Sam Allberry on Seven Myths of Singleness
The focus of this podcast episode is the exploration of the myths surrounding singleness, as articulated by our esteemed guest, Sam Alberry, in relation to his enlightening book, "Seven Myths of Singleness." We engage in a profound discourse that seeks to dismantle the prevalent misconceptions regarding the nature of intimacy and the societal perceptions of singlehood. Throughout our conversation, we explore the notion that singleness is not a mere precursor to marriage, nor is it synonymous with loneliness; rather, it is a state of being that can encompass rich, meaningful relationships and spiritual fulfillment. Alberry offers invaluable insights into the significance of fostering deep, non-romantic connections, emphasizing that true intimacy transcends sexual relationships, fostering a holistic understanding of companionship. This episode serves as a clarion call for both single individuals and those in marital unions to reevaluate their perceptions of intimacy, community, and the inherent value that singleness can embody in our lives.
Takeaways:
- The podcast emphasizes the importance of understanding singleness as a positive state rather than merely a lack of marriage, which is often misconstrued in societal narratives.
- Sam Alberry articulates that true intimacy can exist outside of romantic relationships, advocating for the recognition of deep friendships and community bonds.
- A significant discussion is presented regarding the misconceptions surrounding the 'gift of singleness' and the need to view both singleness and marriage as gifts from God.
- Listeners are encouraged to engage in meaningful friendships that foster mutual support and understanding, breaking the asymmetry often seen in relationships between singles and married individuals.
- The episode highlights Paul's role as a spiritual father, illustrating how single individuals can still fulfill parental roles through mentorship and spiritual guidance within their communities.
- A crucial takeaway is the emphasis on finding contentment not in marital status but in one's relationship with Jesus, which transcends the challenges faced in both singleness and marriage.
Transcript
Hey there and welcome back to the Clarity Podcast.
Speaker A:This podcast is all about providing clarity insight, encouragement for life and mission.
Speaker A:And my name is Aaron Sandemier and I get to be your host.
Speaker A:Today we have the phenomenal opportunity to sit down with Sam Alberry.
Speaker A:This is Sam's second time on the podcast with us.
Speaker A:We get to sit down today and discuss his book, seven Myths of Singleness.
Speaker A:What a fascinating read.
Speaker A:For me, I have the opportunity of serving many different people that serve in East Africa and they serve as.
Speaker A:And they serve solo.
Speaker A:They serve single and to understand and sit down and learn.
Speaker A:I'm really trying to grow my understanding of this topic and subject.
Speaker A:And so my wife, somebody recommended it to my wife, my wife recommended it to me.
Speaker A:And now we're sitting down with Sam to have a conversation so insightful.
Speaker A:Just we go through some of the myths that, that Sam, he shares about what true intimacy is, how our world, Western world has changed the view of what intimacy is and what it can be.
Speaker A:How if you're serving solo, you can still have family and you can still be spiritual mother or spiritual father in certain relationships.
Speaker A:It's powerful and sometimes the incongruence in relationships.
Speaker A:So I think this is a great lesson if you're serving solo.
Speaker A:I think it's a great listen if you're somebody that a part of a family, a husband, wife and you're serving alongside somebody that's serving solo.
Speaker A:How you can just some things just to understand.
Speaker A:Really appreciated Sam.
Speaker A:He always brings wisdom and insight and great, great perspective.
Speaker A:Do and ask you to continue to send in your questions for Backchannel with foe.
Speaker A:That's where we get sent down with Dick and get to learn from him on his wisdom and his insight, his years of experience and his great storytelling.
Speaker A:And so send those questions to me.
Speaker A:My email's in the show notes for that.
Speaker A:Ask you to also subscribe.
Speaker A:I know the podcast I subscribe to.
Speaker A:They're ones I listen and they're the ones that download on my phone on Monday or Tuesday and then I know what I'm going to listen to throughout the week.
Speaker A:Well, there's no time better than now to get started.
Speaker A:So here we go.
Speaker B:Greetings and welcome back to the Clarity Podcast.
Speaker B:So excited to have a return guest of the podcast, Sam Alberry.
Speaker B:Sam, welcome back to the podcast.
Speaker C:Thank you.
Speaker C:It's good to be with you, Sam.
Speaker B:My voice is a little raspy, so sorry about that.
Speaker B:But do you.
Speaker B:Would you go ahead and share a little bit about yourself?
