Reflecting on contentment

How can someone find contentment in singleness while still looking forward to marriage? This is a question that has surfaced in my mind time and time again over the years. To say that finding the way to live content and single has caused me to stumble into some wild ideas, methods, and behavior patterns would be an understatement. I can look back at and laugh at the approaches I've taken to rest easy without a woman on my arm.

• Vow of singleness for a designated period: This was all the rage a few years back. The single people in the church I used to attend were committing to a certain time frame which they would avoid any relationship with a potential marriage partner so they could completely focus on growing in God. I think (hope) I wasn't the only one who thought that at the end of this self-imposed sentencing there would be an amazing woman of faith waiting at the end, (with arms wide open, the skies parting as both light and doves came down from heaven with the voice of God saying, "Well done my good and faithful servant.") as my just reward for such an awesome display of righteousness on my part.
• Resignation to the idea that God had called me to such a high purpose and service that I could not marry and that stamping out the desire for a woman would be some ultimate test of faith (and on successfully passing the test God would land me in a mission field so dangerous that martyrdom, o glorious martyrdom, would find me within a year.)

But as my faith and knowledge in God grew I found this to be folly and started seeing my error in understanding what contentment is all about. Like many others I saw contentment as something synonymous with apathy.

A Christian philosopher made an illustration of that erroneous view when he contemplated the contented cow in a field. The cow was merely there in the field longing for nothing more than its immediate surroundings. But what is absent in that equation of contentment is the element of hope... God given hope to be more precise.

To solidify where my mind has come to an understanding of what biblical contentment is took the insight that I found in the book of Philippians, chapter four in verse eleven Paul states "...for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me." Then, looking at his time in prison with Silas in Acts 16 and seeing how this passage in Philippians applied to his behavior there we see a Paul who was not pacing his prison cell crying out for rescue from a hopeless situation but finding hope in the situation and finding opportunity to make the most of it to the glory of God. If he could not advance to Macedonia to witness the glory of Christ there then he would witness and and give glory to God from prison. So we see there a man desiring more than his present situation while also content in that situation. The key being his desire was not based in the flesh but in God's will. For in the will of God there is both desire and contentment but in the flesh, as Oscar Wilde would say, "desire is a cruel master."

From there we can take this doctrine of contentment and apply it throughout scripture such as in the Lord's prayer which starts in Matthew 6:9 where there is a petition being made not in spite of contentment but because of godly contentment.

Now coming back to the desire of marriage; if my desire for a good wife, marriage and family is to foremost glorify God then that petition is righteous so long as I make the most/bear fruit, in my present situation of singleness.