Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - Navigating Singleness as a Christian: Biblical Principles for Purpose and Contentment | Jonny Ardavanis

Episode Date: March 4, 2025

In this episode, Jonny Ardavanis and Brandon Wolf discuss the often overlooked topic of Christian singleness, addressing half of all adults in Western churches. Learn biblical perspectives on singleness as a gift, how to steward this season purposefully, and the balance between contentment and desire for marriage.Key topics include:Paul's teachings on "undistracted devotion to the Lord" (1 Corinthians 7)How Christianity revolutionized the view of singleness in societyPractical accountability strategies for single ChristiansNavigating the tension between desire for marriage and current singlenessAvoiding common pitfalls like living for the weekend or creating spouse-like expectations with friendsWhether you're single by choice, circumstance, or waiting on God's timing, this conversation offers biblical wisdom for living purposefully while single. Part 3 in our Dating Series.Watch VideosVisit the Website Buy Consider the LiliesFollow on Instagram

It's interesting that the Christian faith is the one that kind of took on and said, hey, it's okay to be single and your life is not worthless. Yeah. And how the world has now twisted that. Yeah. So now singleness has become a, well, why would I ever want to get married? And they've twisted the fact that what was God's intention in the singleness? Use it faithfully to serve me and bring me glory.

And now it's use me faithfully to serve myself. In the church today, in a Western context, 30% of adults are single, 10% are divorced, and 10% are widowed, which means that when we talk about the subject of singleness, we're addressing half of the adults in the room. So it's very important. Welcome to the Dial-In Ministry Studio. My name is Johnny Artavanis. I'm sitting here with Brandon Wolfe. We've been walking, Brandon, through a series on dating.

So far, we've talked through who to date, and we focus primarily on character and chemistry. Do they love the Lord? Are they a hard worker? Are they teachable? And then, obviously, are you into them? Yeah. And then in our recent episode, we talked about how to date.

You want to just touch base on what we talked about in that reality? Yeah, I think the biggest thing that you probably said that caught on was don't be weird, right? Have an intentionality behind it. We're not just dating for the sake of dating, but we're dating with an end goal in mind going,

who am I going to marry? Is this a person that I could see myself with for the rest of my life? Having kids with or a family with, that's part of God's plan for you, but be intentional. Don't be weird. Um, and kind of enjoy the process. We're being over, you know, there's so much pressure right away, overly direct, you know, asking to get, you know, to get married on the first date or something like that, which happens sometimes in a Christian context. Now we're going to talk about the subject of singleness.

And I would just want to even preface before we approach this episode that this is maybe a 30 minute, you know, episode. We're not covering every single arena of singleness. We want to be a resource to people listening and watching. I wouldn't say this is the end all, you know, so there might be even questions as we go that if you're listening, please send in those questions because we want to be helpful. But this is a really important subject. And it's because as we approach the subject of singleness, it's not like we're dealing with the minority or rarity of people, adults in the church today. In a Western context, 30% of adults are single, 10% are divorced and 10% are widowed, which means that when we talk about the subject of singleness, we're addressing half of the adults in the room. So it's very important.

Yeah. I mean, it's a huge thing. You think, and often it gets overlooked, right? Yeah. I mean, even if you're dating technically today, you're single. Yeah. Right. So you're still going through that process of figuring out what is my life going to look like prior to being married? And I know you mentioned it before, but working with young adults, the majority of them in the ministry that I get to be part of are single. So it's how do I use my time? You know, what does God have for me in the future? But how do I not always have my eye on

the future, but live in the present and honor and glorify him with my time today? Yeah. And I think we want to be as balanced as possible as we approach the subject. You know, I've seen, you know, I was writing it down. I've seen pastors address a full room of single men and women and just say, get married. Yeah. And I think this can heavily discourage the individual. I'm thinking of the women I even know that long to be married, want to be married, have pursued marriage, but in God's plan and providence, God has not provided them with a spouse. So I don't want to discourage the single

woman who longs for that type of companionship, partnership, and friend. On the other side of things, I want to always keep in mind the high view the scripture has of marriage, right? Like it's a good thing. So I think sometimes the subject of singleness is approached trying to keep someone in mind so you don't discourage her, right? And then you talk about singleness so much as a gift that you discourage maybe a 22-year-old man from wanting to get married at all. So I think we just have to balance those two things together. I would speak to a 38-year-old woman who's really discouraged about this a lot differently than you would a 24-year-old who's spending seven hours a night playing video games, right? Yeah. I mean, that's a whole different world, right? And that's why we're- Sometimes they get lumped into the same bucket.