Speaker B:We had you on the podcast a few years ago and what valuable conversation we had and just excited about our conversation today.
Speaker B:But will you share a little bit about yourself before we jump into seven myths of, of singleness?
Speaker C:Yeah, I'm, I serve as a pastor.
Speaker C:I'm from England, but live now in Nashville, Tennessee.
Speaker C:I'm at a church called Emanuel Nashville.
Speaker C:I'm one of the pastors there.
Speaker C:And I can't remember if I talked about this in our previous conversation, but Kenya has played a big part of my early spiritual growth.
Speaker C:I, I had a, my, my first.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:In my first year as a Christian, I spent several months in Kenya, and I feel like I learned how to pray.
Speaker D:Wow.
Speaker C:Being around some, some friends in Kenya.
Speaker C:So where you're speaking to me from now is, is a place that means a great deal to me.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:And that's such an honor, such an honor to spend.
Speaker B:Sam, you, you write, you speak, you share a little bit more about that.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:I mean, I, I, I don't know how I stumbled into doing that, but I, I seem to be doing it.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:I, I think as a, it, it began when, as a pastor, I was doing a, a teaching series on the resurrection.
Speaker C:And this is many years ago now.
Speaker C:And I realized that I wanted to recommend a book that I could just put in someone's hand.
Speaker C:If you want to find out more about the resurrection and what it means, read this.
Speaker C:And there were books out there that were apologetics books, evidence for the resurrection, but there weren't much on the meaning and significance of it.
Speaker C:And I had a, some, some leave coming up, a couple of months leave.
Speaker C:And some, someone said you should write a book.
Speaker C:And I thought, okay.
Speaker C:So I just sat and started writing and thought, if I enjoy it, I'll carry on doing it.
Speaker C:If I don't, that's okay.
Speaker C:And wrote a book and then did what publishers hate, which is I wrote a whole book and then went up to a publisher and said, hey, what do you think?
Speaker C:But amazingly, they, they published it so well.
Speaker C:There we go.
Speaker B:And the rest is history.
Speaker B:All right, well, we're going to talk today about singleness.
Speaker B:This was a very, you know, I have the opportunity of serving people in different teams that, that are serving solo or serving single.
Speaker B:And this has been very valuable to me and I've learned a lot.
Speaker B:So excited for the audience to get to be a part of this conversation.
Speaker B:So you share about how we just, we describe sing sometimes can be in a form of negation or lack of.
Speaker B:In the limits.
Speaker B:The goodness of singleness versus a blessing from God that should be affirmed and Celebrated.
Speaker B:Could you unpack that a little bit for us?
Speaker C:Yeah, I was just thinking the, the, the language we use often implies we define singleness by the lack of marriage rather than the presence of what is uniquely good about being single.
Speaker C:So it's, we even use the word unmarried and you know, you wouldn't call a married person unsingle.
Speaker C:So just the way we, we think about it conceptually tends to mean the absence of something.
Speaker C:And what, what was so striking to me looking at the, the Bible on this is how singleness is, is thought of so positively rather than the absence of being married.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:So it's good to think of singleness on its own terms, not merely as the, the thing that is the precursor to marriage in the case of many people or the state to which people revert when, when a partner dies or a divorce happens, but to think of it as something in and of itself that is, is good and healthy and positive for us.
Speaker B:Well, and that's interesting you shared there because you could be single, married and then because of life events, whether that's divorce, whether that's of a spouse.
Speaker B:So it's, it's interesting it.
Speaker B:A movable state or a movable season maybe.
Speaker B:Is that, does that make sense?
Speaker C:It does, yeah.
Speaker C:And I think that's very significant because the, you know, the typical trajectory is you, you start your life single.
Speaker C:At some point, in most cases you get married.
Speaker C:And so we, we think of that as being the sequence of life.
Speaker C:But actually half of married people, over half of married people will be single again.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Again through divorce or bereavement.
Speaker C:And it's that single again part a lot of people don't think about.
Speaker C:It's easy for someone to think, well, I'm married now, I don't ever have to think about singleness again or that have to do that again.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:And it's better to think about it before you're plunged into it, particularly in a, you know, a painful, through a painful kind of series of events or whatever.
Speaker C:So yeah, I think it's good for married people to think about singleness A, so that they can better understand their presently single friends.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker C:But B, so that they can be better prepared for when they re.
