Is the Church Unintentionally Red-Pilling Me?

     

    If I am a person easily tempted to be anxious and God says I should trust Him in all things, then God's word says that getting married will bring me more temptation to be anxious so why should I get into a situation that will tempt me to be more anxious? What is the advantage to getting married? Whether I struggle with sexual temptation as a single person, or as a married person what difference is it then to be married except more trouble? Being a single Christian is hard enough. Marriage for me feels like a net loss overall, spiritually, physical energy wise, financially. All those things could be used for the Lord, and I would be less anxious. What is the blessing of marriage in the Lord? 

    

    What I hear on Sunday mornings from the pulpit about married life often sounds depressing, and difficult, expensive, and stifling. When I hear my pastors talk about marriage, they usually reference how it reminds them how sinful they are. They seem afraid to speak about their marriage as though doing so will cause trouble for them at every step. As someone who struggles with feeling accepted by God, marriage might just make me feel depressed if I am constantly walking on eggshells about what I can say about marriage, or I am constantly confronted only with how difficult it is, and how expensive it is, and how sinful I am. When pastors mention how much they love their family it often feels like it is an aside needed to balance out how they are using their married life experiences of how sinful they are and how difficult it is. "Before I say anything else I just want to say that I love my wife and children, and love being married" and then comes the implied "but" with a struggle the pastor got permission to talk about or a "because" and then an explanation of how they learned about their own sin. Other times pastors say singles don't know how good it is to be single or the advantages of being single as though they covet being single. Where is the joy of having a fulfilling lifelong relationship like I can have with Jesus so much that it at times might compete with Jesus for attention? Or is it that marriage only competes with Jesus in terms of what people worry about are concerned with?

    My friends too, as soon as they get married often disappear from my life. If I become that kind of person that is not the kind of friend I want to be. I don't want marriage to keep me from being a friend to someone who I have a deep long-term relationship with. It seems like marriage will be an obstacle to me being a good friend.

    Why are so few singles getting married in the church I attend? Perhaps nobody has made a positive public case for the benefits of getting married, nor has anyone made a public positive case for the cultural, and socially redemptive implications, and not enough people are publicly and consistently modelling the joys of marriage. In this kind of environment marriage feels like a mere concession to sexual temptation that one must endure to be a good Christian rather than a joyful choice that people make to share a life together. If you are married and I encourage you to share your apologetic for getting married. Right now, I'm feeling pretty red pilled.