Hello again Heart_Melody and very nice to meet you as well,
First, I don't know if I would call it contentment, for as I am sure that you know, being single yourself, that there are times when we miss and desire to have that special relationship of marriage with all of its spiritual, emotional and physical comforts and benefits. And Just like with everything, there are always the pros and cons.
I will share with you and the other readers my reasons for being single. I'll try not to make it too long
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I came to believe in the Lord when I was about 14 and was eager to learn all that I could. For years I studied and prayed regularly. I would share Christ whenever the opportunity arose in conversation and share what I had learned. But there was something that was always interfering with my life in Christ, which was sexual immorality. I'd go through relationship after relationship, being sexually immoral in all of them. No matter how I tried, confessed or prayed, I could never seem to get it out of my life.
This went on for many years during my life as a Christian, but I never could seem to break away from it completely, even though I continued to pray and ask for forgiveness. And because I was in Christ, I had two natures, the old sinful nature and the new man in Christ. And because of this, I could not live happily in that state. What's more, that life style leads to doing the rest of the acts of the sinful nature, partying, drugs, drunkenness and everything else relating to the sinful nature. I was never happy and I got to a point where I didn't have any strength to fight against it and just went along like that for many years. However, I knew that continuing to willfully live in the sinful nature would lead to death.
At one point in my life and thanks be to God, I just could not live that way any longer, because the struggle between those two natures was tearing me up inside. I wanted to be free from sexual immorality once and for all, as well as everything that was attached to it. So I was determined to get it out of my life. I prayed to God saying that this was either going to lead me death or that He was going to help me to overcome it.
So, from that point on, the battle line was drawn. I removed everything from my life that would be a temptation for sexual immorality, no dating, no girlfriends, etc., etc. From that time forward I was always on my guard, because I was serious about being free of it and not letting it continue in my life. And I believe that because God saw that I was serious about it, that He rescued me from it, helping me to overcome it. It was a hard battle because of my own desires and because the powers of darkness want us to remain living sexually immoral lives. I think that this is probably one of the most controlling and troublesome sins for most Christians. Many of them even reason with themselves saying, "oh, it's ok, we are eventually going to get married, so its ok if we sleep together," or something to that affect.
From that time and as the years went by, I just decided to remain single and stay celibate. I didn't have the desire to date or get romantically involved, which is where I am today.
I'm just waiting for the Lord's promise to come and take His church back to the Father's house to those places that He went to prepare for us (John 14:1-3), or to die and my depart and go immediately to be in the presence of the Lord waiting for the resurrection (2 Corinthians 5:6 and Philippians 1:21-23) . I'd prefer to be alive, changed and caught up, but it's not my decision
My main reason was and is to live a life that is glorifying and pleasing to God by honoring Him with my body, which as Paul wrote, "is our reasonable act of worship."
"Therefore I urge you, brothers, on account of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship." - Romans 12:1
So, there you have it.
- Don
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