Speaker C:Enter singleness later on in life if, if they do.
Speaker B:Wow, that's a good word.
Speaker B:Good word.
Speaker B:One of the other things you shared that, that I spent some, some time thinking about was this idea that how for those who are single, comparing the ups, the downs of singleness with the ups of marriage can impact perspective.
Speaker B:And then it made Me think, honestly, the, the verse, right, I'm married now.
Speaker B:And, and so I thought about how my comparisons.
Speaker B:So will you share a little bit about that, Sam?
Speaker C:Yeah, it is.
Speaker C:And again, the, sort of, the wider, and I'm obviously speaking in my own context of the Western world, but the cultural narrative is you need to, you know, have, have a romantic person in your life to be fulfilled and complete.
Speaker C:And so someone who is, is single and celibate, as single Christians are called to be, is feeling the cultural pressure that you're meant to have this other person and then everything will be amazing.
Speaker C:And so it's very easy with that cultural backdrop for single people to kind of peer over the fence into their married friends lives and to think, oh, that's, that's so much easier, that's so much better.
Speaker C:They have fewer problems.
Speaker C:You know, if I got married, all the problems I have right now would be fixed.
Speaker C:Then I would be happy and it would be easier.
Speaker C:But the reality is when, when two sinners make vows to each other, there's going to be, there's going to be hard work.
Speaker C:However, however good a marriage is, it's still going to have its, its difficulties that there's, there's effort required, there are going to be seasons where it's, it's hard and painful and there's, you know, Paul talks in, in First Corinthians 7 about people who are married having troubles in this life.
Speaker C:I can't remember exactly how he words it may be worldly troubles or something like that.
Speaker C:And he says to the single people, I would spare you this.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:And Paul has wonderful, glorious things to say about marriage too.
Speaker C:It's not that Paul is cynical or down on marriage, but it's just the reality that there are going to be.
Speaker C:When you go from singleness to marriage, among other things, you're exchanging the problems of singleness or the problems of marriage.
Speaker C:And it's easy to think as a single person, there aren't really problems in marriage, which to a married person sounds absurd because of course there are.
Speaker C:But when you're a single person and the grass is looking much greener on the other side, it's very easy to think, well, everything will be okay once I'm married.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:Wow.
Speaker C:So it's helped me spending time with married people and married people who've been honest with me about things just to realize, okay, yeah, that's, they have their tough times and at times married people have said there are times when they, they envy their single friends and it goes in both directions.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:And you mentioned Paul and his writings.
Speaker B:And one of the things that really jumped out to me is I had never thought about it this way.
Speaker B:As you shared, was that Paul doesn't say that being married is hard and being single is easy, but rather marriage is complic and singleness is less complicated.
Speaker B:Yeah, you share a little bit more about that also.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So he talks in again in First Corinthians 7, which is the sort of biggest extended treatment of this in the Bible.
Speaker C:He, he talks about the single person being undivided in his devotion to the Lord.
Speaker C:And I think what he's meaning there is if you're married, you're being pulled in so many more directions.
Speaker C:Particularly if you're married with children, you just.
Speaker C:Your life is less flexible.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:And by and large for single people, unless they are a single post marriage and still have lots of family responsibilities, typically for single people who've not married, that that's not the case.
Speaker C:It's.
Speaker C:It's much easier for me to drop everything and, and hop in the car and go off and visit someone at short notice than it is for my married friends.
Speaker C:I was visiting some married friends recently who've been going through a difficult season and it's, it's hard for them to socialize because they've.
Speaker C:The family situation they're in right now with the kids and the dynamics.
Speaker C:It's just not easy for them to get everyone in the car and get to another person's house.
Speaker C:And it's a lot of.
Speaker C:And most of their friends are married in similar situations.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker C:I says much easier for me to be a friend to them because it's much easier for me to just pop up and see them.
Speaker C:I'll even take dinner up and provide dinner for them.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Than it would be for their rather married friends who also have young children and complexity in their life.
Speaker C:So there's a kind of nimbleness that I found with being single that makes it easier to, to do certain things and be a friend or serve in certain ways than if I was married.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:It's a good word.
Speaker B:And it's.
Speaker B:I love the way you've unpacked this and you've given structure and language that's helped me as a leader to be able to have conversations and to serve people and have a more insightful, intelligent conversation.
Speaker B:And it's given great perspective and so I'm very, very thankful for it.
