Bitterness
(and its evil cousin, envy of others) is one of the biggest battles I face as a
single woman. Maybe you can relate. You’re on Facebook and you see a single
friend has become engaged. The picture
of her kissing her fiancé gets over 100 likes.
You scroll down the newsfeed and see another friend has taken a family vacation
and kindly shared all 587 pictures of the event. Clicking through the photos you note the
caption on one: “Oh, how I love my handsome
husband and precious children! I’m so
blessed!” On Sunday morning your pastor kicks
off a 6-week sermon series on marriage by thanking God for his beautiful wife
and the many wonderful years they have enjoyed together. Such occasions should evoke mutual joy and
praises to God for the blessings He has bestowed on others.
But
if you find yourself typing the word “congratulations” under the Facebook
engagement picture with gritted teeth you’re not alone. It is
quite a challenge watching the dreams of others come true while yours are
collecting cobwebs. Elisabeth Elliot
once wrote, “If I imagine that I love my neighbor, let me test my love by
asking how glad I am that he has managed to acquire what I have long wished to
acquire. That he is loved by someone in some way that has never been granted to
me.” Difficult words, but so very
true. We are commanded to love our
brothers and sisters in Christ and “love does not envy” (1 Corinthians 13:4). Indeed the mark of a true Christian is being
able to “rejoice with those who rejoice” (Romans 12:15). I know this to be true, but like the Apostle
Paul, “…I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep
on doing” (Romans 7:19).
And
there is nothing quite like bitterness and envy to choke out the joy of your Christian walk, poison your fellowship with the saints, render you useless for
the cause of Christ. Your worship is
hampered, your praise is restrained, and it feels downright awful. So how
do you overcome those dark, unbidden emotions that arise when you see others
enjoying what you long to have? The
following are practical steps in overcoming bitterness in your singleness.
Admitting and
Repenting
It’s
an old, tired self-help cliché, but it’s true:
The first step to recovery is to admit that you have a problem – or, more
specifically, to admit that you have sinned.
When I am in the depths of bitterness over my singleness, seething with
envy at others who are married, I’m tempted to excuse those feelings by
thinking, “Well, if only God would send me a husband…” or “If only those young
marrieds wouldn’t flaunt their happiness so much….” – but I’m fooling myself. The problem is not God. The problem is not the young marrieds. The problem is me. James 1:13-15 points this out clearly,
“Let no one say
when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with
evil, and he himself tempts no one. But
each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then
desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is
fully grown brings forth death.”
Bitterness
and envy is sin. Period. Call it what it is and don’t make excuses for
it. Furthermore that sin is not caused
by the circumstance of being single.
Rather, the circumstance of being single exposes the sin of bitterness
and envy that is already in the heart. I’ll
use myself as an example. At times, I
would characterize my own singleness and childlessness as a trial à la James 1:2-4
and one way God uses trials is to expose sin.
My church is teeming with couples in their 20s and 30s who seemed to
have done all the right things – married young, started families – and they’re
enjoying the benefits of doing so. But
even if I were to marry tomorrow, I will never be a “young married” because I’m
no longer young. As I see their lives
clipping along right on schedule while mine feels like a derailed train, I
often wonder, “Why did God put me in this
church? Wouldn’t it be easier if I was
in a church filled with singles and elderly couples?” But if
I was in such a church, the seeds of bitterness and envy that are hidden in my
heart….my idolatrous desire to be a young married, my secret wish to be seen as
a winner among losers…. would never be exposed to me.
Because
Christ has paid the penalty for our sins, the wonderful promise we have as
Christians is that if we admit our sins, God will always forgive us and cleanse
us from them (1 John 1:8-10). This in no
way excuses our sin or gives us a license to keep on sinning (Romans 6:1-4, 1
John 2:1-2) but it assures us that we will not be condemned if we admit our
sins to the Lord and repent (Romans 8:1).
So admit the guilt of feeling bitterness and envy to the Lord and allow
Him to rid you of those burdens.
Closing the Door
to Sin
It’s
good if you can head bitterness and envy off at the pass and the place where
those sins start to grow is in a heart of discontentment. After the Lord saved me a few years ago, I
had a strong desire to be holy so I sorted through my personal entertainment
inventory to make sure it was free of ungodly influences. I immediately threw away the stuff that was clearly
sinful and worldly – the Sex & the City DVDs, steamy romance novels, various
R-rated movies, CDs with sexually-explicit lyrics – those were obvious bad
influences. But some things are not so
obvious. I enjoyed listening to the radio on the way to
work so, in an attempt to clean up that area, I switched stations to one that
played what’s called “beautiful music”, a format of mood music, easy listening,
Muzak, jazz, and Swing Era music. I
thought this was a safe alternative to my usual station which played the latest
chart-toppers, but soon strange things started happening.
