Teaching Me to Thrive, In Him Alone!

I’m 30, single and no, I am not contagious. I was overwhelmingly excited to join FBC of Jacksonville this past Sunday and I tried out my first Sunday School---which was well taught and attended. However, I am tired of feeling that I am completely incomplete without a husband. When I joined the lady helping me fill out my information asked if I had a steady boyfriend and was surprised when I said no. It is something I am used to, I guess, but also overwhelmingly frustrating.

This summer seems to have magnified my loneliness and strong seeded desire to be a Mama. I am a full time nanny and have thoroughly enjoyed playing mom from 8-5. It’s been rewarding, fun and devastating. It’s difficult to have such a strong desire to be married, share my life with someone and to have children. I want to feel the sweet stirrings of a child. I can’t wait to get up in the middle of the night and sing songs and talk about Jesus to a crying baby. My greatest hope is that I can have children, raise them in a Godly home and serve the Lord with a husband who is out there somewhere.

My dear heart, you are “deceitful and desperately wicked” and none but God can fully understand you. At the very same time, you have also been made new since the day Christ became your Lord. And so today you will be conflicted between your new nature of freedom and your old nature of bondage (to ugly impulses of worry, anxiety, envy, discontentment, anger, self-pity, brooding, condemnation, pride, selfishness, manipulation, boasting, impatience, fear, greed, dread, and worst of all—worshiping yourself above God). You will be tempted to look at every situation with temporal and not eternal eyes. You will place more value on the stuff of this world than on the stuff that will last for eternity. But you will also desperately want to do what is good and right, invest in kingdom work, make the most of the time, serve others, love selflessly, surrender to God’s will, and seek Christ above all. This conflict will rage all day long.

But your God fights for you. And Jesus stands at His right hand interceding for you. And the Spirit lives in you to empower you to do God’s will. Hallelujah! So while you fight, you may also rest. This is a mystery, but it is beautiful. Put on your whole armor, dear heart—and yet lie beside quiet streams of water.

Oh my heart, one of your besetting sins is to see your God as too small, incapable, powerless, benign, unable to meet your needs. It’s hard to hear, but it’s true, isn’t it? Your God is too small. So I strongly command you to enlarge your view of God and all that you believe about Him. Today when you are tempted to fix your eyes on your circumstances, problems, needs, and the people around you—quickly look away to your Creator, your Redeemer, your Savior, your Author and Perfecter, your Shepherd, your Prince of Peace. At this moment He is seated on a throne that blazes with fire, encircled by a mesmerizing rainbow and creatures that are beyond description, who forever cry out “Holy, holy, holy!” Yes, your God is holy, set apart, unlike any other. Why then do you compare Him to man? Why do you trust in man who is like the grass of the fields that withers away and is quickly forgotten? Trust in God! Trust in God!! Man will often fail you—your brothers and sisters in Christ, sweetest friends, family, husband, children—just as you so often fail them; so let them off the hook and place all your hope and faith in Christ! Stop having make-believe conversations with that person who has angered you—forgive them as Christ has forgiven you. Refuse to indulge in disappointment in that dear one—and instead give thanks for what God is doing! He is freeing you, He is doing you good, He is teaching you how to thrive in Him alone. He is teaching you about the cross. He is engraving the gospel on you. Stop looking down on others or comparing yourself with that other girl! Remember: “If John remains, what is that to you? Feed My sheep!”

Don’t forget, frail heart, you were made for another world. This is not your home; you are only passing through. So don’t put down such deep roots; don’t cling so desperately to what is fleeting; don’t become enamored with the things of this world. Don’t waste your short time on earth anxious and fearful; choose joy and thank your God for all He has given you today.