For sure. And that's why we're talking about, hey, here's principles, but practically speaking, you're going to apply those things different to, like you said, a 24-year-old guy that is playing seven hours of video game. A lot different than a 38-year-old woman who maybe faithfully serves her church, is involved, has a job and desires to be married. Yeah, it just hasn't worked. Yeah. So I think when we look to the scripture, you know, a lot of people know the passage. I want to read it because it's obviously important that we ground our principles in scripture. Paul does say that singleness is a gift and you know, a lot of people say, well, it's a gift. I want to return this gift and I want to talk about that. But Paul says in first

Corinthians seven verses 25 through 35, a lengthy section, but if there's anything good that we're saying, it's going to be grounded in God's word. So I want to read the entirety of it. Paul says there in 1 Corinthians 7, now concerning virgins, I have no command of the Lord, but I give an opinion as one who by the mercy of the Lord is trustworthy. I think then that is good in view of the present distress. He's just talking about the world in which we live full of sin and evil, that it is good in view of the present distress. He's just talking about the world in which we live, full of sin and evil, that it is good for a man to remain as he is. That's single. He says, are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be released. Are you released from a wife? Do not seek a wife. But if you marry, you have not sinned. I mean, Paul goes so far as to say, he's on the opposite page of saying, need to get married. He says, if you marry, you haven't sinned.

I'll accept that. Okay. So he says, you've not sinned. And if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. Yet such will have trouble in this life. And I'm trying to spare you. But this I say, brethren, the time has been shortened so that from now on, those who have wives should be as though they had none. And those who weep as though they did not weep and those who rejoice as though they did not rejoice and those who buy as though they did not possess and those who use the world as though they did not make full use of it. For the form of this world is passing away. He says, but I want you to be free from concern.

One who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how we may please the Lord. But one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how we may please the Lord, but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how we may please his wife and his interests are divided. The woman who is unmarried and the virgin is concerned about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy, both in body and spirit, but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how she may please her husband. This I say for your own benefit, not to put a restraint upon you,

but to promote what is appropriate and to secure, big idea here, undistracted devotion to the Lord. So this is in the scripture. This is God's word. Paul says, I mean, very clearly, he says that the married individual has other concerns that the single person does, that actually can distract you from ministry. I mean, I want to talk about this for a moment because I would say, and I have said many times, my wife is my main partner in ministry. She's a tremendous asset to me, right? She does a lot. Paul says, well, there's a reality also where being a husband, being a father can distract you from going,

you know, let's just say six to midnight, six in the morning to midnight every single day for the kingdom of God. This is just a reality. You have four kids, right? So yeah, big takeaways from that passage that kind of hit me or it just reminds me of like, life is a vapor, right? You have a limited amount of time on earth and we don't know how much time that is. So Paul's drawing your heart to kind of think through that and go limited amount of time. You don't know what it is. And then he's going, when you're married, you do have, he calls them distractions. You just have other responsibilities, which in that vernacular is a distraction.