Speaker B:One of the things, you know, I've this idea that singleness.
Speaker B:One of the myths is it's a special calling And I think.
Speaker B:I think I've probably even said that myself.
Speaker B:So you share.
Speaker B:That's the myth.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker B:So what are some reasons that's a myth?
Speaker C:Yeah, well, Paul uses this language early in the chapter of First Corinthians 7 where he talks about each has their, Their gift.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And marriage and singleness, both being.
Speaker C:Both being gifts.
Speaker C:But the gift of singleness as a phrase has kind of taken on added meaning that I don't think is there in the text.
Speaker C:And people assume the gift of singleness is some very unusual capacity to be able to cope with it.
Speaker C:And so I think it's led to a sort of this almost meme in the Christian life that if you have the gift of singleness, you should be single.
Speaker C:Whereas I think the lot.
Speaker C:The biblical logic is the other.
Speaker C:If you're single, you have the gift of singleness, and when you're married, you have the gift of marriage.
Speaker C:But I think the assumption behind that, that way of thinking has been that singleness is this intrinsically difficult thing.
Speaker C:And so only few people are called to it, and they need a special superpower if they are.
Speaker C:And we call that the gift of singleness.
Speaker D:Okay.
Speaker C:But the, the assumption actually in the New Testament seems to be the other way around.
Speaker C:When, when Jesus in Matthew 19 is asked about marriage and divorce and he, he speaks into that, that the reaction of the disciples when Jesus talks about marriage, their reaction is to say it's better to be single because they're hearing the commitment Jesus is speaking about.
Speaker C:So we tend to think, oh, marriage is the easy thing.
Speaker C:Let's.
Speaker C:And in the Western world especially, let's.
Speaker C:Let's broaden marriage and open it up to as many types of people as possible because we don't want people to, you know, singleness is the hard thing.
Speaker C:But actually properly understanding the commitment of biblical marriage, that the reaction of the disciples is, whoa, maybe singleness would be.
Speaker C:Would be better.
Speaker C:So we're coming with a different set of assumptions.
Speaker C:We're assuming singleness is the hard one, marriage is the easier one.
Speaker C:I think that's, that's not the assumption of the New Testament.
Speaker C:And so when Paul is talking about the gift of singleness, he's talking about the gift of being single and the opportunities that come with being single, just as marriage comes with its, its unique gifts and opportunities as well.
Speaker C:So both are an expression of the goodness of God.
Speaker B:And interesting, when the, the word.
Speaker B:There are definitions of the word gift, right?
Speaker B:Because you, you talk about the challenge of a gift, and then a gift as a.
Speaker B:Is Like a gift.
Speaker B:And so it's, it's interesting how we can read into it and, and it's, it's helped me have better conversations and hear perspectives and learn, learn from that.
Speaker B:One of the other things that I was found very insightful was this delineating between intimacy and sex, that having a biblical view.
Speaker B:And that's what the other thing.
Speaker B:Sam, I've appreciated this book is written from a biblical view with biblical understanding you have experiences and thoughts, but it's based on God's word and man.
Speaker B:How that just helps us greatly.
Speaker B:Having a biblical view of singleness and the idea of what intimacy and sex is and differentiating between the two and how a biblical view can impact our view of singleness when it comes to intimacy and sex.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And again I'm, I'm operating in a, at a Western context.
Speaker C:Many of your listeners won't be, although many of them will be formerly western people.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker C:But you know, in so many parts of the world, the west is, has such cultural influence.
Speaker C:But the, the sort of thinking in the west is that sex and intimacy are pretty much the same thing.
Speaker C:And we've so collapsed the one into the other that we, we find it hard to imagine any forms of intimacy that aren't actually ultimately sexual.
Speaker C:And so because we've sexualized intimacy as a whole in the west, when we hear of people speaking of closeness or affection or some kind of emotional identification or anything like that, any kind of deep connection, we tend to assume, aha, that must be sexual.
Speaker C:And we just see that all over the place.
Speaker C:Yeah, but the Bible shows us there are.
Speaker C:They're.
Speaker C:The Bible has a much broader view of intimacy than we do because the Bible has opens up non sexual categories of intimacy that we are meant to enjoy.
Speaker C:David and Jonathan are a wonderful example of non sexual intimacy.
Speaker C:I was teaching last week on doing a series on friendship.
Speaker C:And that the language of affection Paul uses would raise eyebrows today.
