As believers in Christ, we should never take lightly obedience to God and his Word. It’s so important. We live within a culture that has invaded the church with ideas of unbelief and cynicism. These things make it difficult for one to remain obedient, especially in the dating world.
Because of the increased norm of unmarried millennials, prolonged waiting, and lack of support for many singles many have lost their faith in doing this single thing God’s way. They’ve adopted a lifestyle of disobedience.
Disobedience can be painful in the dating world as doing things outside of God’s way can easily result in painful cycles. Those cycles can produce even more hardships that one would have been able to avoid by doing things God’s way such as unnecessary heartbreak, single-parenthood, STDs, and more.
It’s better to remain obedient even when difficult. Obeying God continuously without yet seeing the desired result is difficult. This is true especially when others who aren’t being obedient seem to have what we desire—genuine love. Even though those who choose not to obey may seem to have genuine love—this isn’t always the case.
Many couples are facing hardships they aren’t sharing such as abuse by a partner, consistent infidelity, feeling as though the relationship is one-sided although married, and more. Believe me. It’s better to obey God and wait on what’s appropriate than to get into a marriage right away that is destined to fail.
I was encouraged by a couple of examples in scripture of obedience during a hard long wait. The result of the wait in both examples led to God’s promise and increased blessing. The long hard wait was the correction and preparation of the heart to handle the promise.
The first example is Abraham in Genesis 22. Abraham exampled peculiar obedience. Meaning, he was able to trust God in a unique way that others may not have been able to. God had promised Abraham a son. He gave him that son—Isaac. However, God asked Abraham in Genesis 22 to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice to the Lord. Abraham went right along with God’s request standing in strong belief.
Remember, it takes strong belief or faith to continue to obey God through a long, hard, and difficult wait. When the child—Isaac asked, why don’t we have a lamb to sacrifice—Abraham responded by saying, “God will provide.” It was so. God warned him not to harm the child and provided a lamb to sacrifice. Of course, this signified Christ—the lamb of God that was to be slain for our sins.
It also was a test for Abraham to humble him and to show him what was in his heart. It showed Abraham that he was indeed ready to steward the child the Lord had promised him. He not only got the blessing, but he got the blessing with God’s backing. This is how we want to be blessed as single believers.
We want the relationship that our heavenly father is willing to bless. The second example of obedience was found in Deuteronomy 8. Deuteronomy is all about possessing the land or possessing God’s promises. For singles, this could be walking into the new normal of a healthy relationship that leads to marriage. There is a path to getting there. That path is obedience. Deuteronomy starts out stressing the importance of obedience and how it will result in said promised land. However, first, there must be a test.
During the test period, God places us in a position where we experience hunger that only he can fulfill. He exampled this in scripture by providing manna from heaven vs. 3. This is special revelation that comes from God and strengthens us to go on continuing in obedience. The revelation from God addresses whatever it is that we are needing at the time. Manna in vs. 3 means what is it? This means God can address whatever we need and we can trust him.
Finally, vs. 16 of Deuteronomy 8 reinforces God’s purpose in allowing the difficult process of the wait. It is to humble us and prove us to do good toward us in the end. When we are in a difficult part of our journey in waiting on the Lord for a spouse; we can be confident that God is only proving to us whether we are ready or not. Our obedience through the process is a heavy indicator that like Abraham we are ready. We are ready for our next stage in life—marriage and a healthy God-honoring relationship. Let this article encourage you to remain obedient as you will reap if you faint not.
I don’t know if you all have noticed, but many of God’s singles who have been waiting and believing God for a long time are becoming engaged and married. When the time is right—you will too. Stay in faith! Stay in obedience.
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