But I do recognize that it’s hard to listen to the 50,000-foot perspective on singleness in the church and not take it personally or wonder if it’s too late for you. For example, when Dr. Mohler finished giving a version of this message at New Attitude, “The Mystery of Marriage,” Joshua asked all the single men to stand up so that he could pray for them as they applied this message to their own lives. I noted wryly that only about a third of the room stood up. This imbalance in the church is one of the reasons for the surplus of single women.

I was also about to follow Dr. Mohler at this conference with my own message to single women, one in which I presented a slightly different perspective on the gift of singleness. My burden was that single women wouldn’t live in the future — waiting to receive another gift — but live fruitfully now, finding God’s grace to be sufficient for this season. Like Elisabeth Elliot once said, “If you are single today, the portion assigned to you for today is singleness. It is God’s gift. Singleness ought not to be viewed as a problem, nor marriage as a right. God in His wisdom and love grants either as a gift.” (Fortunately, my pastor C.J. Mahaney assured me I wasn’t contradicting this renowned theologian and seminary president — there was room for a “both/and” view on this topic.)

Dr. Mohler said if we single adults desired marriage and sexual intimacy, we obviously didn’t have the rare gift of celibacy and thus we should pursue marriage as one of our top priorities. That’s an excellent exhortation to single men, but it can be doubly provoking to single women who must both wrestle with desire (for marriage and, yes, sexual intimacy) and wait on male pursuit. Many women came up to me at this conference saying that since they desired to get married, they were now confident God would provide a husband. I wanted to support their renewed faith, but temper their presumption. Our subjective desires are never a good place to camp out, because if God doesn’t deliver on our schedules, we have a predictably sinful reaction to the perceived delay. Other women were tempted to self-righteousness and bitterness because their suspicions about male passivity were confirmed through this message.

Instead of these extremes, I hoped to encourage women to see that Scripture calls singleness both good and a gift (1 Cor. 7:6-8). It’s not a gift that we are to evaluate as we do Christmas gifts (do I like it? do I want to keep it?). But like other spiritual gifts it’s meant for the good of others (1 Corinthians 12:7) — the local church. There are very real opportunities to glorify God in our singleness. We’re not on hold, even as we hope for marriage. We have a purpose in the Body as single adults. (I don’t have time to fully develop this idea in this initial column, but I will, Lord willing, in future columns.) Seen through the lens of Scripture, singleness is ultimately not at all about us — it is about maximizing God’s glory and His purpose in our lives.