Psalm 46 calls for a courageous facing of our worst fears. It summons us to face head on the possibility of the total destruction of our prosperous way of life, to stare down the worst-case scenario.

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains quake at its swelling pride. (Psalm 46: 1-3).

Verses 2 and 3 boldly explore the potential arrival of the ultimate calamity. They say: “though the earth should change,” alluding to the shuddering of an earthquake which could make Jerusalem’s walls tumble down. “Though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea” refers to a catastrophe of eschatological proportions, the unhinging of the earth and crumbling of its most invincible towers. Finally, they say: “though the mountains quake at its swelling pride,” bringing to mind volcanic eruptions of Mt. St. Helens-like magnitude, which can result in a Pompeii-like lava flow bringing death and devastation.

The Psalm calls me to boldly entertain the possible prospects of my home being buried, my business going up in flames, my town being leveled in a quake, my children being swept away in a flood, and my spouse being killed in the wreckage.

I may shrink back from this approach to dealing with my fears, claiming it’s too negative, or morbid, or pessimistic. But this is not morbid pessimism. It’s godly realism. These things may indeed happen! And it’s not for us to traffic in deception, evasion, or suppression, but in reality, honesty, and integrity.

Charles Spurgeon, whose sermon on this Psalm is entitled, “Earthquake but not Heartquake,” well summarizes its thesis: “This is the doctrine of the Psalm: Happen what may, the Lord’s people are happy and secure.”

When our firstborn son was about six-years-old, we moved into a new house, and he got a new bedroom. But after a while, this became a big “fear” problem, for on the west wall was a miniature door that led into the attic. To Jared, the attic became a dark cave filled with bears, wolves, dragons, and other hobgoblins. At any moment, it could swing open into his room, and he’d never be heard from again!

What’s a parent to do? Late one night, when Jared was shuddering, I got an extension cord and attached it to an engine repair light. I swung the door open, and, yes, the two of us climbed into the dreaded attic. Pointing the light toward the roof’s northern slope, I whispered, “Look Jared, it’s the killer playpen! And over there, it’s the abominable box of sweaters. And there, it’s the deadly carpet-roll. And there, it’s the quicksand insulation.”

We investigated every corner of the attic and discovered that there was really nothing that could hurt him. And having stared down his fears, he exorcised them, enabling him to sleep peacefully. We put a flashlight on his dresser, in case the lies returned, enabling him to reinvestigate and again tell himself the truth.

Years ago, a twenty-year-old young lady sat in my office sharing with me her oppression and depression stemming from the fear that she’d never marry. She was terrified at the thought of being forbidden the joys of wifehood and motherhood. The thought of living alone in her older years brought on her great emotional agony. My first impulse was to say, “Nonsense, Esther, you’ve got a nice personality, an attractive appearance, a tender heart, and surely God will send the right man your way.” Then I thought, “How do I know that? Sure, the percentages are heavily in her favor. But the pillow of percentages provides no true solace to a worried head. My assurances have no guarantees. I could be telling her a lie.”

Instead, I gave her the Psalmist’s counsel. “Though you have many attractive traits, there is a real possibility that you may never marry. That prospect is like an ominous attic door to you.” Then I told Esther about Jared. “You need to climb into that attic. You need to explore your worst fears. There you are, fifty-years-old, on Christmas Eve, sitting on the sofa alongside the decorated tree, all alone in your apartment, without a husband or children.

It seems unbearable. But is it really? Shine the light on it. I know it seems unendurably bleak and dark like ‘the valley of the shadow of death.’ But shine the light of God’s word on it. Look! You’re not alone at all. Your Good Shepherd is with you there in that apartment valley. He’s pledged, ‘Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age’ (Matthew 28: 20). Your Father promised to provide all of your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4: 19). If you spend some time meditatively exploring this attic in light of the Scriptures, you’ll sleep much better and glorify God much more.”

This biblical prescription is a veritable panacea for treating fear. It sedates the anxious and uptight wife who desperately wants to be a mother, but is worried sick over the prospects of a childless marriage, enabling her to sing from the heart: “Whate’er my God ordains is right.” It remedies the fear of a romance or engagement break-up, enabling the insecure maiden whose clinginess may drive her beau away, to adopt the personality of a well-adjusted woman of dominion and dignity. “Though my mother or my father or my fiancé forsake me, yet the Lord will take me up” (Psalm 27:10).  Here is a woman who, by the grace and Spirit of God, is able to subdue her fears under her feet.