I got to go home and be with my four boys. I have to think about my wife. To clean the kitchen. Right, like whatever those, yeah, just those basic things that you do in marriage is a massive responsibility. It's a blessing. It's a gift, as we talked about, but it requires some work that's different than if I'm single and I can serve the Lord

in different ways than I can if I'm married. Yeah, and I think it's always appropriate. You know, I'm always, and I'm always reminded that Tozer says it takes a whole Bible to make a whole Christian. So you can't divorce this though, from Paul saying in Ephesians, that marriage is a picture of Christ and the

church, and that this is the central metaphor, marriage, of the Bible. And so you're always, I always want to ping pong back and forth because I think sometimes people can fall in one ditch or the other. So he says, yeah, our lives are very brief, but yeah, we still have jobs. We still have homes. Many people still get married, but he's just saying that you're probably gonna have 50 to 60 years of adulthood, and make sure you are living for eternity, and that actually this marriage or family, and we live in a context that you idolize the family,

it can function as some sort of a distraction. It's not your ultimate reality, is basically what Paul is saying. If you're Philippians 3.20, your citizenship is in heaven. Your life needs to be spent in light of where you're going. So there are a couple of ditches, and I think we've already addressed these. One would be smashing the singles into thinking that they are second-class citizens in the kingdom of God, right? And the other would be to talk about singleness in a way that mitigates the other

realities we see in scripture, that he who finds a wife finds a good thing. So there needs to be a balance. Like maybe how have you seen there be imbalances people approach this subject? Yeah. I think you would start with everybody's pushing like, Hey, you better get married. And if you don't get married or if you're not married, you're a loser. Yeah. You're a loser. There's a lesser view. What's your problem? Why have you not? I remember when I was dating my wife, I had older godly men look at me and literally say, I don't understand what the heck you're doing. Get married. And I was like, I've known her for like two weeks. Like, can we get a chance? I don't even know her last name. Yeah. So I think you can have that type of pressure to that. I think the flip side obviously is you can go,

hey, you're single and maybe God's got that forever. And you're 22 going, the next 40 years of my life seems like a long time. How do I even know? Like, I don't know yet. And I have this desire to be married. So how do I balance those things out? And I think, like you said, we see those extremes

and the key is find the balance in there. Yeah, I would just pray as we talked throughout this episode that there would be that balance. And if done well, I think there will be certain people that are encouraged and then other people that are appropriately challenged because I think most people fall into one of these three categories.

And maybe there's a fourth and you can tell us in the comments. And I don't think everyone already or always knows what category they're in, right? So those three categories would be, number one, those who are single and want to remain single indefinitely. I would say this is probably the smaller percentage of individuals. These are those people that know they want to pursue a life of ministry, undistracted devotion to the Lord. I would say these are the people that have the gift of singleness and they know it.

Yeah. You know, and I can count on one hand the amount of people I know that are at, you know, in their twenties and thirties, I'm single, I have the gift of singleness. Right. Right. The second category of people would be those who are single today, but in the future they will be married and realize they need to steward this season as unto the Lord and stop pining away as if their life doesn't begin until they get married.

So they know they need to steward this season wisely to serve God's people intensely and be content all while praying for and pursuing a spouse. Contentment isn't the antonym of pursuing a spouse. I would also include under this banner of people that are single today, those who are wasting their singleness as a time to just chill with their homies, right? That, you know, we talked about it being for the purpose of undistracted devotion to the Lord. A lot of single guys, right? They're spending their 20s just with other single guys. We talked about it playing video games is being financially shrewd. A good thing. Absolutely. Sure. Paul says though, that your

singleness is to be stewarded for undistracted devotion to the Lord, not undistracted devotion to your nest egg. Right. Right. Yeah. Third category of people would be those who are single, who want to be married, that will remain single until they meet the Lord face to face. I want to keep these people particularly in mind throughout because if you've ever talked to someone single, these are probably the people that have the hardest time talking about it, obviously. Yeah, you have this future desire, but it's just not coming to fruition. And like you said, I think the key is you don't know it. So like you have a desire in your heart, right? To be married and time's gone on and maybe you're 30, you're 40, you're 15, starts hitting the reality of maybe the Lord has me being single for my life, but it was

not what I planned from the beginning or even thought I had that gift of. Yeah. And it could be a single person. It could be a divorced individual. It could be a widowed individual. So I would want to encourage them. You could say that these are people that have been told maybe they've had the gift of singleness and they want to return it. Right. And I want to look at these, you know, their life from a biblical perspective. Margaret Clarkson was a woman that I referenced a few times in my book, Consider the Lilies on Anxiety. She wrote the book, Grace Grows Best in Winter. And she just talks about even her lifelong struggle with her own singleness. And she gave a testimony of her singleness when she was in her 60s. And I just want to read her this little blurb. She said, through no fault or choice of my own,

I am unable to express my sexuality and the beauty and intimacy of Christian marriage, as God intended when he created me, a sexual being in his own image. To seek to do this outside of marriage is by the clear teaching of scripture to sin against God and against my own nature. So as a committed Christian, I have no alternative but to live a life of voluntary celibacy, to be chaste in body as well as in mind and spirit. Since I am now in my 60s, I think that my experience of what this means is valid. I want to go on the record as having proved that for those who are committed to do God's will, his commands are his enablings. And yet, I mean, this is key,

my whole being cries out continually for something I may not have. My whole life must be lived in the context of this never ceasing tension. My professional life, social life, personal life, Christian life are all subject to constant and powerful pull. She wants to be heard. But as a Christian, I have no choice but to obey God, cost what it may. I must trust him to make it possible for me to honor him in my singleness. This just goes to show you that there

are people that will be single their entire life that never in their minds signed up, you know, for the gift of singleness, but it is God's will for some. Well, and I love that she doesn't deny the reality of it, right? I think sometimes when you deal with this, you deny it and go, well, I'm not supposed to have the desire. She's saying, no, I have this desire. I was created as a sexual being to desire these types of things. And yet I'm not going to just go, well, it's fake and I'm going to bury this thing deep. She's going to go, no, I'm going to be honest about it, but still live in light of the truths of God going, hey, here's what my life is supposed to look like. Even if that doesn't come to fruition. Yeah.

And we'll even look at 1 Corinthians 7 in a moment, but Paul says it's better to marry than to burn with passion. Yep. So then sometimes people make the mistake of assuming that every single person has no sexual attraction to someone of the opposite sex. They have no drive sexually. That's not the case necessarily always. So my encouragement would be, first of all, as a pastor, I don't want to make a broad swath of approaching every person that's single the same way. I would talk to the 24-year-old young man who's wasting his singleness a lot different than the faithful, you know, 35, 45-year-old woman who's serving in our church or 45-year-old single man. I'm just using that as an example. And that's typically what we run into.

So there are those two ditches. Now I want to, and with the remainder of our time, just talk about some general biblical truths and we can go back and forth. Number one, in the Old Testament, God's pattern for individuals was to emphasize childbearing, marriage, be fruitful, and multiply. And the Old Testament singleness was a curse. It was looked at with disdain, but that's not necessarily the way we see things playing out in the New Testament. Yeah. I think the New Testament, I hate to say it, there's a transition because it's not like God changed, but there's a different, whether it's culturally, but you think about, you know, things like Paul, you think about guys who were single,

it was more normative. Yeah. I mean, so just practically speaking, it was more normative to be single, you know, a thousand years after Adam than it was, you know, those couple hundred years after him. Well, yeah, 4,000 years. Come on, dude. We're going to do the next episodes on the gap theory. There you go. Perfect. No, but I think there's reality there.

And not even necessarily, I think, culturally that normal, but at least scripturally amongst those who are widely used by God. This doesn't mean that God no longer loves marriage and loves childbearing. Those are consistent realities. You've mentioned God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. But bottom line, to be single as a citizen of God's kingdom, you're not a second-class citizen. And that leads us to, I think, our second principle

or general biblical truth. First being that the New Testament, there is a seeming paradigm shift. Second being is that singleness is often God's will for great and godly people in the scripture. We can use the examples now. So give us some of the men in scripture. Well, I mean, the obvious example is Jesus, right? I mean, you've heard of him. Yeah, I've heard of him. Set apart from ministry. I think we talked about Daniel in the past. We talked about Paul. Like these guys with a specific purpose from God to basically use their singleness as a tool in their ministry.

So Paul would say, I'm not distracted. I mean, I would think it comes from firsthand experience to go. I don't have a family I'm thinking about day to day. So I'm thinking about these types of things each day. That's why he's getting shipwrecked all the time. You know, he's literally, he doesn't have to think about the provision for his family. Right.

