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Elfi Beck
Purposeful Singleness
For single people who are waiting for their marriage partner
GloryWorld-Medien
First edition 2018
© 2018 Dr. med. Elfi Beck
© 2018 GloryWorld-Medien, Xanten, Germany, www.gloryworld.de
All rights reserved.
Bible quotiations, if not otherwise specified, are from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV®; Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.®. Used by Permission of Biblica, Inc.® All rights reserved worldwide.
Other bible translation: King James Version (KJV), New King James Bible (NKJB).
Translation from German: Janet H. Mayer
Layout: Manfred Mayer
Cover design by Jens Neuhaus, www.7dinge.de
Photos: pixabay and private
ISBN: 978-3-95578-953-4
Having been married for 37 years, ministering to singles through seminars, retreats, and individual counseling, and co-laboring in healing ministry, we are excited to recommend this important book by Dr. Elfi Beck for anyone seeking to live a life of purposeful singleness. She discusses a difficult subject with sensitivity and compassion, without compromising God's Word and intention, encouraging readers to follow God's plan for a fulfilling Christian single life. Through the guidance of Holy Spirit, and with the wisdom contained in this book, one can avoid the pitfalls that have trapped those who attempted to travel the single life without God's wisdom and guidance.
David W. Nelson, MD, MPH
Dena M. Nelson, MA, CAGS (Mental Health Counseling)
Richmond, Virginia, USA
This book addresses some great points. It reminds us as singles what is worth focusing on and remembering along the way. The practical application is evident throughout it. There is balance and wisdom to it, asking good questions all along the way and bringing in the references of applicable scripture that takes it deeper. I recommend this book to any singles to read and to let it shape their view of what is possible in a relationship. It’s a solid book.
Justin Byrne
Host of “The Single Life Workshop” and a part of “Nothing Hidden Ministries”
The title “Purposeful Singleness” may sound challenging because, for many people, being single is frustrating rather than exciting and visionary. Most single people do not enjoy being single, especially Christians because they are not interested in short-term relationships and one-night stands. But how can I find the right partner? Will I have to remain single forever; is that my destiny? Many people are afraid of relationships and hold back from them.
The number of one-person households in our Western societies is growing rapidly. And the proportion of single people in churches is also increasing. How should we react to this? How can we help young people, in particular, to initiate and live out a healthy partnership? In this book, Elfi Beck offers great practical tips; the book is an excellent guide and source of advice for single people who wish to reflect on this subject. Her thoughts, some of which are prophetic in nature, are most encouraging and will inspire readers to place every area and period of their lives at the disposal of God’s great vision.
Edwin Jung
Pastor of “Pfingstgemeinde Braunau”
Chairman/Superintendent FCGÖ
It is unusual for a single woman to write a book about her civil status, and a book like the one Elfi has written is even more unusual.
This is actually a book about discipleship—that was my first reaction. Here, people can learn to accept their status as being the best thing for them at present, to love it, and to fully embrace it. Here, people can learn to reach out to God and to prepare themselves for their calling and future marriage. That is top class. That is how it should be: learning to accept your status and to see today as the best day of your life. Because that is now. Because you are loved, and the Father has only the best intentions for you; because you can discover who you are and fully develop your gifts and talents in everyday life and in the church. Put briefly, to love your life and to worship in truth.
Elfi identifies various topics and invites the reader to face these questions. She does so in her own personal, meticulous and relaxed manner. Over and over, her passion for God’s kingdom becomes apparent. She has written this book in the same way as she lives—with 100% alertness and commitment, whether as a Christian, a doctor and a missionary in Africa or as a volunteer in a ministry anywhere in the world.
Kurt Häfeli
Church leader / Leader of ministries to adults at FCG Aarau
As a result of our own eventful life, and after twelve years of marriage and joint, full-time ministry, we know how essential it is to both stand on the same foundation—JESUS. If we desire to follow him, the fundamental decision must be taken in our hearts that we will trust Jesus in every experience, obey him, and allow him continually to change us through his grace. And this decision—which we make over and over—is the best foundation for you and for your future marriage partner.