I
became very unhappy with singleness, more than usual. I started sitting in the back of the church
assembly, sulking and glaring at all the happy couples. I stopped doing my daily devotionals. My prayers began to contain less adoration
for God and more complaints about why God hadn’t found me someone to
marry. I even considered not attending
church anymore because it was “too hard, too painful being single when everyone
else was married.” I couldn’t figure out what was going on, why
this dark, angry cloud seemed to be hovering over me constantly, until I
noticed the music I was listening to on my commute to and from work. Here are some of the song lyrics:
“You’re nobody
until somebody loves you; you’re nobody ‘til somebody cares….”
“Tell him; tell
him that the sun and moon rise in his eyes.
Reach out to him and whisper tender words so soft and sweet. Hold him close to feel his heart beat. Love will be the gift you give yourself.”
“Love is a many
splendored thing….love is nature’s way of giving, a reason to be living, the
golden crown that makes a man a king.”
“But kisses and
love won’t carry me ‘til you marry me, Bill….I got the wedding bell blues…..please,
marry me, Bill….I got the wedding bell bluuuuuuuues…….!”
No
wonder I was so depressed and angry!
Bombarding my mind with this worldly, overblown view of romantic love
was making me extremely discontent with where God had me at that moment in my
life. That discontent was like an open door
into which the sins of bitterness and envy entered into my heart. There’s nothing wrong with romantic love – it
can truly be “a many splendored thing” as the song states – and there’s nothing
wrong with desiring it. But listening to
songs like these over and over made me start thinking that romantic love gave
life it’s only meaning, that I had no purpose or reason to live because nobody
loved me, and that I had to find that special someone to make my life complete.
Are happy families a little too much for you? A change of perspective is probably in order.
I
completely lost track of the truth that Jesus Christ is our reason for living,
whether we are married or not. He is the
source of and the reason for all created things, including marriage (Colossians
1:16). Contentment is found not when all
my dreams come true or when I have everything in life that I want, but when I
know that God has and will give me everything I need in this world to glorify
Christ. This is why the Apostle Paul
could say “godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing
into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if
we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who
desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless
and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction” (1
Timothy 6:6-9). That statement can apply to the desire for
romantic love as well. Wanting it,
yearning for it, dying to have it….can plunge a single Christian woman into
many temptations, snares, and sins.
Incidentally,
discontent is not just a problem for single women. Married women can become discontent with
areas of their lives as well and fall into bitterness and envy of others. A friend from church who is happily married
with children confided to me that even she must monitor the worldly messages
she receives from movies, television, and songs on the radio. They often create images of an ideal romantic
relationship in her mind which cause her to be irritated and dissatisfied with
her own husband, since their relationship does not always live up to this
standard of blissful perfection.
Don’t
let discontentment over singleness lead you down the sinful, dark road of
bitterness and envy. Guard your heart in
Christ Jesus by dwelling on the things above, not the created things of this
earth (Colossians 3:1-3).
Don't be like this woman.
Adopting God’s
Perspective
In
2 Corinthians 5:14-16, Paul says that because Christ died for us, and we no
longer live for ourselves but for His sake, “we regard no one according to the
flesh.” Always see others, especially
your brothers and sisters in Christ, from God’s perspective, not from a
worldly, selfish perspective. When I see
others at church and compare myself to them in a worldly way, when I see their
spouses and children and wish I had what they have, I begin to envy them. And when I let that envy and jealousy fester I
even become embittered against them. It
is a horrible, ugly state of mind – one that is miserable to be in and that God
despises.
But
when I see them from God’s perspective, when I fill my mind with God’s Word,
when I allow the Holy Spirit who is in me to guide my thinking, then I see them
as those dearly loved by God, so precious to Him that He sent His Son to die
for them. When I take on the same attitude of Christ who humbled Himself to the point of death on the cross, then I no longer esteem myself higher than my brothers and sisters (Philippians 2:3-8). It is then that I begin to
love them from the heart as God desires me to (1 John 4:7-12). And when my perspective is godly, my actions
follow. I type “congratulations” under
all the new wedding announcements on Facebook and truly mean the words. I happily click through all 587 pictures of a
friend’s family vacation and sincerely thank God for blessing her with such a
beautiful family. I rejoice with the
pastor and his lovely wife as they praise God for their marriage. Without the heavy burden of envy and bitterness
I am free to receive gratefully all that God has given to me and feel heartfelt
gladness for all He is doing for others.
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