I mean, that's why he went all over the globe. So you're using specific examples of heroes of the faith, right? John the Baptist Jesus says, the greatest man born of woman. So just pause there for a moment. That automatically leads us to the conclusion that John the Baptist Jesus were not less than fully man or Masculine because they were not married So it would be disastrous for us to conclude that because Genesis 2 says it is not good for man to be alone That that is the will of God for every godly man

Throughout history, so you mentioned that Daniel was single It's very possible for these single individuals in scripture to leave an impact, to leave a legacy. Sometimes when we think about legacy, we think of our family. But Isaiah even reframes that and says, rejoice, O barren woman, right? Because of the legacy you're leaving as a proclaimer of truth. I like what John Piper says. He says, to be single in Christ is therefore not a falling short of God's best, but a path of Christ exalting covenant, keeping obedience that many are called to walk. And you mentioned the paradigm shift. And I like what this one professor at Duke university said, he says, Christianity was the very first religion or worldview in the world that purported single

adulthood as a viable way of life. So they're not drags on society. They're, they're assets for the kingdom of God. Yeah. Um, so going off that guy, I would say that, uh, Duke university professor, it's interesting that the Christian faith is the one that kind of took on and said, Hey, it's okay to be single and your life is not worthless. Yeah. Um, and how the world has now twisted that. So now singleness has become a, well, why would I ever want to get married? I want to be, and we talked about this last episode, but I want to be a hundred percent focused on myself. And now I can live selfishly and never think about anyone else. And they've twisted the fact that what was God's intention

in the singleness? Use it faithfully to serve me and bring me glory. And now it's use me faithfully to serve myself. Yeah. Well, you said use it faithfully. serve me and bring me glory. And now it's use me faithfully to serve myself. Yeah. Well, you said use it faithfully. So let's talk about stewardship for a moment, kind of under this second principle. We say steward your singleness. You know, you got to write the question over anything you say that could be like an empty platitude, right? Sure. What does that even mean? So let's talk about stewarding your singleness. If we're saying, hey, a lot of godly people have been single,

undistracted devotion to the Lord. What do you think that means? How about I give a practical example? Like, and then I didn't do this perfect by any stretch, but I just think about when I was, you know, 20 years old, not married, dating my wife at the time. Yeah. I got involved in a church that was about 45 minutes away from home,

like by myself with a couple of buddies of mine. Well, there's a huge difference between me now being single and not having to worry about a schedule and time to go to this church, serve two, three times a week. That's an hour and a half in the car just to get there, spend time and do that a couple of times a week to go, okay, what am I doing with time would just be a really practical question. How do I spend my time?

And what does that look like day in and day out for me? Yeah, you know, like I'm, I also, I'm not like the definition of stewarding your single years. I would say today, right, as a pastor, as a dad, as a father, as a husband, I am a product of my single years, right? Like I got married at almost 27 and those five years, you know, after six years, really post-college, I would say are some of the most impactful years of my life. I probably, you know, you've, I've told you before, but I've read probably a hundred to 150 books a year. And that's maybe a little nerdy of me, but like I was living alone, right? Most of

my friends got married young. When I left a Christian university, I was the weirdo, right? Like unmarried, ring by spring, you're done for Johnny, right? Like you're literally done for. I had a Christian mingle, you know, like I was, I was right. I was trying. But I am today a product of, I think, spending those years trying to learn and being a steward of that. Secondly, I was overseas for two to three months a year doing global missions. I had the freedom and the flexibility.

I had a job where I could leave my family. You know, now I get asked to do more things overseas, but they're more difficult to do because I have babies, right? So I loved being able to see what God was doing overseas. I also had more time for other people to invest in me when I was single, right? So I loved being able to see what God was doing overseas. I also had more time for other people to invest in me when I was single, right? So I took Titus too, very literally. Older men, poor into the younger men.

