Singleness, Nonsense, and King David

This is another post that I actually wrote a few weeks ago.  I had good intentions to write something else in between the Israelite post and this one...and then had a week in which nothing seemed blog-worthy.  So, here you go, another post on a similar topic.  I hope you still enjoy it.  And, my job situation has changed since I wrote this.  Another post will be about that topic soon!

This post is for Amanda, Danielle, Kimmy, Laura, and Sarah

I am 26 years old and I have five close friends who are still single at this point in their lives, this mid-twenties season.  With the exception of one, none of them have had a serious relationship.  The one who did have that was shaken and torn and ripped apart inside when the wonderful guy she was dating turned into a full-blown deceiver, breaking it off unexpectedly in the midst of something seemingly great they had. 

I’ve never understood why some women date a lot and why others don’t.  What I really mean is: why are my five beautiful friends still single?  Why am I not?  I got asked out a grand total of two times in my college career, and then didn’t date at all until a year and a half after graduating, when my then-close guy friend, now-husband finally convinced me we should date.  Welcome to one of the best decisions of my life.  What makes some people able to date and find their spouse, and others left searching and not asked out for so long?

My friends are beautiful, inside and out.  I could go on and on about their great conversation skills, their compassion, their desire to grow with the Lord.  They are funny, they are smart, and they have a zest for life.  Not only would they make excellent marriage partners, I have full assurance they will make excellent mothers someday.  They’re still single.  Sometimes okay with that, sometimes struggling.

My accountability partner Laura and I were talking yesterday and our conversation ended up veering slightly towards people of the opposite sex.  She ended up saying something to the effect of, “What is it about me?  Why have I never been able to do this, to date, to be in a relationship?”  In essence, she was asking, “What is wrong with me?”

I quickly jumped in and told her nothing was wrong with her.  (I decided it was okay to take artistic liberty and leave out the parts about sin in our lives and the total depravity of man, how no one is righteous, not even one).  I told her she was beautiful, compassionate, easy to talk to, and fun to be around.  I told her this isn’t an issue about her; this is clearly an issue about God.  God’s timing is not our timing.  God must have something planned for her that means she isn’t dating right now.  Maybe the right person isn’t in her life right now.  Maybe she has to do something still for His kingdom as a single woman.  There is something going on that is above us, making a situation that we want to be solvable elusive to our feeble minds.

In 1^st Samuel, I am reading the story of David and soaking it up.  I’m at the part where David is involved in royal matters, but he’s not king yet, by any means.  I get the impression he is an older teen or a twenty-something himself, as he doesn’t become king until he’s 30.  David is still young and not quite experienced, but he’s fresh and strong and stealing the hearts of everyone in the kingdom, especially those who are female and unmarried, being ruddy and handsome and all.  The author of Samuel notes often that “the LORD was with David,” giving young Dave extra power and success.  However, right now, he has fled the kingdom, because Saul, the king, is trying to kill him.  Literally kill him, like with a spear.

Chapter 20 starts off like this: “David fled from Naioth at Ramah and went to Jonathan, Saul’s son, and asked, “What have I done?  What is my crime?  How have I wronged your father, that he is trying to take my life?” 

I imagine David frustrated, tired from running, sweaty and maybe trying to hold back some angry tears as he talks to his best friend Jonathan.  I can hear some undertones in the dialog: God, I have been doing everything right!   I am doing my best to serve Saul, I am respecting him as Your appointed king.  I am serving the kingdom by taking care of those pesky Philistines.  I am making music and singing to You and loving You… and this is what I get?  This is my reward for a pure heart, a pure life, for a pursuit of righteousness?  A death warrant from the very man I am trying to serve?

This is a conversation that I have with God, too, changing a detail or two when it comes to slaughtering Philistines.  My conversation sounds a little more like this:

“God, why don’t I have a job?  You gave me a wonderful job back in Fargo, and I gained great experiences and served You and my students there.  Why don’t I have a job in Chicago?  I am a good teacher.  You have been with me.  I am still praying to You, crying out to You, reading my Bible every day and doing what I think is right.  What gives?”

When I just wrote that, I realize it comes across as pretty selfish and arrogant.  While that’s true to some extent, the condition of my heart is really more in pleading mode than demanding mode.  I have to imagine David was there, too.  This is legitimate!  There are legitimate things going on in my life that don’t make sense.

Have you ever felt like you’ve only been doing the right thing, that the Lord was with you, that you were pursuing good things, and yet, nothing adds up? 

Are you pursuing the Lord and godliness, and don’t understand why you’re still single?

Are you an excellent and qualified worker without a job?

Are you a hard worker, without that promotion?

The examples go on and on.

Though there are sometimes concrete explanations for these kinds of things, I believe that we have to return to the fact that God is sovereign and in control of every aspect of our lives. As frustrating as it can be, I sometimes have to truly take to heart that God has plans going on all around us, and we are often not involved in them until they are actually happening.  He is much more complex than a simple formula of our righteous.  (Furthermore, isn’t the real reward in knowing Him, rather than getting what we feel we deserve as an earthly reward/consequence?  More food for thought).

I also believe that these times where things don’t add up are prime opportunities for faith-building.  If our actions always resulted in a consequence that made sense, our need for God would greatly diminish.  Our God, essentially, would diminish.  That is not the kind of religion I want to pursue, that of a diminishing need for God.  I cannot do this on my own. 

Finally, I believe that God refines us in these times that don’t make sense.  I can speak from the front-lines of experience here.  I want a job and feel very qualified for the 18+ jobs I have applied for this summer.  But I don’t have one right now.  And I am learning more and more every day about what it literally means to trust God.  I have also been stripped of some pride and been humbled.  These are all things God uses to make me into His child.  Sometimes, I think He could care less if I had a job.  He wants me to be holy, He wants me to grow in faith.

David certainly grew in faith.  If you read the psalms, David is a man of a wide array of emotions.  I have to think that during this time when he was near the smell of death, God was preparing David for better things.  God was teaching David about compassion and not abusing power.  God was giving David a full-blown experience of emotions that David could then write down and we could call the Psalms and read through thousands of years later and experience comfort.  And, if you get to 2^nd Samuel (where I am now, actually, and it’s beautiful, minus chapter 11), you can see how great of a king David was, and how that was very much a result of the awful things he went through prior to obtaining the crown that, at the time, did not add up. 

David was refined.  Frustrated and angry, but finally refined. 

God’s plans do not always make sense to us, but He always intends for us to grow, should we accept His plans, even if they don’t make sense to us.