Yeah, God must be GOD in our lives. I get it.
Who knows why God delays these things. I've been unattached for 3/4 of my adult life. There's a young couple in church, can't be past mid-20s, that just got married. A former pastor's been happily married for about 50 years. Another friend is closing in on 30. And then, there's you and I, and a 41yo virgin I know, and Seeking-Christ.
Idolatry is probably part of it. Could be other reasons other than or in addition to that. But, we all come into a marital involvement with our sinful baggage. If a perfect love for Christ over all else and perfect Heavenly-mindedness dominating our hearts and minds were the criteria, Christians would never reproduce.
I am not without my sinful baggage, misplaced priorities, etc. I do know though that I got married in 2004 with all of this. I also know that in a good marriage the good outweighs the bad. In mine, I was truly content. I am not now. As for heartache within marriage, or because of it, I know a little something about that. Watching your beloved's body lowered into the ground is one of the most disturbing things you can watch... so much so, that's when I walked away from the funeral.
I know about the good and the bad with marriage. I know Heaven and God should be our priorities. You keep saying this. My heart is where it is and only God can make me content without worldly comforts and blessings. Until He does...
I didn't say that "a perfect love for Christ over all else and perfect heavenly-mindedness dominating our hearts and minds were the criteria". Instead, I merely pointed out the purpose for which God instituted marriage in the first place so that we might understand the same and seek to fulfill the same by his grace.
I truly try to stay away from sharing personal testimony and to stick solely with the word of God instead, but I share it at times in order to potentially help others, so here I go.
My own life as a Christian (I became a Christian shortly before my 27th birthday), as far as relationships with women are concerned, has basically gone like this...
Initially, I had some interest (more like a fleeting moment) in possibly finding a wife. There was one particular young woman in the first church that I attended who caught my eye because she seemed so different from the others in that she seemed to genuinely have a heart after God. I knew that she liked me, and I liked her, and I finally overcame my fear of what she or others might think, and I sent her a poem and a dozen white roses. If you're interested in reading the poem, then you can find it here (I posted it my first time around under my previous username of "Live4Him"):
https://christianchat.com/christian-poems-poetry/freedom-from-the-fear-of-man.197946/
Nothing ever came out of that, and God actually gave me a dream, right after I sent her the poem and the roses, in which he showed me that he didn't want me to be with a woman at that particular time. In my dream, I went to take a drink of water out of a water fountain in a high school, but no water would come out of it. You need to know that my church was meeting in a high school auditorium at that time as renovations were being made to the church building. Anyhow, suddenly, a very skinny woman who I worked with at that time appeared in my dream, and she stuck one of her boney fingers into the water spout and pulled out what was causing the blockage:
A woman's hand.
The hand wasn't scary looking at all, like say something out of a horror movie. Instead, it was a smooth, fully-intact, feminine-looking hand of a woman with no distinguishing marks on it. In other words, it represented any woman's hand, and not just the woman who I was then interested in. To make a long story short, when I asked God for the interpretation of my dream, he revealed to me that he didn't want me taking any woman's hand in marriage at that stage of my life because it would block what he was then seeking to accomplish in and through my life, so I happily became a eunuch for the kingdom of God at that time. After that dream, I went about 12 years without even thinking about dating anyone, let alone marrying anyone. In fact, when people even suggested that I should date (and many did), I basically rebuked them.
Well, that all changed on the infamous bus ride that I wrote about previously. Suddenly and unexpectedly, God told both me and my ex that we were to be married to each other, and we ultimately tied the knot.
Here's the interesting thing, though...
During that approximately 12 year period of time (I really hadn't dated anyone for more like 15 years, but I had contemplated it with the one woman from that church) when I was a sworn eunuch for the kingdom of God, God kept on teaching me about marriage and its significance. I mean, it's hard for him not to, especially when one considers that the entire Bible, whether it be the Old Testament or the New Testament, is basically a treatise on marriage in that God's covenantal relationship with his people is likened to marriage throughout the entirety of the Bible.
Anyhow, when I finally did tie the knot, I was pretty prepared for the same. In fact, I preached a sermon about how marriage is a natural reflection of Christ's desired spiritual union with the church at my own wedding. Even then, I wasn't fully prepared for that which would transpire over approximately the next 17 years, but God taught me plenty along the way. In fact, one of the primary things that he taught me in the midst of my exceedingly hot and fiery trial was how my own marriage very much resembled his marital relationship with his people throughout the ages. I won't cite a bunch of Biblical passages right now (although I easily could), but God himself married a people who repeatedly committed adultery against him, and many of whom he ultimately divorced himself.
Of course, in the midst of my fiery trials, "pastors" (read: seminary trained, useless hirelings) galore CONDEMNED me while insisting that God would have never ordained such a marriage as mine...even though it very much mirrored his own marriage in scripture.
At this point of my post, I don't even remember my point (lol), so I'll just reiterate this:
Marriage is no joke.
Don't take my own marriage as proof of the same.
Instead, look at GOD'S MARRIAGE as it is described all throughout scripture, and you'll see that what I've claimed here is indeed true.
Anyhow, to finish out my own story, I'm now at a point where I would love to have female companionship, but it seems as if it's nowhere on the horizon.
Whatever.
Not my will, but thine be done.
God's grace is sufficient for me...come what may.
and I thought 'well that's a deal breaker', lol. Then I find out he is a assistant kid's teacher at our church. So in hindsight, I think I should not overreact to small stuff and see the Christ in others, if it's there.
I like to think. The Holy Spirit really is The Comforter
❣ God bless.