The Single Mother and the Bible

Some things I have been observing compel me to share this message. And I share it because churches, even pastors are celebrating this new trend without caring to search God’s face to know what He has to say about this whole topic of single motherhood.

I was recently told of a church sponsored rites of passage program where 90% of the boys were being raised by one parent, the mother.

Then I went through some enrollment forms for a Sunday school and noticed that only a handful had a father or couple for parent or guardian. The vast majority listed the mother. And I am talking about hundreds of forms.

Why does the modern church seem to celebrate, even accommodate something the Bible treats like an abomination? Why do I say so?

A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD. (Deuteronomy 23:2)

Why does God come up so strongly against a trend that we are so comfortable with? And where did it all start?

I will give the next verse so that we can survey this further.

An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the LORD for ever: (Deuteronomy 23:3)

Why were those tribes so totally excluded from fellowship with God’s people? Where did they come from?

They were matriarchal societies whose origin could be as modern as today’s girls, and as scheming.

They had been snatched out of Sodom and their prospective husbands had refused to accompany them. Look at their reasoning.

And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth: Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. (Genesis 19: 31, 32)

Our prospects for marriage dim with every coming day. We must therefore do something, and urgently.

Does this resonate with the modern girl? Did they not behave the same way many women and girls respond to their reproductive calendar today?

This sums up the reasoning of many a girl in this respect.

She is too selective at her peak of beauty and attractiveness, repulsing all proposals for marriage. Some will not even pretend to be nice about the rejections they offer their admirers because their sights are set too high for these ‘hopeless’ young men to even approach.

Of course these men will look for more accessible girls and marry them even as these beauties continue waiting for their prince charming. All her less ambitious (and down to earth) age mates will slowly but surely get married.

By the time she realizes, these men she was rejecting for their miserable existence will have become everything she had required for a husband, since many times that is what marriage does to a man, meaning that it is the less attractive or less discriminating girl who caught him.

But her biological clock is still ticking and marriage proposals become rare. Worse still is the fact that the specimens of the men proposing are in a much worse and desperate situation than the ones she had earlier rejected. And her life is now packed and dried in all ways. Due to her ‘focus’ she has been able to acquire everything a person may desire, except a husband.

She also comes to the realization that a man may never come around as her age is making that reality more and more remote as it continues advancing.

What does she then do? That is what compels me to share this message.

Many will start poaching for a husband. Since she does not see any prospects for her own husband she decides to go for another lady’s husband as a side kick. Then she will say that she has a man around her ‘complete’ life. Incidentally you may have recently noticed that it is the ‘successful’ professional women who were at the forefront of the clamor for the legalization of polygamy, many having no qualms being someone’s second or even later wife.

But the man still wants to maintain his status and does not want to lower the status of this girl who took him when he was not amounting to much; the one who stood by him and helped him build the status this new woman is running after.

It therefore means that she will become a concubine. This is a woman who has no official status in society. The closest she comes to recognition is a husband snatcher, a marriage wrecker.

But she will get into something with some semblance to marriage, however temporary or despicable it may be. Many will ‘marry’ themselves to a man without waiting for the slightest nudge from him as they do not expect nor will they get it.

Of course it will bring in the desired child that may have been the main reason for her lowering her status.

And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach. (Isaiah 4:1)

You see, the disappearance of marriage prospects will lead this successful woman to reason like Lot’s daughters.

She needs to fill her outwardly successful life, and she can’t do what Lot’s daughters did as she is not alone in the desert. (Incidentally I have heard that there are rich men who impregnate their daughters as better insurance for their wealth especially because they are unable to successfully raise (not bear) sons. Incidentally that also happens to be a matriarchal society).

That is why they approach a desirable man for a seed as that is the brunt of the Isaiah prophecy. They will look for a child because they have failed to get a husband. But the Isaiah ones are better as they are looking for a name for their child by retaining a husband’s name.

Many a modern single mother does not care to even get a father’s name attached to her children.