Speaker C:He says to Philemon of Ansimus, I'm sending you my very heart.
Speaker C:A man is using that language of his male friend.
Speaker C:That man there is my very heart.
Speaker C:He says to Timothy, I long to see you twice.
Speaker C:In, in Romans 16, he refers to friends as my beloved.
Speaker C:So there's a depth of affection there that is nothing to do with, with romance and sex, which we've lost in the Western world and we need to regain because we're otherwise.
Speaker C:We've so sexualized our language of intimacy and, and affection that we've effectively.
Speaker C:Well, that's meant is if you're not in A romantic relationship, you then don't get to have any intimacy.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Whereas the Bible actually says friendship, properly understood, is.
Speaker C:It is a deeply intimate form of relationship.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:So we need to recover the biblical vision of this broader category of intimacy and make sure.
Speaker C:I mean this is not just a thing for singles, but.
Speaker C:But married people need to understand this too, because there's friendship and connection married people need outside of their marriage in order for their marriage to be healthy.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:So it'll help all of us if we can lean into the sort of healthy biblical non sexual forms of intimacy that actually we're designed to need as people made by God in his image.
Speaker B:Sam, do you think that's what's led to some of the.
Speaker B:I don't want to come on an epidemic, but the loneliness epidemic in the United States.
Speaker B:I mean, people, as you travel.
Speaker B:I've traveled and speak.
Speaker B:And people seem lonely now than they ever have been.
Speaker B:And people is.
Speaker B:Do you think this is the misunderstanding of what.
Speaker B:Because you said this is not just for marriage or just for singles, but it's for all of us to regain what intimacy means.
Speaker B:Do you think that that might be pouring into some.
Speaker B:Some of the reasons that we're lonelier than we ever have been.
Speaker B:We have this misconception of what intimacy truly is?
Speaker C:I think so, yeah.
Speaker C:There's.
Speaker C:There's lots of things happening at the same time with COVID obviously accelerated a lot of this, but with the, you know, the screens, the smartphones, all of that, it's.
Speaker C:It's just easier to be with a screen than it is to be with another human being.
Speaker C:And we've, we've lost a number of our basic social skills.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Certainly in the West.
Speaker C:And one of the reasons I'm teaching a much longer series on friendship than I thought I would be is because I realized there are lots of things that were social, common sense 10, 15 years ago that aren't now.
Speaker C:And people need more help to think about how to be a friend, how to.
Speaker C:How to have conversations with people, how to, how to make a friend.
Speaker C:Because we've.
Speaker C:Our phones are giving us the illusion of relationship through online interactions.
Speaker C:And that is just no substitute for real physical, in person, face to face friendship.
Speaker C:But it feels easier.
Speaker C:And with so much social anxiety.
Speaker C:There was a.
Speaker C:There's a.
Speaker C:One of the trends on TikTok right now is to post a celebration video for when a friend cancels on you so that you don't have to go out that evening.
Speaker C:Wow.
Speaker C:Now some of that's kind of goofy and tongue in Cheek.
Speaker C:But there's.
Speaker C:There's a serious thing underlying that, which is a trend.
Speaker C:I just saw this month's edition of the Atlantic, the news magazine.
Speaker C:The COVID story is on how people are in their loneliness and anxiety, are still pursuing solitude because it's just easier.
Speaker C:We don't know how to do friendship.
Speaker C:We don't know how to talk to people anymore.
Speaker C:It's.
Speaker C:It's stressful.
Speaker C:We'd rather stay indoors with a screen.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Which, of course, in the long term is only making us lonelier and more anxious.
Speaker C:So I would love.
Speaker C:I would love churches to be kind of ground zero for friendship and places where we, you know, part of our.
Speaker C:Our goal as pastors is to cultivate a place where it is easier and not harder to make significant and deep friendships and to be a kind of countercultural.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Countercultural force for that.
Speaker B:It's a good word and a good challenge for all those who.
Speaker B:Of us who are involved in church, in the church and then also leading teams and in many different spaces to create those opportunities.
Speaker B:You continued on to talk about how Paul was a great father, but he.
Speaker B:He's.
Speaker B:He was never married.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And how does that.
Speaker B:Paul being a great father, speak to those that are single today?
Speaker B:And how.
Speaker B:How does that help us understand?
Speaker B:And you gave some great illustrations and examples from your own life, but can you share about this?