When we read “Purposeful Singleness” together, we kept exclaiming, “Oh, this is awesome—we must give this book to so and so!”, or “Hey, it would be so good if we could distribute this book.” We are convinced that this short book will be a blessing to you. It will encourage you and inspire you to no longer see your time as a single person as ‘waiting time,’ but as a valuable period of your life, in which you can make good decisions for your life and allow yourself to be prepared and transformed by Jesus. This book addresses many practical topics of single life and will help you know how to live a dedicated and fulfilled life—a life in His wonderful, perfect, loving, and unique plan for you.
We know Elfi Beck personally, and she is an amazing, committed woman, who loves Jesus passionately and serves and follows him wholeheartedly. It is wonderful that she has shared the knowledge, experiences, and the ‘land” that she has taken in her own struggle and through her perseverance. You will be blessed!
Claudio & Claudia Killias
jesusrettet.ch
A great deal of suffering could be avoided if single people thought about their personal calling early enough. Precisely this important issue is often neglected because they concentrate too much on the butterflies in their stomach. Later, when they are married, this very topic can be a cause of turmoil. The close relationship to the Holy Spirit is the most important factor in this process. He is the best coach and has an individual training plan for each person.
This book is authentic and reflects the Elfi that we know. Her experience as a doctor is also helpful in dealing with this subject. Her relationship with the Holy Spirit and her faith demonstrate astonishing maturity, which takes the reader on a journey. In the “airport of life,” there are sometimes delays because people have free will. I can warmly recommend this book (also to those who are “no longer single”).
Elisabeth Blaser
D u. E Blaser Ministries
Jesus promises us abundant life, not only once we get married. If we live our life with the attitude, “When…, then…”, we will miss so much of what God has in store for us. “When I am married, then I can…” is an attitude that robs us of life. We do not need to wait until we have found our partner to be happy.
Learning to love ourselves, because we are experiencing how much God loves us, is the foundation for being able to love our neighbor: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39). If we cannot love ourselves, or do not take time to allow God to love us, we will not be able to love our neighbor or our partner.
How awesome, then, that we can use the time as a single person to allow God to love us and to love ourselves so that we can then love our spouse. “Purposeful Singleness” will help you discover that you can have an abundant life now, and can feel loved now. It will give you vision for the time you spend as a single person and will enable you to live a fulfilled and victorious life, as you follow God’s plans for you.
Silvan Carabin
Ministry school leader / CEO SLA-Aarau
www.silvancarabin.com
Contents
Foreword
Introduction
PART 1: Prophetic visions about single people and practical preparation
1 A prophetic vision: people drowning
2 Prophetic vision: Waiting is a season of preparation
3 Preparing ourselves for marriage – Some practical suggestions
4 Entering our calling and allowing our heart to be healed
5 Marriages for the kingdom of God
PART 2: What does the Bible say about man, woman, and marriage?
6 Putting God first
7 It all began with Adam and Eve
8 Married life
9 Sex belongs in marriage
10 What do we do about our sexuality if we are single?
11 What about masturbation?
12 Are there people who should remain unmarried?
13 Marriage is a calling and a covenant
14 What does obedience really mean?
Part 3: My own story
This book is dedicated to all single people who are waiting
for their marriage partner and dreaming of a marriage
as God intended it for man and woman.
God keeps His promises and is faithful
Be encouraged.
Foreword
Finding a vision for your own life is immensely important. But this requires an ability to see: open, inner eyes to see and receive what is from the invisible realm. A higher perspective is like a lighthouse at the coast. When the weather is good, no one needs it, but in storms and bad weather, it is essential for survival. A vision provides orientation so that we can stay on course. It is a glimpse of hope in the darkness.
I will never forget my first contact with Elfi. After her e-mail query about participating in a course on the subject of “ministering prophetically”, which I was leading, we spoke by phone. After a few cautious questions, she began to tell me how she had met Jesus and the amazing things He had shown her. Hope and vision flowed from what she said like a bubbling stream.