I was a younger man and I really desired that. So today I'm 32. I'm a product of obviously still young. I do the same thing with my kids. Just on that note, like I asked my boys, I said, hey, what type of man do you want to be when you're 25, 30 and 5, 10, 15 years down the road? Because the things you do today are going to impact what you look like and who you are in five to 10 years. My mom used to always stress to me and my two brothers growing up, like the disciplines you start now when you're 16, 18, 22 are the things that are going to impact you in the future. Start them

now because it's a lot easier. And then they become habits and they become normal. So when life gets busy or you have other responsibilities, they're ingrained already in the habits of your day. Yeah. And the habits is the key word. I mean, your life is basically just the overflow of your habits. So you are becoming the man or woman you're going to be in five years today. You know, I think some people think they're just going to be able to flip a switch. And so I think that leads us kind of to this third principle. The first being, you know, we talked about the Old Testament, New Testament, that you're not a second class citizen. You know, you can leave a godly legacy second and you need to steward that season. And then third here that the single life does indeed have some dangers

that people need to be aware of. Like if you're single, I would want to encourage you to one degree. And then I'd also want to issue some cautions if you haven't heard them living for the weekend, uh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh. I mean, I think there is obviously a delay in marriage amongst certain men because of the rampant nature of pornography today. Like, not everyone's burning with passion to get married because there's other outlets to express their sexuality most of the times in sinful ways. So, Paul does say in 1 Corinthians 7-9, but if you cannot control themselves, they should marry. It is better to marry than to burn with sexual desire. Caveat there is, you shouldn't be living in sexual sin when you get married, right?

If you're addicted to pornography, you're not ready to get married. But I think there's some dangers there. Need for accountability. Let's say you have a guy that's, I do burn with passion. The Lord's not provided a spouse. I've pursued one. I mean, talk about that because we've already addressed the fact that if you're single, it doesn't necessarily mean that you have no desire for sexual intimacy. So just,

yeah, I mean, you just touched on it. I'd say accountability is a really big one. Yeah. Um, which explain real quick, because that's like kind of like a Christian word that I don't know if everyone even knows what we're talking about. So when I think of accountability, I think of, um, a close knit relationship with someone who really knows who you truly are, right? So that could be formalized, meaning, hey, every week we get together and we unload these types of things and I ask you deep questions or we do something in that realm, or it can be less formal or it can be a combination of both. And I would say for us, we had a little bit of that even when you were younger going, we have this relationship where, hey, I can ask you the difficult questions. You can ask me those difficult questions. And there's not a camaraderie amongst our failings, but there's an openness to

say, hey, I have failed. Here's how I failed. And you not to go, it's all right, don't worry about it. But to go, hey, it's all right because God's grace is sufficient for us. But what are we doing to fight through that? And I think that's accountability. You mentioned camaraderie around our failings. I think that's probably just a good thing to elaborate on. I think just what you're saying and what we've talked about before is that sometimes the commonality of sin produces this delusion of acceptability. Everyone struggles with this, right? For example, pornography would be one of those. I'm just using it as a consistent analogy,

but going like, well, you struggle. We all struggle. Everyone struggles. Yeah, we normalize it. Yeah, you normalize and trivialize something Jesus Christ came to die for. So accountability also, I would just, I say always include someone older and godlier than you.

Yeah. So it's not just like your bros or your sisters and whatever it may be. So I think that's definitely worth mentioning. The fourth biblical principle, and then I'll just give like, maybe we'll close with like an opinion that I have. Fourth biblical principle is that-

Can't wait. Yeah. Marriage isn't the final destiny of anyone. In the gospel of Mark, they come up and ask Jesus, they tell him the story. Now I'm reading. Now there were seven brothers.

The first one married and died without leaving any children. The second one married the widow, but he also died leaving no child. It was the same with the third. In fact, none of the seven left any children. Last of all, the woman died too. They're trying to pin Jesus into a corner. They say, at the resurrection,

whose wife will she be? Since the seven were married to her. And this is main idea. Jesus replied, are you not an heir because you do not know the scripture or the power of God? When the dead rise,

they will neither marry nor be given in marriage. They will be like the angels in heaven. Meaning that your eternal destiny is as a single image bearer in glory. And so I think what that does is it, obviously, biblically speaking, we have a high view of marriage. It's the central metaphor of scripture. But when you're living your life in light of eternity, you're also reminded of the fact that, okay, that's not your, it's not your destiny, right? So it's not the end all be all.

