Our focus should be on loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. That is true whatever our marital status might be. We should not see marriage as the end goal of our lives; we should instead be asking, “How do I serve and glorify God best through my marriage?” Marriage can be a great platform to serve God and other people rather than a selfish end in itself. While there are many ways to answer this question, let me just give you a few to think about.
When people get married, you often see a familiar pattern emerging. Instead of spending time with their friends as they used to do, all of their time is now devoted to their spouse. They stop going to parties and their previously-large social circle begins to shrink. It is this phenomenon that the Skyhooks sang about in their 1975 song “All my friends are getting married”:
Well all my friends are getting married
Yes they’re all growin’ old
They’re staying home on weekends
They’re all doin’ what they’re told.
There is something good about devotion to your spouse, of course. And being married will undoubtedly change the way your social life works. Yet this complete withdrawal into a marriage “bubble” reveals something about our hearts. It is like the goal in life is to be married, and once that goal is achieved, you can just enjoy it and work hard on it. Everything else now becomes a distant second place.
Do you see the problem with this? The goal in life for Christians should not be to get married. Marriage is a good gift from God, sure. But so is singleness, in a different way. Marriage was never supposed to be the ultimate thing. Marriage itself is supposed to point to the love of Christ and the church.