Now Elfi serves at my side in the prophetic ministry and it is a privilege to be involved in her fulfilled and overflowing life.
I can say with certainty that Elfi can see. She sees with her spiritual eyes the gifts and promises that the Heavenly Father has provided for people. The combination of having “a view of one’s own life” and her resolute and courageous “yes” to Jesus make her an explosive mix. The love for people in her heart is what drives her, and she comes across as a woman who has something to say.
Being single is her status, but that is not her identity. Elfi lives a fulfilled life, and does so with a clear vision; she hears the melody of her heart and follows the voice of her beloved—Jesus.
It has taken her all her courage to write down the message of this book in order to make it accessible for others who also wish to have a clear heavenly vision for their life.
No matter what your current status is, this book aims to challenge you to receive vision for your life. Your life is not defined by your future marriage partner, but by you and Jesus on the adventurous journey of life.
As Elfi draws you into her own life story, she will show you what “all in”—being complete in HIM—means. She has given her whole heart with all her dreams and visions into Jesus’ hands and trusts him fully to be the best “dating agency” there is. She is willing to face honestly the process of waiting without taking her own short-cuts or allowing her relationship with God to be tarnished.
As His beloved daughter, she knows that the best still lies ahead.
Ruth Truttmann
Leader of the prophetic arts and training courses of the FCG-Aarau
Artist (www.truth-art.ch)
Author of the children’s book Die Reise zum König [The Journey to the King]
Introduction
Dear Reader, first of all, I would like to wish you a wonderful time as you read these lines. In your hands you have a book about God’s plans for committed, believing, single people in our time. Be ready for the Holy Spirit to inspire you and to speak specifically to you. Invite him to come!
At the end of each chapter (in the sections “Practical applications and challenges” and “Notes”), there is space for you to write down anything important that occurs to you. Allow some time. Take a pen, and look for a (quiet) place where you will not be disturbed.
This book is divided into three sections:
Part 1: Prophetic visons about single people and practical preparation
Part 2: Foundations: What does the Bible say about men and women, the way to marriage, and married life?
Part 3: My own story.
I pray you will have an encounter with the father heart of God, receive an embrace and a kiss from heaven, and that your heart will experience His healing love.
Why did I write this book?
The book originated with a prophecy that was confirmed by several different prophetic ministries. In obedience to that, I am now publishing some extracts from my journal. It has not been easy for me to do this, but I hope it will honor God and bring much fruit, as the Holy Spirit speaks to you through it.
As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it (Isaiah 55:10-11).
You might be wondering who I am and why I have written a book of this kind. Well, I am a single woman, I love Jesus, and I am a medical doctor. I have walked with God for several years, secure in good and transparent relationships. My image of my future husband is essentially realistic and not simply an ideal.
But what can you do if you have not yet found a person of the opposite sex, or if God has not confirmed it? There is a large WHY? and it leaves an emptiness that cannot quickly be filled. I have waited for an answer from God in this matter, and have asked him to correct me, if necessary. Once He spoke gently to my heart saying, “I am not doing just anything in your life. I have a good and wonderful plan.”
During the period in which I was seeking God in this matter, I repeatedly received heavenly visions during worship, which spoke very clearly to me. I wish to share these with you, as I know they are not meant only for me.
In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy (Acts 2:17-18).
Ask the Holy Spirit what God has prepared especially for you in this book.
PART 1: PROPHETIC VISIONS ABOUT SINGLE PEOPLE AND PRACTICAL PREPARATION
Where there is no vision, the people perish (Proverbs 29,18 KJV).
Chapter 1: A prophetic vision: people drowning
During a time of worship, I sensed God’s presence very strongly and received the following vision: I was standing on a warship. There were many people in the sea, who were shouting for help and were in terrible despair. They were drowning. I threw out lifebelts, all of which were joined to a rope. Somehow, I managed to bring the people onto the ship before they drowned. I asked, “Why am I on this warship?” I then received the following answer: “Because you have decided to wait for the partner that I have for you. You are full of hope and confidence because you carry a vision in your heart and have found meaning for the season of waiting.”