Looking for a human solution for a spiritual problem is what makes this despicable in God’s eyes. Trying to cover our shortcomings with shortcuts is what makes it vile to God. Trying to live our lives against God’s revelation is what brings out all this pain, however proud we might want people believe we are with our defiance.

You see, that is what drove us out of Eden. It is also the same thing that led to the confusion of languages. And it is the thing that will enthrone the antichrist in these last days.

But I believe the reason God is against the whole idea of single motherhood is the spiritual heritage.

Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. (Galatians 6: 7 – 8)

We do not only inherit the genes from our parents but their spiritual heritage too. Again I will take us to the scriptures.

Remember Barak and Balaam? What weapon did Moab use to subdue Israel when they realized that they were beyond cursing? Wasn’t it their sex appeal? And do you realize that it was not only the common women and girls who were enticing Israel men into sexual immorality?

For they vex you with their wiles, wherewith they have beguiled you in the matter of Peor, and in the matter of Cozbi, the daughter of a prince of Midian, their sister, which was slain in the day of the plague for Peor's sake. (Numbers 25:18)

Sexual machination to gain advantage was in their spiritual DNA as that was how their nation was founded. It only required the suggestion of a greedy prophet to activate. And they were able in a short while to make Israel forget to complain about life in the wilderness. And how many people died in the process?

I want us to realize one thing. It was not the common women who were sent to entice the Israelites as we would suppose. Even royalty was involved in the same game. We can therefore assume that they were not compelled to do so as a king will never want to expose royalty to such risks.

We are safe if we assumed that they joined that enticement of their own volition. And it was not a struggle because it was in their spiritual DNA. Their matriarchs had started the whole thing.

And, behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought unto his brethren a Midianitish woman in the sight of Moses, and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, who were weeping before the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. (Numbers 25:6)

A woman that can walk with a man in the sight of a million people to a tent to have sex during the day goes way beyond bravery. I doubt even a professional prostitute (if there is one) could attempt it. Just try to imagine that.

It is therefore safe to assume that doing that was deeply engrained in her spiritual makeup. Her whole being was wired for that. It just found wings when Balaam suggested it.

That is the spiritual heritage I am talking about.

Lest you accuse me of majoring on only one incident (Lot), I will give you a few other incidences of single motherhood in the Bible. And for your information a concubine is by all definitions a single mother whichever tradition or culture you examine.

And the LORD said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. (Exodus 17:14)

Amalek, from where we get the Amalekites was the son of a concubine.

And he went unto his father's house at Ophrah, and slew his brethren the sons of Jerubbaal, being threescore and ten persons, upon one stone: notwithstanding yet Jotham the youngest son of Jerubbaal was left; for he hid himself. (Judges 9:5)

This son of Gideon’s concubine killed all his brothers (70) to become a king as if there were any of them interested in something his father has refused.

We also have Jephthah. But probably the most prominent of them may have been Jeroboam son of Nebat. Though he was the son of a widow, we can easily see the spiritual damage the lack of a father has the capacity of causing. Even a clear prophecy from God was not enough to deal with his insecurity. And as a king that insecurity brought the whole kingdom to judgment and destruction.

I think this is why Paul had this to say about widows.

I will therefore that the younger women (widows) marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. (1Timothy 5:14)

That a child needs the presence of a father goes without say. Even secularists confess on the need for a father in the development of a healthy child.

Several research findings in the western world have found that without exception the main driver for homosexuality is the absence of a father. What I mean is that a child easily develops homosexual leanings when they are raised by a single mother. The other cause is an absent father or a domineering mother, or what many call a sat on husband.

Again look at the persons in the recent past who have committed weird crimes in Kenya. Most of them have a mother’s name as their surname. You may think what you can but for me that is a clear pointer of something terribly wrong. Again the reason that happens is because there was no father around.

I will state another fact that is many times swept under the carpet because of the statement it makes about the culprits. Did you know that many (probably a majority) of the children on the streets come from well up families. Why will a sane person leave all that luxury (cars, big house) to make a living salvaging leftover food from dumps and sleeping on pavements?

A friend God rescued from there had descended there from a big position, a company house and a complete family. He tells me that some of the people they were with on those streets would make you faint with shock. They were children of some of the most successful business and political leaders in our country.