— an excerpt from Womanly Dominion: More than a Gentle and Quiet Spirit, by Mark Chanski (Calvary Press), p 179f.

http://www.amazon.com/Womanly-Dominion-Gentle-Quiet-Spirit/dp/1879737604/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1350944537&sr=1-1&keywords=womanly+dominion

Image: Red Riding Hood by Manuhell

John Piper:

I am writing this to plead with Christian parents to require obedience of their children. I am moved to write this by watching young children pay no attention to their parents’ requests, with no consequences. Parents tell a child two or three times to sit or stop and come or go, and after the third disobedience, they laughingly bribe the child. This may or may not get the behavior desired.

Last week, I saw two things that prompted this article. One was the killing of 13-year-old Andy Lopez in Santa Rosa, California, by police who thought he was about to shoot them with an assault rifle. It was a toy gun. What made this relevant was that the police said they told the boy two times to drop the gun. Instead he turned it on them. They fired.

I do not know the details of that situation or if Andy even heard the commands. So I can’t say for sure he was insubordinate. So my point here is not about young Lopez himself. It’s about a “what if.” What if he heard the police, and simply defied what they said? If that is true, it cost him his life. Such would be the price of disobeying proper authority.

A Tragedy in the Making

I witnessed such a scenario in the making on a plane last week. I watched a mother preparing her son to be shot.

I was sitting behind her and her son, who may have been seven years old. He was playing on his digital tablet. The flight attendant announced that all electronic devices should be turned off for take off. He didn’t turn it off. The mother didn’t require it. As the flight attendant walked by, she said he needed to turn it off and kept moving. He didn’t do it. The mother didn’t require it.

One last time, the flight attendant stood over them and said that the boy would need to give the device to his mother. He turned it off. When the flight attendant took her seat, the boy turned his device back on, and kept it on through the take off. The mother did nothing. I thought to myself, she is training him to be shot by police.

Rescue from Foolish Parenting

The defiance and laziness of unbelieving parents I can understand. I have biblical categories of the behavior of the spiritually blind. But the neglect of Christian parents perplexes me. What is behind the failure to require and receive obedience? I’m not sure. But it may be that these nine observations will help rescue some parents from the folly of laissez-faire parenting.

1. Requiring obedience of children is implicit in the biblical requirement that children obey their parents.

“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right” (Ephesians 6:1). It makes no sense that God would require children to obey parents and yet not require parents to require obedience from the children. It is part of our job — to teach children the glory of a happy, submissive spirit to authorities that God has put in place. Parents represent God to small children, and it is deadly to train children to ignore the commands of God.

2. Obedience is a new-covenant, gospel category.

Obedience is not merely a “legal” category. It is a gospel category. Paul said that his gospel aim was “to bring about the obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5). He said, “I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience — by word and deed” (Romans 15:18). . .

Parents who do not teach their children to obey God’s appointed authorities prepare them for a life out of step with God’s word — a life out of step with the very gospel they desire to emphasize. . . 

3. Requiring obedience of children is possible.

To watch parents act as if they are helpless in the presence of disobedient children is pitiful. God requires that children obey because it is possible for parents to require obedience. Little children, under a year old, can be shown effectively what they may not touch, bite, pull, poke, spit out, or shriek about. You are bigger than they are. Use your size to save them for joy, not sentence them to selfishness.

4. Requiring obedience should be practiced at home on inconsequential things so that it is possible in public on consequential things.

One explanation why children are out of control in public is that they have not been taught to obey at home. One reason for this is that many things at home don’t seem worth the battle. It’s easier to do it ourselves than to take the time and effort to deal with a child’s unwillingness to do it. But this simply trains children that obedience anywhere is optional. Consistency in requiring obedience at home will help your children be enjoyable in public.

5. It takes effort to require obedience, and it is worth it.

If you tell a child to stay in bed and he gets up anyway, it is simply easier to say, go back to bed, than to get up and deal with the disobedience. Parents are tired. I sympathize. For more than 40 years, I’ve had children under eighteen. Requiring obedience takes energy, both physically and emotionally. It is easier simply to let the children have their way.

The result? Uncontrollable children when it matters. They have learned how to work the angles. Mommy is powerless, and daddy is a patsy. They can read when you are about to explode. So they defy your words just short of that. This bears sour fruit for everyone. But the work it takes to be immediately consistent with every disobedience bears sweet fruit for parents, children, and others.

