If we are to escape this futile desire for the easier answer we must consider the biblical model of God’s loving grace to His people.

God’s blessings were not always easy to bear, were not always easy to see. The truth is the lives of God’s people leave us with complex questions to which there are no easy answers. While it is natural to desire easy answers and quick methods, it is more a reflection of our flesh than of the Spirit.

Let’s face it, it is far easier to sell books when you promise people that these steps will lead to their fulfillment or that this method will ease their pain. But I would feel deceptive if I did not face the reality that for most people life is a struggle. For most people life is not easy at all. Most of the world lives in squalor. Most of the world knows daily sorrows.

“Life is pain princess! Anyone who tells you differently is selling something!” (The Princess Bride, 1987)

Life is not exclusively pain, and yet it is folly to spend our lives trying to avoid pain. The pain associated with singleness can drive one to distraction but it is only part of the greater picture. We may walk with a limp but we must walk.

For most Christians it is not finding a relationship that is difficult, it is living the Christian life. What is most difficult is learning to trust a God who gives and takes away, who lifts up and humbles, who loves and then wounds. For most of us it is this issue of trust that plagues us, for if we trusted Him—truly trusted Him—we could rest in the confidence that His “grace is sufficient.”

It is the pruning of life that is painful and the process of maturing that hurts. In all that we do we dare not forget that simple principle of the Christian faith—God is love. In the shade of this great maxim we can sit, rest and be loved.

Too often we are unable to place the desire for a relationship in its place. We sometimes isolated this one great desire so that it takes a life of its own apart from the larger Christian life. So then, for God to deny us a relationship is tantamount to denying us salvation. Sometimes all the blessings of God sour in light of one great lack, but this should never be.

His grace is sufficient and even now He is providing our daily bread—even now He loves.

The greatest love was displayed on the cross in the greatest of injustices and sufferings. And this greatest of joyful tragedies can be explained with the simplest of answers—love. So when I think of who we are before God and the struggle we endure in finding a mate, I consider the simplest of answers—love. The problem is that this simple answer leads to many complex questions—How? Why? How long?

Three times the beloved apostle Paul pleaded with the Lord to ease the pain and God refused (2 Cor. 12:8). Grace was sufficient for Paul, but is it sufficient for us? Oh! It is sufficient for us! He takes the wounded and the broken and loves them. He is not concerned with our scars just now. One day He will restore us, but for now these scars are reminders of where we have been.