July 13 - 1 Corinthians 7: God Defines Your Life

I recently met a woman who admitted that she's struggling with her singleness. In fact, it's bugging her so much that it's negatively affecting her relationship with her boyfriend who she says is blocking her goal of getting married! She's also mad at all the married women she knows and at her single friends who are content with their singleness. It's an uncomfortable frame of mind, and I have great compassion for her.

On the flip side, I've also met more than enough married women who wish they were single again. Marriage hasn't measured up to their dreams and expectations, and they miss their carefree single days.

I'm so grateful that God, through Paul, speaks to both of these real-life situations and gives His perspective:

Marriage is a decision to serve the other, whether in bed or out. (7:4) 

God gives the gift of the the single life to some, the gift of the married life to others. (7:7) 

And if you are married, stay married. This is the Master's command, not mine. (7:10) 

Where you are right now is God's place for you. Live and obey and love and believe right there. God, not your marital status, defines your life. (7:17)

Our Father doesn't leave us to ourselves, to wallow in self-pity or to run the other direction. He uses each and every trial and difficult circumstance to grow us in character and to draw us to Himself.

"In this passage we see all these married and unmarried people asking Paul for counsel...Paul took seriously the actual conditions of people's lives and gave them the best counsel he possibly could...The gospel is never indifferent to what's going on in our lives, whether in our marriages or in our singleness...Paul interrupted himself, though, and said, in essence, "Theres's something far more important than what we're doing with these questions and answers: God is in our lives, and the invisible God is more real than our visible problems" (see verse 19). 

"We're in the habit of thinking that our married status, our vocational status, and our economic status make us who we are. They don't. They're important, but they don't give us our identity. None of these things are unimportant, but none of them is of central importance. These are the raw materials that God takes to shape his life in us. 

"And so Paul's words to the Corinthians are good words for us as well: "God, not your marital status, defines your life" (verse 17)." Eugene Peterson, Conversations, pg. 1779