6. You can break the multi-generational dysfunction.

One reason parents don’t require discipline is they have never seen it done. They come from homes that had two modes: passivity and anger. They know they don’t want to parent in anger. The only alternative they know is passivity. There is good news: this can change. Parents can learn from the Bible and from wise people what is possible, what is commanded, what is wise, and how to do it in a spirit that is patient, firm, loving, and grounded in the gospel. . . 

Parents, you can do this. It is a hard season. I’ve spent more than sixty percent of my life in it. But there is divine grace for this, and you will be richly rewarded.

You can read John Piper’s entire article here:

http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/parents-require-obedience-of-your-children

John Rosemond recently wrote:

“I want my children to cooperate,” a parent tells me. She tells me this in the midst of complaining that her kids rarely do what she asks them to do. That’s another problematic word: ask. Those two problematic words go hand-in-hand, in fact. Parents who want cooperation tend to ask as opposed to tell. Asking is nice. Telling isn’t. And today’s parents are trying their best to be nice. Which, by the way, is why they often suffer total cerebral meltdowns during which they get red in the face and begin screaming like lunatics. Their children have no appreciation for their niceness; they simply take full advantage of it.

I tell the mom that the reason her kids don’t obey her is she wants cooperation. That necessitates a peer-to-peer relationship. Neighbors cooperate. Friends cooperate. Spouses cooperate. Coworkers cooperate. But the CEO of the company, when he tells two cooperating coworkers what he wants, he’s not looking for cooperation. He wants them to obey. Two Army privates assigned to the same task will cooperate with each other. But the officer who assigned them to the task is not seeking their cooperation. He expects them to obey.

When the relationship is not between equals, the proper word is obedience. The fact that so many of today’s parents talk in terms of wanting their kids to “cooperate” reflects two things:

First, these parents do not feel comfortable with authority. They are trying to avoid being seen by their children as authority figures. So, when they communicate expectations and instructions they use persuasive speech as opposed to authoritative speech. The symptom of this is the ubiquity of “OK?” at the end of a parent’s persuasive sentence, as in “Please hang your jacket up in the closet, OK?”

Second, they want to be liked by their kids. They act, therefore, as if the parent-child relationship is peer-to-peer. When they speak to their children, they bend down, grab their knees (i.e., getting down to their kids’ level, which is what some magazine article told them to do), and ask their kids for cooperation, … ending with “OK?” They look and even sound as if they are asking the king for a favor. In effect, the superior in the relationship is the child.

Why do parents act in this absurd, counter productive fashion? Because they think capital letters mean something. People with capital letters after their names — mental health professionals, mostly — injected toxic theory into parenting in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and it lives on.

Ephesians 6:1-3: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.  HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER (which is the first commandment with a promise), SO THAT IT MAY BE WELL WITH YOU, AND THAT YOU MAY LIVE LONG ON THE EARTH.” 

You can read John Rosemond’s entire article here:

http://www.kentucky.com/2013/11/11/2925599/parents-teach-your-child-to-obey.html

Matt. 9:15 And Jesus said to them, “The attendants of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.”

Dr. Ravenhill: “Preaching affects men; prayer affects God. The pastor who is not a praying pastor is a playing pastor. The congregation which is not a praying congregation is a straying congregation. To be much for God we must be much with God.”

Sidlow Baxter: “Men may spurn our appeals, reject our mes­sage, oppose our arguments, despise our persons; but they are helpless against our prayers.”    

Eugene Stock: “He who faithfully prays at home does as much for foreign missions as the man on the field, for the nearest way to the heart of a Hindu or Chinaman is by the way of the throne of God.”

 Andrew Murray: “In relation to his people, God works only in answer to their prayer. In prayer we change our natural strength for the supernatural strength of God.”       

 J. A. Wallace: “Prayer moves the hand which moves the world.”

 Dwight Moody: “Christ’s soldiers fight best on their knees.”    

 Binney: “Every praying Christian will find that there is no Gethsemane without its Angel.”  

