Fruitful in Singleness

Dannah Gresh: What’s the first thing that comes to mind when someone asks you to describe yourself? For me, it’s “animal lover and Bible teacher.” Maybe for you it’s “busy mom and wife.” I can relate to those too. Maybe it’s what you do—teacher, graphic designer, nurse—the list could go on. Maybe you think of your personality—“introverted.” (Also me!) Or maybe when you describe yourself it’s . . . fruitful!

Welcome to Revive Our Hearts Weekend. I’m Dannah Gresh, and today we’re going to talk about fruitfulness once again. We’ll eventually get to two things that aren’t associated often enough: singleness and fruitfulness.

If you’re not single, I can almost hear you reaching to turn off this program. But wait, because you’re going to want to hear today’s episode. I firmly believe that those of us who are married need to reorient and reframe the way we think about singleness. It’s imperative if we want to create a place in the body of Christ for our single sisters to thrive. (Somebody in the back row say "amen!") Will you help me do that? Today’s episode is for everybody!

You know, our vision at Revive Our Hearts is to call women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ. We don’t add, “unless you’re single.” Still, some people take the “fruitfulness” to mean Genesis 1:28: “Be fruitful and multiply.” Fruitfulness. But fruitfulness means so much more than just having biological children!

Fruitfulness is a sign of life. I mean, think about this: it’s what the gardener or farmer expects when he plants a seed, when he grows a vineyard. His expectation is that the garden will be fruitful, that he will harvest fruits. In a biblical sense, that fruit looks like lives you lead to Christ, hearts you nurture to grow in Christ, and people you walk with through hard times. 

Gretchen Saffles talked with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth and me about that topic and wow! It was so good I wanted you to hear it. Gretchen, who leads a ministry called Well-Watered Women, explained how crucial it is to soak in God’s Word if you wanna be fruitful. Let’s listen.

Gretchen Saffles: Believing His Word is different than just knowing His Word, because we can know a lot of God’s Word. We can actually know a lot of facts, just in things in the world. For instance, I read a lot of books to my boys, and I read about pigs that can fly in books. But I don’t believe I’m going to walk outside or look outside my window right now and see a pig flying by.

No, believing His Word is implementing it. It is allowing it to become our very heartbeat. When trials come our way, suffering, when anxiety comes, instead of responding with our flesh, we respond with God’s Word that never changes. It always changes us!

In this passage, Christ calls us to believe what He says. He says later in John chapter 15, verse 7, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”

So Christ is saying that when His Word abides in us and we are believing that Word, it’s going to transform our actions. It’s going to transform our thoughts and our feelings and everything about who we are! But, believing is the next step.

Believing is living a life of faith, not just living a life of head knowledge, but that head knowledge moving down to our heart and becoming our actions in everyday life.

Dannah: And I think that’s a battle! I think for me to believe His Word, sometimes, I have to remind myself that His capital “T” Truth trumps the little “t” truth or facts that are happening in my world around me.

I’ve had to really remind myself of that since March of 2020, when all the little facts seem so overwhelming and scary. I have to go to God’s Word and transform my mind with His Truth and sometimes say it out loud: “Okay, this is the little fact that is happening in my world, but God is still in control! This is the little fact, but His grace is sufficient. This is the little fact, but I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me!” 

I guess I want to say it’s not easy to believe His Word all the time. Sometimes you have to preach to yourself.

Gretchen: Absolutely! And that capital “T” Truth is what sustains us, just like a plant. It abides, it has to stay right where it’s rooted and it receives water, it receives sunlight. This is a receiving that a plant has to do in order to flourish. 

As believers, we receive His Word; we read His Word; we listen to His Word. Like you said Dannah, we preach God’s Word to our hearts—especially in those moments where maybe those little “t” truths or those facts seem so much louder. Ultimately, it’s God’s capital “T” Truth that we build our lives upon.

Nancy: I think it’s important to remember that this isn’t just positive self-talk. We’re not just trying to make ourselves feel better about ourselves or about our circumstances. This is God’s divine truth from outside of us, objective truth, coming into us. It’s the truth about the gospel, the truth about the character of God, the truth about how time is short and eternity is long, the truth about the grace and mercy and forgiveness of God. 

It’s taking that Truth, bringing it into our minds and our souls, and letting it overcome and overwhelm and transform everything that in the core of our being shouts against it.

So, the Truth changes us, it renews our mind until we’re thinking differently. So it’s not just, “Oh, yeah, you need to think happy thoughts” . . . about your Quiet Garden. 

I don’t mean to make fun of positive thinking. I’m just saying we need God’s thinking, His Word, to change the way we think about everything if we’re going to abide in Christ and if we’re going to be fruitful and well-watered women. 

