1:4 was the ratio of men to women in my Christian college. There was a running joke that it was the place for men to find wives. Professors laughed about watching the tiny quad garden every spring when flowers and romance bloomed together. They said that women in ministry majors (like I was) increased their marital odds if they knew how to play the piano (like I did).
We all laughed about it, but all of it had a grain of truth. I watched my classmates and friends fall in love and marry each other. And I wanted in. I mean, yes, the ratio was against me, but I promised God back in high school that I’d wait so surely, putting me in the college He did must mean this is when my life would come together, right? Especially when this guy walked in class. He was a Bib/Theo major so we were always in the same classes. He was the rare combination of popular and low-key. He became class president and yearbook editor. He had a blog. A blogger, ya’ll. I mean, that was a sign, wasn’t it?
But I graduated from college as single as ever and in the middle of a faith and health crisis. The years slipped by and with them, the idea that I would be married by my mid-twenties. It was easy to believe that I had been passed over, not just by my college peers but also by God.
Maybe I played my cards wrong? I was literally in a college filled with godly men and women marrying each other and pursuing ministry together. I was literally surrounded by guys that God could easily approve. We were in a bubble filled with people of God who chased after Him and His community. We even called it the Bethany bubble. So what happened? What about me? What about my time? My love story? When I entrusted it to God and nothing happened in the perfect place it could have happened in, what does that mean?
The more I hear from other single people, the more I realize the truth of Isaiah 55:8-9:
“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”
A professor taught us the phrase, “sitz im leben,” a German phrase roughly translating to “situation in life.” In Biblical hermeneutics, it’s a concept that tells you to look at the context of a Scripture passage, not just its surrounding verses, but also its historical, cultural, and social backgrounds. It makes the passage easier to understand and study, and makes it so much richer.
God can see our sitz im leben…all of it, all at once. That’s why His timing is perfect. That’s why He knows when to start the different stories of our lives. If you entrusted your love story to God, He knows the perfect time to begin it and it’s usually not when we think it is.
I can only comprehend the sitz im lebens of my life in hindsight (which is 20/20). I can look back and see that college wasn’t actually the right time for me.
God has also shown me that I’m strong in the times I felt weak, that I’m ready in the times I felt unprepared, and that I’m still growing in the times I felt wise. We move in different seasons and rhythms of life. It’s great to be aware of the kind of season we’re in. It helps to know the rhythm of life we’re dancing to. But we need to remember that as aware as we are of where we are, we still only see a tiny corner of the picture. Only God sees it all.
His thoughts and His ways are higher than our thoughts and ways. They are far beyond, far greater, and far more awesome than anything we could imagine. Dare to imagine, then, how epic the love story He has written for you! Whatever sitz im leben you’re in, have faith! Life hasn’t passed you by. God has not forgotten about you. He will awaken love in the perfect sitz im leben of your life in the perfect time so it will bloom richly. Have faith.
Join me this month as I talk about loving your single life.
Tell me about a time you thought love came knocking, but it turned out to be the wrong time. What happened and how did you respond?