Speaker C:Yeah, this is.
Speaker C:This is a, there's some.
Speaker C:Maybe some eyebrows being raised even as you ask that question, because, yeah, Paul.
Speaker C:Paul was a single man.
Speaker C:So we assume, A, that that must mean he was on his own, and B, he didn't really have a family.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:And what becomes apparent as we read his letters with care is that Paul was not on his own.
Speaker C:One of my favorite chapters in the Bible is Romans 16.
Speaker C:And we often skip over it because it feels like the end credits to the sort of the Book of Romans.
Speaker C:They want to skip to the next episode.
Speaker C:But passages like that show us just how relationally embedded Paul was.
Speaker C:And there are times in his letters where he.
Speaker C:He uses parental language in both directions.
Speaker C:He talks about someone being a mother in the law to him, but he also very frequently talks about people being Titus.
Speaker C:Timothy he describes as my beloved son in the faith.
Speaker C:And Paul's not meaning that in a kind of.
Speaker C:He's meaning that.
Speaker C:Seriously.
Speaker C:I looked up the Greek for in how he addresses Titus is my legitimate, begotten, my lawful son.
Speaker C:That's serious.
Speaker C:That's not kind of casual, hey, kiddo kind of language.
Speaker C:There's a spiritual reality behind that, that Paul Evidently takes seriously and celebrates, says to the whole of the church in Corinth that he's a father to them.
Speaker C:Not a very happy father in their case.
Speaker C:But there's something that happens in.
Speaker C:In Christian ministry ministry that.
Speaker C:That actually brings about a parent child dynamic If.
Speaker C:If we're used by the Lord in bringing someone to faith or in helping to spiritually form a younger disciple, there's a.
Speaker C:There's a parental dimension to that relationship.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Which is an amazing privilege.
Speaker C:And obviously that.
Speaker C:That's a very significant responsibility, too.
Speaker C:That's the kind of thing that can easily be abused and taken advantage of.
Speaker C:But nevertheless, there's a sense in which as.
Speaker C:As a single person, you can be a spiritual parent.
Speaker C:And this came home to me because I was.
Speaker C:I was preaching through Titus and I'd.
Speaker C:I'd set myself.
Speaker C:For some reason, I thought we always skip over the kind of opening greetings of a letter.
Speaker C:I'm just going to do a sermon just on how Paul introduces himself and introduces Titus.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Which meant I had to get some, you know, a fair amount of mileage out of a few words.
Speaker C:And so I went.
Speaker C:I was studying them deeply, but I.
Speaker C:I found myself really paying attention to that parent language and teaching on it.
Speaker C:And that.
Speaker C:That triggered a number of people in the congregation writing to me, saying, you.
Speaker C:You have been a father figure to me.
Speaker C:And I've.
Speaker C:The last few years, the church I'm at, I.
Speaker C:It's not unusual for me to.
Speaker C:To receive Father's Day messages and greetings.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:From people who've.
Speaker C:Who would say I've played a part in their spiritual growth over the years.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:And that's been a.
Speaker C:That's been a sweet thing for someone in my situation.
Speaker C:Late 40s had, you know, unlikely to become a biological father.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:To realize actually there are ways in which I've been a.
Speaker C:I've had some kind of parental role.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:All these years, sometimes without even even realizing it.
Speaker C:And that's a sweet thing.
Speaker C:And it taps into what Jesus promises in Mark 10, that the.
Speaker C:The one who has left fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters and sons and daughters will have those things a hundredfold in Jesus, sons and daughters included.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:So the church.
Speaker C:And again, the church is meant to be the place where that is.
Speaker C:That is a felt reality where I want people in church, irrespective of their marital status, to feel like they do have fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters and sons and daughters.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Because that's.
Speaker C:That's what the New Testament is calling us into.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:It's a good word.
Speaker B:Good word.
Speaker B:And, and, and a significant understanding and something to embrace, I think for each of us to consider and embrace that challenge and what you shared about what Jesus promises us with family and, you know, with the promises, we play a role in that and how we can engage with it.
Speaker B:Just a few more questions for you, Sam.
Speaker B:What are some of the difficulties of singleness that those who are now married may have forgotten or maybe they never known or would be good for them to remember in this season?
Speaker C:Yeah, this varies hugely from person to person and context to context.
Speaker C:So I want to throw that important caveat out there.