It's not the end all be all. I think it's really important. And this is why I'm always trying to ping pong and balance scripture with scripture. And so I would just say that marriage isn't the final destiny of anyone. If you're single, you will be single for all of eternity. If you're married, you know,

sometimes I even talk to Katie about it in glory. It's not like I'm, it's not like we're married. Right. Right. You know, we're just, we're worshiping Jesus,

you know, maybe together. But so I think that's one thing to keep in mind. I would say this, this last thing as I close now, I'm interested in your perspective on this. I do think even when you mentioned accountability, sometimes single people can develop a single best friend. That makes sense. Yeah.

So I would issue a caution of cohabitation, not in the sexual sense, but in the sense where two single women function emotionally, as married individuals, when they're not, to single women function emotionally as married individuals when they're not. It can be pure, you know, physically speaking, but there are expectations that you start to put on a best friend that are meant for a spouse, and you basically can catapult all of this emotional, sometimes even financial expectations upon someone that

is just a good friend. And that can almost become dangerous. Any thoughts there? I don't know if you've experienced that, but. I mean, I think I've probably seen that in different instances. I would go back to something we talked about previously. And that's anytime you're acting like you're married with someone that you're not married to, it's not part of the will of God. And it doesn't have to be someone of the opposite sex. Right. That's what I mean. You just being like, it could just be, this is my person and you're supposed to do this. We're supposed to do this. Yeah. And you almost start treating your roommate like your spouse. Right. So that's just, I think a word of caution. Now I would just maybe as an afterword to this episode,

maybe just remind people that this conversation isn't exhaustive, right? There's probably other questions that come into play. Maybe if you're just listening, what other questions would you have that maybe we can touch base on in a future episode? Yeah, I mean, I would think about, like, what do I do with my time if I'm single? You're telling me to use it faithfully. You're telling me to use it to steward my time well. Like, what can I do?

And we can answer it another time. I would say the first thing I tell people, I had somebody ask me last night, and I said, how do you serve your local church? Yeah. Right? Bottom rung of the ladder. Right.

Like, there's some easy things, but I think that's a great question. How do I, you know, a lot of times we feel like we're missing out on something when we're not married. Yeah. How do I mentally just get over that hurdle? Where we feel like we're missing out on something when we're not married. Yeah. How do I mentally just get over that hurdle? Where that's something I think about if I want to be married.

Especially if you're a single that hangs out with mainly married families. Yeah. Right. Yeah. All of a sudden you start thinking through that going, like that consumes my mind. How do I not allow it to consume my mind? I have some friends who go, it's hard for me to hang out with you guys. Yeah.

And it's not because I don't love you. I do. But I watch what you guys have and I go, I've wanted that for 20 years and I don't have it. What's the Lord doing? Or what you're talking about, I don't experience. Like when you're all sharing stories about parenting your children,

I have nothing to contribute. I would say also one of the questions that I would have in mind that maybe we can talk about in the future is, if I'm a single woman, I'm waiting for a man to pursue me, what am I allowed or permitted to do, biblically speaking, to maybe approach a man? Am I allowed to express interest, right?

Like, am I allowed to, do I have to be as hard to pursue as possible? Or can I say like, hey, I'd love to get to know you. You know, I think that those things are worth navigating through. And I think the heart behind this is wanting to be a resource to people, wanting to encourage them, wanting to challenge maybe a young individual or a single of any age that may be wasting their singleness. But I do think Paul says it's for undistracted devotion to the Lord. So every life is to be put on the altar of sacrifice, whether we're married or single. So we'll talk about marriage as well. Obviously, you serve alongside your wife. I serve alongside my wife.

It's no different in that regard. It just changes the dynamic of how it's done. So, well, Brandon, thanks, bro. Hey, thank you. All right.