I hate cooking. 

There I said it. It took living alone for a year to officially decide that I hate cooking. I felt like I wasn’t allowed to hate it, since it’s kind of essential. I would tell myself that I just needed to meal plan and prep better or I needed a new cookbook or fresh pinterest inspiration. I’d try to convince myself that I do like cooking, that food is important and I want to nourish my body well.

While the last part is true, I can no longer deny the truth; I hate cooking.  

I usually eat three meals (and some snacks) every day. There’s seven days in a week and 52 weeks in a year. That’s 1092 meals in a year that I DO NOT want to make! I’m single and I live alone, which means I will be making nearly every one of those 1092 meals on my own. 

The weirdest things trigger my desire to marry. Coming home and having to cook yet another meal for myself, is one of those for me. Even just one night a week, it would be so nice to have a spouse to cook me dinner!

I understand why men advertise their cooking skills on their online dating profiles. That would be the number one quality I would look for now (okay not actually, but it’s a serious bonus)! 

Having a desire for marriage is not bad. 

Wanting a spouse so they can share in cooking responsibilities isn’t bad. Desiring marriage in general isn’t bad.

There’s a myth around singleness that if you are truly content with singleness you aren’t “allowed” to desire marriage or look for a potential partner. This is NOT true.  

You can be living abundantly as a single and also still date. You can be thriving, happy, content in singleness and have a strong desire for marriage. The two can coexist. 

God designed people; every person starts out single. Adam received a purpose when he was single. God also designed a partner and helper for Adam and blessed that partnership (aka marriage). Things that God designs are good because God is good. Singleness is good. Marriage is good. What’s not good is how humans twist the good things. 

The problem is idolatry.

An idol is anything that takes the place of God. God is very serious about idols. That’s why the first commandment God gives the Israelites is to have no other gods before Him, and the second commandment is to not make images and worship them. In those days people would make literal wooden or metal sculptures that they would worship and sacrifice to. There were so many false gods. 

These days our idols usually aren’t tangible sculptures but they are still things we’re worshipping instead of God. How we spend our time often reveals what we idolizes. What occupies your thought life? Work, family, porn, your image, yourself etc. No matter what the answer is, the root is people putting themselves on the throne and worshipping themselves and their desires instead of God. We often put temporal things in the place our eternal God should be. 

Marriage Can Be an Idol

When you think of it like that, marriage can 100% be an idol. It can be the number one thing we are seeking and how we spend the majority of our time. We can desire it more than we desire Jesus. It can be the relationship we crave and the satisfaction we long for, even though it will never fill us like Jesus can (which is probably why God commands us not to have idols). If God is not first in your life, it will trickle down to negatively impact other areas of life.

Desiring marriage isn’t bad, but it’s a huge problem if marriage is an idol for you. If marriage is an idol you will never be content in your singleness. Reflecting continuously on things you don’t have pretty much always leads to discontentment. 

Idolizing marriage can also be a distraction. Satan often uses things that aren’t inherently bad to distract us from living abundantly and purposefully where God leads. It’s very much the case with marriage. In C.S Lewis’ book The Screwtape Letters, the senior demon says this of leading humans away from the Enemy (God in this case),

 “But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts”¹ 

If marriage is an idol and constantly distracting you from God, it could be the “small sin” that gradually pushes you into the Nothing. Idolatry’s effect over time definitely edges people away from the Light, which should not be your goal! 

I don’t know about you but I want to be as far away from the, “road to Hell” and “Nothing” as possible. Which means I need to identify distractions and idols in my life and figure out if marriage is one of those.

Here are my 3 questions to ask yourself to discover if marriage is an idol in your life:

1. Do I treat every man or woman I meet as a potential spouse firstly? 

I get it. If you’re single and ready to mingle then you will have your eye out for potential partners. The only problem is when that produces a consumer mindset. 

You start looking at everyone and comparing them to some list in your head, judging whether or not they are good enough for you to date and potentially marry. It’s selfish and revealing that marriage may be an idol for you. 

Get to know people and treat them as people please, not an object that can fulfil your dreams. It’s totally okay to look for people to date, but it needs to be done from a place of genuine interest in them as a person. Maybe your first goal should be to have a simple conversation and see if that could lead to a friendship. 

If you’re purely viewing people as potential spouses, marriage is an idol in your life. 

2. Do I spend a disproportionate amount of time investing in potential or current dating relationships over my relationship with God?

It’s really quite simple, how you spend your time is how you spend your life, so this is such a good question to ask yourself! Take a time journal for one week and write down, or add to your calendar, roughly every activity you do. Then add up the totals at the end of the week. Your time reveals what you prioritize. What did you spend most of your time on? If you’re spending hours of your time online dating and attending social events with the hopes of meeting a spouse, but very little time with Jesus… marriage is an idol. You can also use this activity to discover other potential idols (TV anyone? 🙋Social media? 🙋).  

Another way to think of this is by asking the question: whose opinion do I value most? Who do I let speak into my life? If potential matches’ opinions are more valuable to you then God’s. That’s a problem. If you care more about what people you’re dating or wanting to date think of you than what God thinks of you, marriage is an idol in your life. 

3. Am I putting my life on hold?

Are there things you’re NOT doing simply because you are waiting for a spouse? I talked about this briefly in my how to wait well post. Even when God calls you to something specifically, you say no because you don’t want to do it alone. This could be going into vocational ministry, fostering kids or simply inviting a neighbour over for dinner. 

Any time you say or think the sentence “when I’m married I’ll…” stop yourself and ask why are you waiting for marriage? Is this something you can do now? In what way can you do this while single? Maybe you could get a friend involved or maybe you do need to go solo. Either way don’t let singleness stop you from being obedient to where God is calling you. 

This question really hits home because it’s the whole reason I started this blog. As you may know, my purpose with the Life For One blog is to equip Christian singles to live abundantly with and for Jesus now… not tomorrow, not when you’re married. NOW. You have so much to offer. 

If you’re waiting for marriage to do the things you know you’re called to do or even want to do, then marriage is an idol for you.

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I could definitely answer yes to all three of these in my twenties. 

• I went to social events and immediately judged every man as a potential mate or no-go for a date. This went on for YEARS. 

• In my thought life in particular, much of my time was spent dwelling on and fantasizing about potential relationships. More time was spent watching rom-coms and coming up with RIDICULOUSLY long “lists” than I spent with Jesus. Side note: I have desperately tried to find these lists just to show them to you but have yet to succeed. Maybe the Lord is protecting me from embarrassment! 

• I was very closed off to the idea of missions because I didn’t want to do it solo. I also looked forward to when I was married so I could foster kids and have people over for dinner and mentor teens. Even though none of that actually required a spouse. 

With marriage being an idol you would think that I dated a lot in my early twenties. But nope I have only dated ONE person my whole life. Even with marriage as my idol, I never got married. Here I am still single. In fact it’s been 11 years since my last relationship or even real date. 

Idols never bring the satisfaction you think they will. 

There’s no guarantee that focusing on marriage will get you married. BUT focusing on God and your relationship with Him WILL transform your life. The impact of that is lasting. The time you spend with God and living out your purpose will have a multiplying and eternal effect on you and those around you (including your future spouse). 

If marriage is an idol for you I strongly hope you can smash it and experience the joy of having God in His rightful place in your life!

Live your life, 

Mindy

References: 

1. Lewis, C. S. The Screwtape Letters. San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 2001.