Speaker C:I moved from the UK to the, to the States a few years ago and even, even that move has, I've moved from a smaller town to a.
Speaker C:Nashville is not the biggest city in the world, but it's, it's a much bigger place than where I was previously living.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker C:So even in that dynamic, I've noticed, oh this, this part is easier.
Speaker C:That part is harder.
Speaker C:I, I live in a place now where it being an American city rather than a British town, every, everything is physically further away.
Speaker C:I can't walk to a friend's house back in England.
Speaker C:I could, I can think of half a dozen friends I could easily walk to within 10 or 15 minutes.
Speaker D:Sure.
Speaker C:But on the other hand, because it's a, because it's not a small town but a, but a city, there are more people around.
Speaker C:So, and, and you know, the, the, the culture of the church plays into this too.
Speaker C:But I think, and I'm, you know, being single in your 40s, in my case nearly 50s, is very different to being a single in your 20s.
Speaker C:But I think for those of us who are in the, the middle aged part of, of singleness, having people to do life with can often be a challenge.
Speaker C:It's, it's easy in church life to have lots of people who really want to catch up with you once every three months.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker C:Which is lovely.
Speaker C:But there's, there's catch up with friends and there's do life with friends and we do need some do life with friends.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:And that can often be a challenge.
Speaker C:I've been very blessed in that department where I am right now.
Speaker C:That was harder previous situations.
Speaker C:So I think that that's something with, with married people is thinking, okay, that single person doesn't just need us to have them over every several months, they actually need people to walk through life with and not every married person is going to have the capacity to do that.
Speaker C:But I think the other thing I'VE noticed is it does bless married people to have friends like that.
Speaker C:I've got a couple of very close friends whose wives are the ones who often nudge them out of the house and say, you need some Sam time.
Speaker C:You need to be with a buddy.
Speaker C:That's a different kind of enriching relationship than a husband wife relationship is.
Speaker C:And a marriage can't fulfill every relational and emotional need that the two human beings have.
Speaker C:But just practical things as well.
Speaker C:You know, if you're single, you're probably doing all your own errands and housework and cooking and laundry and all of that kind of thing.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker C:And that takes time.
Speaker C:I was in a ministry context once where we were talking about time off, and I had to say to one of my fellow.
Speaker C:To.
Speaker C:And to another pastor, your wife does your laundry and your wife does your grocery shopping and your wife does your cooking.
Speaker C:I have to do all of that myself, which means at the moment, most of my one day off a week is spent doing errands.
Speaker C:Are not really resting.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:And so the way that plays out in a single person's life is going to be different to how it plays out in a married person's life.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:And obviously the.
Speaker C:The people listening to this are going to be in a range of cultural contexts.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker C:And that can either help or really not help.
Speaker C:In some contexts, there's more cultural pressure if you're.
Speaker C:You're a single.
Speaker C:Particularly if you're a single person over 30.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:You really should be married in some contexts.
Speaker C:In other contexts, there's much more of a sense of community and relationship and extended family and people being folded into that.
Speaker C:So the difficulties do vary from.
Speaker C:From setting to setting.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:One kind of going on that idea with.
Speaker B:With married and singles, with friendships, you.
Speaker B:You share about this idea of being more symmetrical.
Speaker B:What are some things we can do to.
Speaker B:That married people can do to make these friendships with singles more symmetrical?
Speaker B:You talked about the realities of, you know, you're one person doing the errands, the shopping, the cleaning, the what?
Speaker B:There's a lot of different things.
Speaker B:Are there other things, Sam, that we can do to make these friendships more symmetrical rather than a.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:More on a level playing field.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And I.
Speaker C:I'm not saying that, you know, if, again, if you're married, you're.
Speaker C:Your capacities are different to if you're single.
Speaker C:So one dynamic that does happen, not infrequently is a friendship between a married person and a single person, where the single person needs the friendship more than the married person because the married person has a spouse and the single person doesn't.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker C:So the single person may be looking to the friendship for more than the married person is.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker C:That.
Speaker C:That's what I mean by asymmetry.
Speaker C:And just for.
Speaker C:For people to be aware of that.
Speaker C:That.
Speaker C:That's why I think for those of us who are single, it's.
Speaker C:It's good for us to have a.
Speaker C:A wider range of friends.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Because no one friendship, particularly if it's.
Speaker C:If it's another.
