27th August 2017
To the single Christian;
You’re not unloved.
Make your world bigger.
So you don’t have a husband. A fallible human being.
Make your world bigger.
So you don’t get to build your life around ‘the one’
Make your world bigger
So you don’t get to love and be loved by one special guy.
Make your world bigger.
Falling in love is wonderful. Being in a relationship, loving someone deeply with all your heart for who they are and being loved for who you are in return is beautiful, it’s heartwarming, when it’s good, really good, it’s joyful.
But you know what’s more beautiful? More wonderful, what brings more joy? You know what’s bigger? Your God.
You don’t have a man, but you have a God, in fact you have The God.
The God who put the stars in the sky.
Scientists tell us that there are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on the earth. We know we live in a vast and expanding universe, too imense for us to comprehend. Carl Sagan said that our earth is “a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.” I was asked yesterday; “If the scientists who believe that any other intelligent life existing anywhere else in the universe is unlikely are right, then why would God create such an enormous universe, so big we will never be able to explore it all?” I believe the immense scale of our world reflects the immense scale of our God. His creation is a reflection of his glory.
And that’s the God you get to have a relationship with. That’s the God who invites you to his party.
And it doesn’t just reflect the immense power and enormous glory of our God. But his love too. We are but dust, living out our entire existence on a speck, blown away in the vastness of space and time. But the creator of all that loves us, and he loves us so wholly, so deeply, so perfectly, that unlike any fallible human man he will never let us down, he will never let us go, as he promised Joshua he will never leave us or forsake us.
That’s the God who loves us.
Do you get that? The God who created all of space and time loves YOU!
So make your world bigger. Allow your God to fill your life with but a fraction of his vastness. I don’t believe in pithy ideas about us being where we are for a reason. I don’t believe God has predestined or desired our singleness. I don’t believe he wants us to feel the hurt, rejection or loneliness that often accompanies single life. I don’t believe God chooses which of his children will find lifelong romantic love and which of us will be hurt, abused or simply rejected to teach us some kind of weird lesson. That’s not my God.
But I do believe he can use any situation we are in. I believe that, for those of us who are single we are invited on this enormous, fantastic journey with God, with him and him alone at the centre of our existence in a way we probably wouldn’t do as part of a couple, even a Christian couple with God at the centre of their marriage,
So, my single Christian friend: Let’s get excited for the journey God invites us on, he does not demand our sacrifice or our unfailing obedience. He invites us to a life of joy and love. And how vast that joy, how vast that love, more vast than the expanse we see when we gaze upon a clear night sky.
So cast off your chains, shake your head, stretch out your arms, and breathe, because you’re about to do something amazing, let your heart beat strongly to the tune of your God and spread those wings, do it all in the strength of his love. Make your world bigger.
