The following message was recorded at an event hosted by Desiring God.

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www. Desiring God.org. The question that I need to repeat because of the

I'm getting recorded here and projected here so how is singleness better and the

blessings of singleness better than the the blessings marriage. What are the blessings now and

how are they better? Because I preached a sermon in which I said that. I also said that if you're married you have blessings that are better than singleness.

I don't know if you remember that.

In other words, the life of singleness brings with it blessings that married people do not have and the life of marriage brings with it blessings that singles do not have and in those categories those blessings are better.

So I'm not ranking singleness in marriage as superior one to the other.

I'm saying that each brings blessings that the other does not have.

And so the blessing that Paul is most jealous that you maximize is the blessing of not being constrained to build your life around another person.

He said that if you're married you must labor to please the other person.

And I think that's a very broad overarching statement of all the ways you have to build your life in harmony with one other human being in a really close way.

Everything you do in marriage is affected by that other person

and everything you do affects them.

And they are never the same and there are always issues that have to be continually

attended to, which means you cannot give all of the energy to some other things that you might like to give them to.

The energy I have invested in making my marriage work over these years is huge, especially in seasons when it wasn't working.

And there will always be such seasons when the trials of two very different people trying to live happily ever after

aren't succeeding.

And so the energy investment as well as the sheer time factors you must invest time in each other.

I went to a counselor with Noel the other day because of some wider family issues

...