These parents for their pursuit of that elusive coin neglect their children for boardrooms and other money chasing activities. It is no wonder then that the child finds the company of the drugged colleagues better than the comforts of an empty life full of toys. A toy can never replace a parent and this is what these parents learn the hard way.

That is a spiritual problem and the reason any intervention not spiritual will never amount to much. How many children from rich families taken overseas for studies had to be repatriated because they stopped going to college and got into illegal pastimes?

Their money did not run out. There was a spirit they had inherited that made it impossible to settle down for their studies.

Why did God order the extermination of these nations and people we have seen? Why was there no ‘mercy’ or room for repentance?

I think their spiritual roots were rotten; too rotten to change in any way.

And that was the reason intermarriage was forbidden between Israel and the neighboring nations. Their spiritual heritage was such that there could have been no possibility of affecting them positively. The Bible says that the contrary was the normal thing. And we see that with Solomon. Do you also remember that foreign wives were chased away with their children in Ezra’s time? A Jewish father was not enough to redeem these nations.

Call me a chauvinist if you will but a father is the person who gives a child identity. A mother provides the nurture it needs for physical and emotional health. A father gives spiritual security. I can say that after interacting with many children without fathers in the course of ministry as well as listening to fellow ministers and friends who have also interacted with them.

I also am a product of a single mother by virtue of the fact that I had a completely absent father. And I had enough issues especially in my teenage as anyone who schooled with me will tell you and as I have touched on in some earlier posts. I am therefore writing not only to point out God’s take concerning this issue but His solution.

But we must agree that the solution must agree with God’s revelation, or it will be another abomination. As such we will look to the Bible for such solution.

The first thing we must do is break free from our spiritual heritage when we realize that it is contrary to God’s revelation. Culture is the most powerful enemy of spiritual health as it is at its root a spiritual structure. You see God does not hate the children of single parents when he so completely bans them from the congregation or fellowship of His people. It is the spiritual baggage they carry that He has issues with.

Rahab the harlot and Ruth are the clearest Biblical examples. They had to trash their culture to be enjoined to Israel.

My mother is another example. She chose to stick with an abusive and irresponsible man, even respecting him and teaching us to respect him when most women would opt out. And her heritage was completely opposite. But at the root of it is that she radically connected to Christ.

Her mother was married thrice. She was therefore raised by a step mother and went through intense abuse at her hand. Her only sister’s children were not from one father. But she decided that she will not subject her children to a step mother when she was alive when her husband joined himself with the other woman.

Trash your culture if it tells you or implies that men are beasts because it is a lie from hell. Stick to the Bible’s description. Trash it if it leaves options when a marriage hits the rocks. Like it is said, leave an option for divorce or separation, however small when you are getting married and divorce will be just a matter of time.

Get married only if you are ready to stay married for the rest of your life. Decide to remain married even if he becomes a beast. Learn to tame that beast because only you have the love and commitment to do it. Lock the door leading out of your marriage and throw the key to the ocean so that there will not be the slightest temptation in our mind.

Many women are taught to say that they were not chased from their parents’ house. I remind them that they chose to leave that house. Changing the terms midway is not only foolish but also counterproductive.

Do not look for children if you are not married. At the root of it stop engaging in sex if you are not married. And come we stay or experimenting on compatibility is not marriage. In fact it is the source of most single mothers. The only safe sex is the one occurring in marriage where God created it for. This is what caused the caveat on Moab and Amon.

Do not be anyone’s plaything. Do not allow any man to make you a side dish. If a man is not ready to make you his wife officially flee, if possible to the desert where he will lose interest. If he is not willing to meet your parents and spiritual leaders, he is your spiritual enemy.

Some pastors give their parishioners something beyond the word of God. They offer sexual gratification to members who are willing. The same is true with musicians. Some pastors and producers will insist on your meeting their sexual desires before they give any boost to your singing career. Flee from them faster than you would a plague. Again that is because they are introducing a spiritual cancer to your lineage.