Speaker C:If it's a married person, you know, people may not have the same social capacity and we may need more people to do life with compared to someone who's married.
Speaker C:But things like, you know, there was one couple I.
Speaker C:I was good friends with in a earlier.
Speaker C:Much earlier season of life where it was always me going to them.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker C:They would never come to me, and they didn't have kids at this stage.
Speaker C:So that they, you know, it wasn't simply that they was.
Speaker C:But it felt like they wanted me to.
Speaker C:To be a guest star in their.
Speaker C:In their world.
Speaker C:I wasn't sure they wanted to be part of my world and get to know my community and my friends.
Speaker B:Interesting.
Speaker C:And my place.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:And that asymmetrically actually felt unsustainable.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker C:Because I thought I.
Speaker C:No, I need you to step in.
Speaker C:They lived in another city.
Speaker C:So this is why this was a initial.
Speaker C:I thought, I need you to step into my.
Speaker C:My world too.
Speaker C:And I think.
Speaker C:And again, this varies from person to person.
Speaker C:Emotional makeup to emotional makeup and personality type to personality type.
Speaker C:But some symmetry in terms of the.
Speaker C:The people pursuing each other to the same extent.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:There's not always one person taking all the initiative.
Speaker C:Sure.
Speaker C:And I've been really grateful with the.
Speaker C:Some of the friends I.
Speaker C:I have now that I feel like they.
Speaker C:They reach out to me as much as I reach out to them.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:So I think things like that all.
Speaker C:All do make a difference if.
Speaker C:If everything feels a bit lopsided, that.
Speaker C:That can be hard for the.
Speaker C:For the single person.
Speaker B:For sure.
Speaker B:For sure.
Speaker B:One last question for you, Sam.
Speaker B:You talk about finding contentment in Christ rather than.
Speaker B:And being single or even honestly being married.
Speaker B:And so what.
Speaker B:What the importance of finding contentment in Christ.
Speaker B:How did that.
Speaker B:How does that speak to everyone who's listening in?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:This was a.
Speaker C:This was a bit of a breakthrough for me in my own spiritual journey.
Speaker C:But I used to think contentment was okay.
Speaker C:I've got to be content in my singleness.
Speaker C:And what that ended up meaning in practice was a kind of Jedi mind trick on myself, where I'm trying to convince myself that my singleness is wonderful, even though it was.
Speaker C:It had many ups and downs.
Speaker C:What I've realized is I'm not meant to be content in my singleness.
Speaker C:I meant to be content in Jesus as a single person.
Speaker D:Wow, that's good.
Speaker C:And ditto for those listening who are married.
Speaker C:You.
Speaker C:You know, you could.
Speaker C:If you try to find contentment in your marriage, you will either be frustrated or you'll idolize your marriage.
Speaker C:What we need to do is to be content in Jesus as a married person.
Speaker C:And that will help us in the good seasons of married life to realize, okay, our marriage is penultimate.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Our marriage isn't the ultimate thing.
Speaker C:Jesus is.
Speaker C:And then in the more challenging seasons, to realize that's okay.
Speaker C:This marriage was never meant to be perfect.
Speaker C:I was never meant to be drawing my fullest sense of fulfillment from it.
Speaker C:That that's what we find only in.
Speaker C:In Jesus.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:Good word.
Speaker B:Good word.
Speaker B:Sam, anything else?
Speaker B:I should have asked you if you think, Aaron, if you were a good podcast host and you were talking about singleness, you should have asked this question.
Speaker B:And then I'm going to ask you to pray for us.
Speaker B:But is there something you think, man, you should ask this?
Speaker C:I don't think so.
Speaker C:No, you.
Speaker C:You covered it all.
Speaker C:That was great.
Speaker B:All right, Sam, will you pray for us?
Speaker C:I would love to.
Speaker C:Father, thank you so much for being present in our lives.
Speaker C:Thank you for drawing us to yourself.
Speaker C:Thank you for the gift of our union with Jesus.
Speaker C:Thank you for bringing us into fellowship with your people.
Speaker C:Father, whatever our setting, may we have Christian brothers and sisters around us who encourage us, who spur us on people we can serve and be served by.
Speaker C:Father, give us healthy community, healthy friendship, healthy intimacy, whether we're married or single.
Speaker C:And above all, help us to find our fullness in Jesus himself, for we pray in his name.
Speaker C:Amen.
Speaker C:Amen.