Here are some practical thoughts regarding your personal practice of prayer and fasting, from Donald Whitney’s book, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, NavPress, p 153:

The Bible distinguishes between several kinds of fasts.  Although it doesn’t use the labels we frequently employ today to describe these fasts, each of the following may be found:

 1. A Normal Fast involves abstaining from all food, but not  from water.  We’re told in Matthew 4:2, “After fasting forty days and forty nights, he (Jesus) was hungry.”  It says nothing about Him becoming thirsty.  Furthermore, Luke 4:2 says that He “ate nothing during those days,” but it does not say He drank nothing.  Since the body can normally function no longer than three days without water, we assume that He drank water during this time.  To abstain from food but to drink water or perhaps fruit juices is the most common kind of Christian fast.

 2. A Partial Fast is a limitation of the diet but not abstention from all food.  For ten days Daniel and three other Jewish young men only had “vegetables to eat and water to drink” (Daniel 1:12).  It is said of the rugged prophet John the Baptist that “his food was lucusts and wild honey” (Matthew 3:4).  Historically, Christians have observed partial fasts by eating much smaller portions of food than usual for a certain time and/or eating only a few simple foods.

 3. An Absolute Fast is the avoidance of all food and liquid, even water.  We’re told that Ezra “ate no food and drank no water, because he continued to mourn over the unfaithfulness of the exiles” (Ezra 10:6).  When Esther requested that the Jews fast and pray on her behalf, she said, “Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me.  Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day” (Esther 4:16).  After the Apostle Paul was converted on the road to Damascus, Acts 9:9 tells us, “For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.”

What type of fast should each of us participate in?  This is a personal matter for each of us to consider.  Here are the kinds of questions we might ask ourselves:

 A. Am I a pregnant or nursing mother?

 B. Do I have a low blood sugar problem?

 C. Will I be responsible on the fast day to work and function with a substantial level of physical strength?

 D. Has my doctor counseled me to be careful about restricting my nutritional intake?

Last night at our Hope College bible study, we talked about Hell as taught in the bible.  Like taking medicine, it wasn’t pleasant.  But it was health giving.  Our Lord Jesus spoke often of Hell, and made sure His hearers and disciples had a therapeutic dose of it.  The Greek word for Hell, “Gehenna,” is used 12 times in the New Testament; and 11 times, it comes from Jesus’ lips.

Paul Tautges writes on how Christ uses weak things to show Himself strong:

More often than not, God chooses to use plain, ordinary, weak men and women to do His work. This is one of the many ways we see that God’s ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9). Jesus’ calling and choosing of the Twelve is a vivid example.

It was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God. And when day came, He called His disciples to Him and chose twelve of them, whom He also named as apostles: Simon, whom He also named Peter, and Andrew his brother; and James and John; and Philip and Bartholomew; and Matthew and Thomas; James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot; Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. (Luke 6:12-16)

After spending 8-10 hours in prayer, in the dark, Jesus chose the Twelve. He called them to Himself, for Himself, and for His purposes. The Gospel of Mark “says that this purpose was threefold: that they might be with Him (for training), that He might send them forth, and that they might have authority to cast out demons” (Herschel Hobbs). These twelve He then called “apostles,” sent ones, ambassadors, His official representatives.

But who were these men? Whom did Jesus select to be responsible to take the only saving message to the ends of the earth? Though they would go down in history as being very significant, they were insignificant when they were chosen. Christ would build His church upon them (Ephesians 2:20) and the wall of the heavenly city would forever pay tribute to them (Rev 21:14).

So, whom did Jesus build His entire church upon? Were they men with powerful speaking skills? Were they highly-educated? No. They were just common, ordinary men; men with many flaws.