Sex is a spiritual covenant and that is why God is so strong on this issue. That is the reason in the Bible we read and someone knew his wife when the couple had sex. And also why Paul said that one who has sex with a prostitute becomes one flesh with her. Sex can therefore never be a pastime. And sex outside marriage is a covenant officiated by demons. I wish there was stronger language I could use to make this clearer. It is those spirits that God is against. And of course we know that evil spirits are irredeemable. Sex outside marriage just like drugs and other obsessions, including football is a very subtle gateway for demons to start running their errands using us as their tools. Treating sex outside marriage as normal or inevitable gives those demons unfettered control over one’s life.

Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. (1Corinthians 6:18)

Also

Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. (2Timothy 2:22)

It is very clear that any tackling the topic of single motherhood has to deal with sex as it is impossible to become a single mother without having sex with a man who is not your husband. And we cannot talk about marriage breakage that causes some other single mothers without addressing the foundations of the marriage and misplaced sexual encounters.

That is the reason we have to start at the foundation, youth sexuality. Pass through that period successfully and you are certain that the rest of your life will be devoid of the drama that attracts a curse.

But what if you have already fallen into the trap and are walking in the curse. Is there any hope?

Again we start with what God’s word says as opposed to common agreement. Only then can we get God’s solution as opposed to acceptable response.

God says that there is hope. We see that when we study God’s attributes. He is a God not only of mercy but also second chances. But we must first agree with His prescription because only then can we be willing to take what He prescribes.

The first thing we must agree with Him is that sex outside marriage is sin in His sight and we are guilty of it. We are not explaining the circumstances to be absolved from guilt but to be able to truly repent.

We have Rahab the harlot and Ruth as examples that were able to disconnect from their past lives and be enjoined to God’s lineage. Agreeing that your present lifestyle is not right in God’s eyes goes a long way to give God a chance to make you an agent of societal transformation.

But it is also important to confess that one parent and children does not constitute a family. According to God a family consists of a husband and wife. Children are a blessing to that union (Psalm 127: 3). Ask God to align you with His idea of marriage. Explaining away and excusing your rebellion or disjointed idea of family drives Him away from your experience.

There are still men out there. It is when women cheapen themselves, offering the men the easier option of irresponsibility that makes them thus. And who will climb a tree to harvest honey from those bees with stings when he can get it free on the ground or cheaply available? If all girls decided to say NO to sex to men who have not officially made them wives, imagine how important marriage will be to a man! Tasting some aspects of marriage, in this case sex, will make marriage less desirable and commitment to it dangerous. Just imagine being given a vehicle to test drive for 10 000 miles to decide whether you will buy it. How possible will it be for you to buy it? That is what happens when you offer the treasure that is your body to be mined before someone owns it, only that it is far worse. The few cases that succeed are when the man had already decided even before your cheapening yourself or where the culture is punitive to such acts. We blame the men when we are the ones who make life too easy for them, even taking responsibility for their irresponsibility.

And I will not close this without hitting out at the ministers, because I also am one. We have for the most become the worst culprits in this cheapening of manhood. We have defined man for the money he has instead of his spiritual potency. We define blessing on worldly instead of spiritual terms. We parade people to give testimonies when they get this or the other toy instead of when they have a close walk with God.

I know of instances where a pastor has refused to conduct a wedding because the man does not have a good job yet they will not hesitate to conduct one where a Christian girl is getting married to a morally rotten tycoon.  We are therefore saying that spirituality is not important. A rich thief counts for more than a poor prophet.

The wedding itself is the one that will condemn most pastors, probably to hell, because it is the one other major thing contributing to the single mother situation. They have made a wedding the preserve of the rich. People who do not have enough money are not considered worthy of a wedding.

What statement are we making to these young people who have just started working when we insist on them paying a premium to hold a wedding in the church compound? What do you mean when you clearly show that a poor man has no place as far as weddings are concerned? Why do you find it easier to officiate over people who have been married for decades yet do not express any enthusiasm when their children (generationally) want to get married in church?

When we make a church wedding unaffordable for most, what we are telling the youth is that they are allowed to take short cuts until they get enough money to have a church wedding. Sadly, this does not require much commitment as it is not much different from a wedding in the bush as there are no witnesses to hold the young people accountable for their decision. Any small disagreement is therefore bound to break that union as they are accountable to the passion that was running between them then.

The sad fact is that a pregnancy most times may have contributed to the disagreement that led to the separation, meaning that the girl will be left with a child, alone.

That child will radically transform that girl. Not only do her chances of marriage drastically reduce, she also becomes easy prey to other men due to that. She will be deceived into such marriages again and again by anyone convincing enough. She will become pregnant another time. And probably another.  And the boy will take advantage of another girl with the same promise as he can easily get away with it. All because pastors are scared, or enameled by money to categorically state that the only requirement to get marriage is two mature grownups who have weighed the options and still want to marry without much fanfare or expense.

How much time does the wedding proper use? Why not conduct a simple one in the course of the service to get rid of all the other costs like hiring of the church hall? Why not promote simplicity and affordability with our young people?

Above all why not criminalize come we stay marriages, even take church disciplinary action on young people who are not willing to wait before the public ceremony especially as we have left none outside the qualification of being able to have a wedding in church? We should make the shortcut too costly for church folk especially as we make the wedding accessible to people ready to get married properly.

As things stand even church leaders and ministers get married in the bush and look for money to legalize it with the pompous show off of a wedding. And pastors have no problem with that. And pastors also enjoy, even encourage fundraisers to enable people have a wedding way above their means and feel no guilt. Shame on such pastors! They discourage young people from getting married properly by raising the bar way beyond reasonable means.

Much of what I have written is preventive; showing us how to avoid the pitfall that is the single motherhood.

But maybe you already are a single mother. Probably you are a bastard. Probably you are the product of a generational reproduction of single mothers. Maybe you have caused enough girls to become single mothers even as you looked at it from a conquest angle. Is there hope for you?

Of course there is. The Bible abundantly states that God offers a fresh start to anyone who seeks it. We have mentioned Rahab the harlot and Ruth. But the Bible is full of such people.

From ancient history, Daniel, his three friends and Nehemiah were most likely eunuchs. Look at what the Levitical code states about them.

He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD. (Deuteronomy 23:1)

Yet they became beloved of the Lord. We see the same with the eunuch who rescued Jeremiah from certain death when he was thrown to the well by his enemies. And he was not even a Jew!

Go and speak to Ebedmelech the Ethiopian, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring my words upon this city for evil, and not for good; and they shall be accomplished in that day before thee. But I will deliver thee in that day, saith the LORD: and thou shalt not be given into the hand of the men of whom thou art afraid. For I will surely deliver thee, and thou shalt not fall by the sword, but thy life shall be for a prey unto thee: because thou hast put thy trust in me, saith the LORD. (Jeremiah 39: 16 – 18)

Look at another passage

Neither let the son of the stranger, that hath joined himself to the LORD, speak, saying, The LORD hath utterly separated me from his people: neither let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree. For thus saith the LORD unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant; Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off. (Isaiah 56: 3 – 5)

God cares that you are pursuing Him with all your heart and agreeing with His revelation.

In the New Testament we have many such instances of people that were disqualified from God’s people being admitted by Christ. But there is one thing that is repeated all the time.

Go, and sin no more.

He accepts us on His terms, not ours. It is you to leave that lifestyle completely, not pleading to be accepted as you are without needing to change.

You must agree with God and His word. Align yourself to that and you are safe. Look to explain your status and you will lose out on His favor.

Trash your culture if it tells you that you can raise children without a husband and so despise the father (fathers?) of those children until he leaves you as I have seen it happen. Agree with God’s definition of marriage and you will be safe.

Hate divorce like God hates it. Respect your husband like the Bible says. And leave your people and culture like the Bible says so that you give your marriage a great foundation. Remove the reverse gear as you enter marriage. Then you will make your marriage great and give your children a sure foundation.

Then you will be able to reverse any adverse spiritual foundations that could be defining you. Then God can change that curse into a blessing.