indicated that he might be interested in me as a future wife, I refused. Again. I’ve only gone on dates so I can firmly decide things before the second date, and I refuse to give out my number to people who are interested.
It’s not like this happens very often. In fact, it happened so little that I just summed up most of it in one paragraph. However, I have had to consider for several weeks if I am even eligible to write single, since I have chosen it many times.
I had to answer questions like these:
- What right do I have to share my stories around people who have never really chosen, sadly?
- How can I begin to compare myself to people like a certain friend, who seems to attract men who haven’t dated yet?
- How can I muster the courage to complain about celibacy among my friends who have gone through gut-wrenching divorces, not by choice?
- How can my stories exist in the same place as my gay Christian friends who live alone to glorify God, with no hope of ever getting married in this life?
- I refused, men! Christian men who loved Jesus and loved me. How boring does it make me?!
However, the more I consider this idea, the more I realize that, in my case, celibacy is the result of a great choice. I choose to aim higher than “good enough” in life; I choose to be “uncertain” about my plans, instead I seek God’s plans; I choose to follow Jesus, as He followed God’s plan. As it turns out, those decisions led me to reject men who were wrong for me.
This is what I mean when I say I follow Jesus: Jesus, the Son of God, became a man to show us what it is like to follow God completely. All the decisions he made he did so that his Father would be glorified. Some of those decisions to follow and trust God led Jesus to terrible things, such as homelessness, rejection, attempts on His life, physical abuse, mockery, death on a Roman cross, and – yes – celibacy.
During his time on earth, Jesus had many opportunities to cheat in order to obtain rewards that would be “good enough” or “stable.” For example,
- Satan promised to give Jesus all the kingdoms of the world according to Satan, and Jesus refused him.
- As God, Jesus ruled the whole world; yet He did not choose to raise an army, overthrow the government, and stay in the palace.
- Jesus could have reached legions of angels who could have freed him from crucifixion, but he passed it by.
Jesus decided every minute and day to follow God no matter what, so God turned His great suffering into a great reward in heaven. Because he waited and did things God’s way,
- God gave him more than the kingdoms of this world; He gave Jesus the entire universe (which Jesus created anyway, so I guess that was right).
- Jesus does not live in a palace close to the world; He lives in heaven where he is waiting for us to meet Him and live in perfect peace forever.
- Jesus not only has access to angels; He lives with them (the Bible says that angels fly around His throne in heaven, always worshiping Him).
Jesus completely, unwaveringly chose God’s way, ultimately so that His people could choose God’s way and share in His reward. Without Jesus as my role model and my savior, I would have been on my own, dating and marrying the first boy I fell in love with (he was in fifth grade, I was a teacher’s assistant; it was inevitable).
The story of Jesus and the whole Gospel affects how I make decisions and interact with the world. As it pertains to my relationship status, I don’t want to cheat my way into a “good enough” relationship; I don’t want to “settle” for less than God’s best for me.
So I choose to follow Jesus now…
- not dating unintentionally. So single is happening every day that I don’t set up online profiles, upload pictures of myself 20 lbs past, and go on dates with every man I “wink at”.
- not having sex before marriage (not just because I don’t have a boyfriend). So singleness happens every day that I don’t download the Tinder app or wear skanky clothes to clubs to find a man to hurt me.
- respect my roommate and give me there. So the life of a roommate instead of a husband happens every day that he and I spend time together, encouraging each other, and reminding each other why we choose Jesus in our celibacy.
So I may choose to be celibate, but ultimately it is because I choose God’s way of doing things. For some people, choosing God’s way leads to marriage; for some, it leads to children; for others, both or neither. But His way is always good and right, even (especially) when it comes the right way.
I know it will be worth it because it was worth it to Jesus. Because I follow Him, I get to know Him in ways that I cannot know in marriage; I get to serve people in a way that I cannot reach them as a mother; I get to know people in ways I wouldn’t have had the time to if I was single. Not only that, but I find heaven, just like Jesus did; in heaven, all the struggles of following Jesus on earth and celibacy will be less.
God’s way, through Jesus, brings hope to people who are not a leaf, acceptance to people who are abandoned, family to people who are abandoned, and a future for all people who love Jesus. The story of Jesus (the story of the Gospel) makes us equal with Jesus himself in the family of God, and the Gospel is the reason why my story meets other very different ones.
So I am single, not because I ever refused to marry, but because I trust that God’s plan is better than “good enough.”
