I love this book. It echoes so many thoughts I have had when thinking about marriage and singleness. Last year, I read an article by Paige Benton Brown called “Singled Out For Good.” Writes Brown,
“Accepting singleness, whether temporary or permanent, does not hinge on speculation about answers God has not given to our list of whys, but rather on celebration of the life he has given. I am not single because I am too spiritually unstable to possibly deserve a husband, nor because I am too spiritually mature to possibly need one. I am single because God is so abundantly good to me, because this is his best for me. It is a cosmic impossibility that anything could be better for me right now than being single. The psalmists confirm that I should not want, I shall not want, because no good thing will God withhold from me.”
At the time, this seemed like a solid argument. However, after reading Maken’s book, I am not so sure that God grants us all good things no matter how we live our lives. I am not talking about a works-righteousness theology. But I need to nail down a better idea of what marriage is. Is marriage a blessing that I cannot affect? There are plenty of blessings I have rejected so far in life. It is completely possible for me to reject the blessings of God, and for God to sovereignly allow me to suffer from my sin of disobedience. God has good and perfect ways for us to live our lives, but I constantly choose not to follow His ways, whether it be sleeping in for church, ignoring my family, or resisting His call on my life to be an RUF intern. I struggle to follow and choose the holy and good things God has for me every day. If marriage, then, is a similar blessing of God, if it is a biblical mandate to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, if we are created male and female, intended for a union which reflects Christ’s glorious marriage to the church, are we not still capable as sinners to mess it all up like we do everything else?
Maken’s book says we are more than capable of messing up marriage the way God intends it – both our culture and the church have made it acceptable and sometimes even preferable to remain single. Maken provides ample biblical evidence to show that God actually intends the opposite, with few exceptions. Here are some of my favorite excerpts:
