What a Married Guy Has Learned from My Single Friends

I have been married for 34 years, more than 60 percent of my life. The Lord has blessed me with a wonderful wife who means more to me than words can express. And yet, the Lord has put a variety of singles in my life as well, and they have taught me many valuable lessons.

Ward died a few years ago. He never married, choosing to pursue adventures of a different sort. He was a world traveler, an artist, a writer and storyteller. He rode a motorcycle through India, Australia, Indonesia, and other countries, stopping to see the sights, eat the local food, and stay with new friends he made along the way. His house was like a museum crammed with memorabilia he collected over the years. (He’s the only friend I’ve ever had who owned an Aboriginal didgeridoo and a South American blow-gun.) He enthralled my children with “Indiana Jones-style” stories about his travels. Always a learner, Ward served as a campus minister at Indiana University, earned a Ph.D. in communication, and served as a college professor. Ward taught me to live adventurously.

Haruka is a twenty-something Christian college graduate who blends a serious faith with a contagious sense of humor. She works with children in her homeland of Japan, serving as a missionary to her own people in a nation where the vast majority of her contemporaries do not believe in Christ. Haruka teaches me about courage.

Betty is 92 years old. Her husband served in the U.S. military during World War II and was killed in action in Italy in 1944. She became a Christian that same year. A young widow, she moved to Cincinnati and attended Cincinnati Christian University, then known as the Cincinnati Bible Seminary. When students gathered for prayer meetings, she stood outside the door because she was embarrassed that she didn’t know how to pray. Decades later she has become one of the greatest prayer warriors I know—an intercessor like the widow mentioned in Scripture who “puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and to ask God for help” (1 Timothy 5:5). Betty inspires me to pray more consistently.

Jim is one of the most generous men I’ve ever met. Not rich, just generous. He supports a variety of Christian organizations with his financial contributions, and never complains although he lives a simple, quiet life. Jim teaches me about priorities.

What can we learn from the attractive and talented young woman who has a serious boyfriend but before deciding to marry, she is prayerfully considering God’s call and evaluating whether her life might produce more fruit for God if she remains unmarried? What about the young man who resists sexual temptation and bravely decides, like Joseph when Potiphar’s wife attempted to seduce him, that he will not do this evil thing and sin against God? What about the singles who steadfastly attend and support churches that marginalize or ignore them? What about the widows and widowers who quietly but faithfully come to grips with their grief? What about the single moms and dads who somehow manage to put food on the table and put love in the hearts of their children?

Some parts of the body come in pairs: hands, feet, ears, and eyes. But some of the most vital parts of the body have no other counterpart: the brain, the heart, the spine. The same is true in the body of Christ.

Marriage, an unmarried apostle observed, is a great mystery (Ephesians 5:32). Singleness has its mysteries, too—and so much to teach us if we will pay attention.