Pastor John, here is an interesting question from a single mom who has the gift of singleness, or she thinks she has the gift of singleness. Anna is her name and she writes this, "Pastor John, thank you for all of your wonderful service to our Lord. My question for you is one that I have wrestled with since the birth of my only child, a son.

He's now three. I'm a single parent and have been since his conception and I thank the Lord for his work in my heart that has transformed my soul and lifestyle from where it was until now. Now as I attempt to wrap my head around the overwhelming task of raising this boy into a man by myself, I do not feel called to marriage, but am I obligated to find a godly mate to complete the model of a family that's clearly laid out in Scripture?

As a single parent, is it forbidden for me to embrace a life of singleness and unhindered service to the Lord as described by Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 7?" Well I joined Anna in rejoicing that God has changed her life from those days, and it sounds really true that he has.

Here's my short answer. No, no. Anna is not obligated to find a godly mate so that her son can have a father. I don't see any direct mandate in the Bible or clear implication of biblical teaching that rises to the level of obligation, so that's my short answer. My encouragement would be not in terms of obligation, but rather perhaps openness to marriage and prayer towards marriage.

Let me just sow a few thoughts, Anna, into your thinking so that as you ponder and pray over the Scriptures, God might use these to direct your thinking. First, Jesus, the incarnate Jesus that we know in the Gospels as an expression of God's own heart, has a special concern for mothers who have children to raise on their own.

For example, in Luke 7, "As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow." So you got husband is gone and only son is gone, and this is the next thing we read.

"And a considerable crowd of the town was with her, and when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her." Now I think sentences like that are in the Gospels precisely to encourage us to take heart. I mean, why would we be told that our Lord Jesus, the creator of the universe, the one who holds everything in being, the one who died for us, reigns over us now and cares for us and is with us to the end of the age, has compassion on a woman who has lost her husband and who has now lost her son.

And he says, "Do not weep." So I think the point of the story is definitely he has power to raise the dead, which he does. He raises the boy from the dead, but he does it, he uses that kind of power in the service of compassion for someone for whom life has dealt a very difficult hand, and that would be the case for Anna.

So the first thing, I think, Anna, is to take heart that Jesus has a special kind of compassion for women in your situation. Number two, never think of the family, the nuclear family, husband, wife, children, as the only or the eternal or the main family with which God is concerned.

The church is God's main family on the earth. In the age to come, there will be, it seems, no nuclear family because Jesus says in that age we will have neither marriage nor giving in marriage. The nuclear family is temporary, and the eternal family is the church with God as our Father and all of us as brothers and sisters.

So I would want to elevate—she didn't mention the church, but I'm sowing the seed for her to think about—I would want to elevate the local church as the expression of God's family for her life. I think that's precisely where she should embed this child in relationships with the wider family—men, women, boys and girls—so that that's where the child will connect in all the varying ways that he's going to need in order to be as rounded as he should be.

That's the second thing. The third is just an expansion of it. The church is where this little boy is going to find or should find strong, humble, godly men in action. Here's where the men should emerge into your life, Anna, besides any family members you have. Maybe your father could be involved, or uncles or cousins, but the church is really crucial in his upbringing because your son is going to need to have mature, healthy, godly men around him.

And you want him to grow up not just to be a kind of freewheeling man, but a godly churchman, a lover of the people of God, the church. And the fourth thing to say is, to be sure, marriage is more than the creation of parents. Marriage is more than providing masculine and feminine role models.

So you should not marry merely out of a sense of hope that your son will get an example of manhood. It's more than that, and you're going to need more than that out of it for it to be what it ought to be. But I would encourage you, and this may stretch, I would encourage you to ask, that is pray, ask the Lord for a heart for marriage.

You say you're not called to marriage. That means there's no burning desire for it, no sense of desperation or need for it, and that's fine. But I would ask that you seek the Lord for a natural, not desperate, but natural emerging heart for marriage and an opportunity for marriage, and that the heart and the opportunity come together, lest there be frustration.

The reason I say this is that even though I would not call marriage an obligation, I would say it is doubly natural in your case. Natural first, because marriage is the ordinary pattern that God set up in the world. It is not good for man to be alone. And I think he would say the same thing about the woman.

It's not good for the woman to be alone unless various circumstances make it so. So first, natural because that's the way he set up ordinary relationships. The second thing that makes it natural is that it's natural for children to have two parents, even though this is not possible in many cases today.

So it seems right to me that you would pray something like this. This would be my sample prayer for you if I were you. "Lord, I don't feel any need for marriage in myself. I don't have any passion for it, but I see it in your Word as natural for men and women.

I see it as good for children and as a beautiful testimony to Christ's covenant with His church, to the world, a testimony to the world like that. So I am open to your working in me and in my relationships to bring this about. If this is what you want for me, would you give me a heart for it and bring the man into my life with whom I could fully, joyfully serve you and raise my son?" That's my prayer.

I think it is possible, Anna, to pray that, pray like that, and not fall into the trap of being so preoccupied with what might be that you're unable to live the happy, fulfilled life that you can live without that. So you see the tension. The Lord is able to give you contentment both in singleness and give you the ability to seek the heart for marriage and the possibility of a partner in life and a father for your son.

Both are possible. So my closing promise would simply be 2 Corinthians 9, 8, "God is able to make all grace abound to you so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times you may abound in every good work." And that would be the good work of being a single mom or the good work of being a wife.

That's a beautifully balanced word, Pastor John. Thank you. And Anna, that is an excellent question, well-worded. Thank you for sending that in to us. And I appreciate you listening to this podcast. We publish three times a week, and you can subscribe to our audio feeds. You can even search our episode archive and reach us by email with a perplexing life question of your own.

Do all that through our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. Well, it is a perennial question. It's an important one. Do all religious paths lead to God eventually? Why or why not? And how do we know from Scripture? I'll ask John Piper that next time. I'm your host Tony Reike. We'll see you on Friday.