And then God spoke to me, saying, “Many single people are drowning. Tell them I love them, that I have not forgotten them, and that I have a wonderful plan for them.”
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart (Jeremiah 29,11-13).
We are in the midst of spiritual warfare, and our thoughts are the battlefield! Not every thought will bring good fruit. We need to identify the false thought patterns we are clinging to. Do they drag us down or build us up? What influences them—the spirit of the age, the worldly thoughts of society? What lies do we believe?
God does not love single people less than married people!
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it (Proverbs 4:23).
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life (Proverbs 4:23 KJV).
For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he (Proverbs 23:7 KJV).
For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are the things which defile a man (Matthew 15:19-20).
We must choose our thoughts carefully and should not just allow them to think anything that enters our mind. There is still no medication to prevent that!
We must decide to think and do what is good! It is also up to us to decide to be led by the Holy Spirit. Here are several useful Bible verses to think about:
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things (Philippians 4:8).
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will (Romans 12:2).
You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self (old man), which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self (new man), created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:22-24).
For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).
What should we do about negative thoughts? We say to thoughts that are wrong, negative, and that drag us down, “STOP!” We give them over to Jesus Christ and replace them with the Biblical promises that the Holy Spirit shows us, so that we can speak them out loud.
You need to shoot back, with a powerful charge of the living word that speaks to your (specific) situation!
The more frequently we reflect on what is good, on God’s word, His thoughts, and His promises, the sooner we will experience victories in a specific area. When the devil tries to persuade you that “You will never manage this task,” or, “You’ll never get married,” then replace these thoughts with a verse such as Philippians 4:13.
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (NKJB).
God is working in both of us and will lead us together at the right time so that we can be a great blessing.
The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him” (Genesis 2:18).
Practical applications and challenges:
• Which thoughts drag you down?
Every time they come, replace these thoughts with a promise God has given you. In time, you will learn how to do this, and it will become easier to identify the false thoughts and to replace them with God’s truth.
Ask God about His wonderful plan for your life. What is preventing you from seeing it happen? An old proverb says that a journey begins with many small steps. You could also say this journey begins with many small steps of obedience ;-)
Chapter 2: Prophetic vision: Waiting is a season of preparation
Once, I had a very clear vision during my quiet time. I suddenly saw myself in heaven, where Jesus took me by the hand and showed me a room. I entered it and found myself in the center of a ballroom from the Baroque period, in which there were wonderful, elegant people—men and women whose behavior, appearance, and clothing were noble; they were all holding in their hands a sign saying “WAITING.” I asked Jesus, “What does that mean?” He told me, “Those are the people who have decided voluntarily to wait for the marriage partner that I will lead to them.” “Oh, how interesting, and how does that happen?” I asked curiously. God said, “The WAITING is nothing other than a season of preparation for their CALLING. On these marriages, which I have chosen, there will rest an enormous, larger-than-life blessing for the end times and a destiny for the end times that will touch nations, families and people groups.
That is heavenly and mega-fantastic:
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us… (Ephesians 3:20).
This requires a foundation; the season of preparation or waiting is not a punishment.
If God gives someone a partner early, because the conditions are appropriate, then we praise God for that. If it takes longer until we receive this gift because neither of us is ready (or one partner is not yet ready), then we also praise God and bless what He is doing “behind the scenes”. You do not yet know what situations and struggles your future marriage partner has been going through. Be a blessing to them now and pray for your partner. Maybe you are praying him or her “through” and they will be converted to Jesus with all their heart and will follow him.
Do everything without grumbling or arguing (Philippians 2:14).
So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised (Hebrews 10:35 36).
May he give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed! (Psalm 20:4).
A partner who has been prepared by God will help the other partner to come into the fulness that God has for both as individuals and for their calling. That is a perfect gift from God. (However, that does not mean that you will not have to work on your marriage relationship and on your own character!)
I think God will give us a partner who will challenge us to become more like Jesus and whose gifting will complement ours. It will not be perfect but much better than we can imagine, and, in the heavenly sense, perfect.
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows (James 1:17).