• Simon, whom He also named Peter, was a fisherman. He was a man of extremes with strong emotions, who “swayed from one position to its opposite” (Hendricksen). At times he trusted Jesus, while other times he doubted. He boldly confessed Jesus as the Christ, but when filled with great fear, denied Him three times. Nevertheless, at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit transformed this man into a powerful leader and preacher.
• Andrew followed Jesus first. Then he brought his brother Peter to Jesus. Andrew was also a fisherman.
• James and John were also fishermen. These two were men of fiery personality and nature. Therefore, Jesus called them “Sons of Thunder.” You could probably hear them before they entered a room.
• Philip lived in the same town as Peter and Andrew. He introduced Nathaniel to Jesus. When faced with 5,000 hungry men, Philip lacked trust in the Lord and informed Jesus that there was no way they could find enough money to buy enough bread.
• Bartholomew was also named Nathaniel. He was a bold man who spoke his mind. When he first heard of Jesus, Bartholomew asked Philip, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
• Matthew was a tax collector, the type of person who was hated by most. When Jesus called him, he immediately left his lucrative business to follow Him.
• Thomas will be forever known as “Doubting Thomas” because he did not immediately believe in Jesus’ resurrection. He was a man of great devotion, but also deep despondency. He experienced a roller-coaster of emotions.
• James, the son of Alphaeus, was also known as “James the Less,” which some interpret as meaning “James small in stature.”
• Simon, who was called the Zealot, was a former member of a terrorist group that spread rebellion against the Roman government.
• Judas, the son of James, was also called Thaddeus. This Judas wanted Jesus to be more public, more in the limelight. He did not appreciate how content Jesus was to fly under the radar.
• Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. This is the infamous Judas, the false disciple who betrayed Jesus. He was a wicked, selfish, and self-serving man. Judas was a lover of money who mocked the gracious gift of the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet with her perfume. Having surrendered his heart and will to the devil, Judas fulfilled the prophecies of the betrayer who would sell the Messiah for 30 pieces of silver.

Clearly, we can see that there really was nothing special about these guys. There were no “big guns” in the group. No high-society influencers. No guys showing off “power ties” at their business meetings. They were just ordinary, run-of-the-mill kind of people. More than that, they had more flaws than you could shake a stick at. But they had something else—or should I say Someone—who made all the difference.

Acts 4:13 informs us that the opponents of the gospel “observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus.” Can that be said of me? Can that be said of you? Is it apparent that we have been with Jesus?

You can read Paul’s entire article here:

http://counselingoneanother.com/2013/08/27/common-flawed-vessels/

John Piper tells what a “Waste of a Life” it is to detour Christ:

Since September 11, 2001, I have seen more clearly than ever how essential it is to exult explicitly in the excellence of Christ crucified for sinners and risen from the dead. Christ must be explicit in all our God-talk. It will not do, in this day of pluralism, to talk about the glory of God in vague ways. God without Christ is no God. And a no-God cannot save or satisfy the soul. Following a no-God—whatever his name or whatever his religion—will be a wasted life. God-in-Christ is the only true God and the only path to joy.

To bring us to this highest and most durable of all pleasures, God made his Son, Jesus Christ, a bloody spectacle of blameless suffering and death. This is what it cost to rescue us from a wasted life. The eternal Son of God “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing.” He took “the form of a servant” and was born “in the likeness of men . . . . He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:6-8).

All Things Were Made for Him

This Jesus was and is a real historical man in whom “the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Colossians 2:9). Since he is “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God,” as the old Nicene Creed says, and since his death and resurrection are the central act of God in history, it is not surprising to hear the Bible say, “All things were created through him and for him” (Colossians 1:16). For him! That means for his glory.

Ever since the incarnate, redeeming work of Jesus, God is gladly glorified by sinners only through the glorification of the risen God-Man, Jesus Christ. His bloody death is the blazing center of the glory of God. There is no way to the glory of the Father but through the Son. All the promises of joy in God’s presence, and pleasures at his right hand, come to us only through faith in Jesus Christ.

If We Reject Him, We Reject God

Jesus is the litmus test of reality for all persons and all religions. He said it clearly: “The one who rejects me rejects him who sent me” (Luke 10:16). People and religions who reject Christ reject God. Do other religions know the true God? Here is the test: Do they reject Jesus as the only Savior for sinners who was crucified and raised by God from the dead? If they do, they do not know God in a saving way.

That is what Jesus meant when he said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Or when he said, “Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him” (John 5:23). Or when he said to the Pharisees, “If God were your Father, you would love me” (John 8:42).

. . . if we would embrace the glory of God, we must embrace the Gospel of Christ. The reason for this is not only because we are sinners and need a Savior to die for us, but also because this Savior is himself the fullest and most beautiful manifestation of the glory of God. He purchases our undeserved and everlasting pleasure, and he becomes for us our all-deserving, everlasting Treasure.

The Gospel is the Good News of the Glory of Christ

This is how the Gospel is defined. When we are converted through faith in Christ, what we see with the eyes of our hearts is “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4). The Gospel is the good news of all-conquering beauty. Or to say it the way Paul does, it is the good news of “the glory of Christ.” When we embrace Christ, we embrace God. We see and savor God’s glory. There is no savoring of God’s glory if we do not see it in Christ. This is the only window through which a sinner may see the face of God and not be incinerated. . . .

