Does God Have Shortages?

I received an e-mail from a friend of mine not that long ago talking about how she felt there was a shortage of godly men in the church, and that we should be praying that God would call more men into the Church to be husband for us single girls.

On first read I totally agreed. Seriously, how many conversations have I had, or heard of about men just not having their act together spiritually, mentally, or economically? But then I started to think (I know, I know, never a good thing! :) Anyway, I started to think about the idea that there is a shortage of godly men in the church.

Does God have shortages?

Is God scraping the bottom of the barrel? And not that we shouldn’t pray for more people to be called by God, but is it something that just has to be done because God has run out of single men He can work with in the Church?

I don’t think so. I don’t think God suffers from shortages in this area. I think He is more than capable of working with the single men in the Church. There are so many great single men that I know. Yes, some of them could use some work, who couldn’t? I think a lot of the reasoning on the idea of a godly man shortage is that many times women want to marry men like their fathers, or older men they look up to. The major problem with that ideal is that it took those older men years to become the men we that know now! It is unfair to hold young single men to an ideal that took other men 30 plus years to obtain!

As a single girl in the Church I have had many a conversation about the sad state of the men in the church. I have heard story after story about some guy being a jerk, or just not having his act together. But is that really fair? I know plenty of women in the church, including myself, that have some big areas in our own lives that need to be worked on. We as women are not somehow exempt because we are women.I think some of the feelings from the single women come from having to wait. Patience is a virtue, but it ain’t easy! As we wait, we think, and as we think, we complain, and as we complain, we can and sometimes do develop a root of bitterness.

What are we waiting for? We are waiting for that guy that clicks, for that guy that feels so drawn to us he can’t help but pursue us. We hear the stories about a shy or aloof single guy in the church that met a woman and it was like a light went off in his head. And where in all those previous years he never pursued a girl, now with the right one he can’t help himself. He found the one.

Sometimes waiting to be found is the hardest part, but I still think about Genesis 22:19, which says, “And God remembered Rachel”. God has not forgotten about His daughters. He has not reached the bottom of the barrel and isn’t deaf to our tears and praying.

I think the important thing for me to remember is that trials of patience are still trials, which means that they have to be endured. There are lessons to be learned from trials, especially long running trials that tend to lose the clarity of the lessons to be learned because they are not trial easily overcome, but are continual.

As for me, well…I just keep trudging along, trying to make sense of it all as I pull up some of those bitter roots.

Ephesians 12:12-15

Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed. Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled…

Ecclesiastes 7:25-26

I applied my heart to know,

To search and seek out wisdom and the reason of things,

To know the wickedness of folly,

Even of foolishness and madness.

And I find more bitter than death

The woman whose heart is snares and nets,

Whose hands are fetters.

He who pleases God shall escape from her,

But the sinner shall be trapped by her.