Life is wasted if we do not grasp the glory of the cross, cherish it for the treasure that it is, and cleave to it as the highest price of every pleasure and the deepest comfort in every pain.

You can read Piper’s full tract here:

http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/articles/dont-waste-your-life-tract 

Yesterday marked twelve years since my dad’s home-going at the age of 71.

Calvin (pictured above) and I spent the afternoon on the golf course, and much of it was quoting Dad’s (Papa’s) sayings that he used to tell on the fairways and greens, like when I took too big a divot: “Hit the wrong ball first!”; or when our scramble foursome actually had to take a bogey: “This is a very humbling game!”

Richard Chanski was a mighty man of God.

“Thus says the LORD, “Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me” (Jeremiah 9:23-24a).

Dad knew his God, whom he called his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!  He lost his left eye in an automobile accident back in 1973.  But he always said it was a bargain, because the LORD used that calamity to bring him to Christ.  “Lost an eye, but gained a Savior!”

Dad was once sitting with Calvin on the living room chair (as pictured above).  He said to his adoring grandson: “Calvin!  You’re my favorite!  But don’t tell anyone.”  Calvin responded: “Even if I want to, I won’t!”

Austin, whose firstborn he named Richard Chanski (after Papa), well summarized his Papa’s life while all were reminiscing on Dad’s funeral day.  Austin said: “Papa was always there.”  That nailed it.  He was always there for us!

Edgar Guest’s poem “Only a Dad” nailed it too regarding my dad.

My Dad WAS the best of men, a mighty man of God who held his integrity to the end.  He finished very, very, well.  He is my hero.  I want to be like him.  I want my sons and daughter and grandchildren to think of me someday, as I think of him today.

Praise God from whom my father came!

Jason Helopoulos writes:

“Loneliness is my least favorite thing about life. The thing that I’m most worried about is just being alone without anybody to care for or someone who will care for me.” Anne Hathaway stated this in a recent interview, but it isn’t a rare statement. I have sat opposite a fair number of young women (and sometimes men), who have expressed this same sentiment. . .  I am not sure what all the contributing factors are, but I do know that this fear is a reality . . .

It may even be more heightened in the lives of young Christian women. For many have been raised to desire, and have rightly embraced, the calling to be a godly wife and mother. As the college years pass and the mid-thirties are looming over the next horizon, discouragement, hopelessness, and even depression can set in as the fear of being single for a lifetime becomes a real possibility. It is no small thing. Every wedding invitation feels like salt to a wound. Friends are beginning to have their second and third child before you have your first. Vacations seem less appealing. Buying your first home isn’t quite as exciting. . .

And even as I want to see them comforted in Christ, so I also want to give them one very clear warning. It is a warning that many young Christians need to hear: Loneliness in a godless marriage can be even more severe than the loneliness one experiences in singleness.

Most singles cannot imagine this being true, but it is. Even as I have sat with multiple young single men and women in counsel regarding their loneliness, so I have sat with multiple individuals who are grieving over the loneliness they are now enduring in their godless marriage. In many cases, these Christians were warned to refrain from marrying the unbeliever they had “fallen in love with.” They were warned as to the dangers, trials, and struggles that they would endure in an unequal union. But they saw singleness as a greater danger, trial, and struggle. And yet, on this side of their marriage vows, they have experienced the reality that loneliness in marriage can even surpass that which they endured as a single.

As a single person, who desires to be married, this may seem like an impossibility to you. However, I want you to think about this: What are all the things that would be affected by being united with someone who does not have the most important thing in common with me? What would it be like to be united in one flesh with someone who does not value what you value, desire what you desire, define good by what you know is good, have the same view of marriage, recreation, eternity, money, church, children, serving, death, life, and the list could go on and on. . . .  As I have sat with grieving Christians, struggling to know how to live in a godless marriage, I hear in their cries the reality that there are few things more lonely than knowing that the person you are the closest to in this life is far from you in almost every way. If you don’t have Christ in common, it is hard to have much in common.

Dear single Christian, there is a loneliness that can surpass the loneliness that even now you are experiencing and achingly want to end. Be patient. Continue to pray to the Bride-Groom you do have. Be wise in selecting the individual that you would willingly give your heart to, and only allow a Christian to place that ring upon your finger. . . 

Read Jason’s entire blog here:

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2013/07/02/singles-and-loneliness/