Dannah: Did you notice what Gretchen Saffles said? She said that when God’s Word abides in you, it’s going to transform you. That means that you can’t be truly fruitful unless what you’re doing is motivated by love for God and a desire to obey His Word.

Maybe you’re thinking, Okay, Dannah, that sounds great, but I still don’t know what to do to be fruitful. I get it. Can I reiterate that the first place you should go for answers is to the Bible? It won’t let you down.

But there are a few practical tips I hope you’ll put into practice. Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has a few of those. Here’s where we start to put together the words “fruitful” and “single.” You see, my friend Nancy was single for fifty-seven years and abundantly fruitful through all of them. If you’re single, I think this will encourage you in a special way. If you’re not, I think it will serve as an important reminder about how we—as married women—can support single women in their quest to be fruitful. Nancy was still single when she recorded this clip we’re about to hear. Here’s Nancy.

Nancy: I choose, as a single woman, to function and serve within the Body of Christ, to be a part of a community of faith; to cultivate relationships within the family of God.

If you're a daughter of God, He is your Father. That means we are sisters. That means we have brothers within that family. There are relationships within that family that are to be healthy and wholesome. And when we put ourselves within that Body, within that community of faith, and we cultivate relationships there, there's a great deal of blessing and joy to be had.

Now, I make this choice, not for the motivation of being loved but for the motivation of loving, of loving others. I'm not going to get plugged-in to the Body of Christ so I can find some people to love me. That's the natural tendency, but the right and pure motive for getting plugged-in to the family of God, the Body of Christ, is so that I can have greater opportunity to love others. The motive is not to be a taker but to be a giver; not to get blessed but to be a blessing to others.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians, in chapters 12 through 14 of 1 Corinthians, about this whole matter of the Body of Christ. And he said, "You're a part of a body, whether you realize it or not, whether you accept it and appreciate it or not, you're one part."

You're not the whole Body. And neither is the singles' group in your church the whole Body. We don't need just other singles. I think we need to be careful, as singles, that we don't develop all our relationships with other singles. We need relationships with the whole Body of Christ—with children, with elderly people, with married people.

They are different parts; they have different gifts. And Paul says, "You need them and they need you. We need to be working consciously and intentionally at becoming a part of each other's lives."

One of the things that has been a huge blessing to me in single life in ministry, with all of its ups and downs, has been learning to relate to families and looking for opportunities to get plugged-in to other people's families.

Now, this does several things: first of all, it has helped me to be more realistic in my notions about marriage and family. Because if you just hang around with other singles all the time, it's easy to fantasize about marriage and family and to think that it's all always wonderful.

And, you get around other families, once you really get to know them, and you find out—as we know, intellectually, but you find out for real—it's not all always wonderful. You get around people with pride and issues and struggles and frustrations and you just see real life.

But getting around families has provided me with a great opportunity to love and to serve and to bless others, to be a part of a Body. And as I bless others, as I give to those families, as I look for opportunities to minister to them and to meet their needs, I find that I get my needs met; not because that was what I was seeking but because when you bless others, you will get blessed. Jesus said, "Give and it will be given unto you" (Luke 6:38). And you'll get more back than you ever dreamed of giving out.

I think this is one of the biggest antidotes to loneliness. Now, I have to say that it's not a cure for loneliness because all people struggle with loneliness at times.

God made us with homesick hearts that will never be totally full and totally at home until we're in His presence in heaven. Single people get lonely. Married people get lonely. I suppose men also get lonely in their own ways. I don't know how they express that. This is common to the human condition on earth. But I find that that loneliness is relieved a lot when I get plugged-in to other families.

I have heard singles say, and I have experienced it some myself, "Families just don't reach out. They just don't include singles. They treat me like I'm something strange or weird. They just don't seem to know how to incorporate us." And I would that this is sometimes true. But I've found that it is usually not intentional. It is usually just overlooking on the part of married people.

Let me say to those of you who are married: I would encourage you to be intentional about reaching out to those who are single. It's easier for you to add a place at your table than it is for the single person to have the whole family over to their place.

Now, singles, don't be afraid to do that. I'm telling you that I have learned creative ways to be hospitable in the most unbelievable circumstances. I lived in hotel rooms, traveling around the country for eight years, and I found ways to be hospitable in hotel rooms or in restaurants.

But don't be afraid as a single, if others don't reach out, to reach out to them. They probably just don't understand how meaningful that can be. And if they feel awkward about it, they will feel less so once you start to relax and include them in your life.

Get involved with their children. I have adopted children and now grandchildren—my friends' children have had children. I've adopted children, nieces, and nephews all across the country. There are children I invested in years ago—going to their ball games, taking them out on dates, taking them shopping with me. I have sat through piano recitals and all sorts of things for kids who aren't my kids. But in order to be an encouragement to those families, what has happened next is that as some of those kids have become teenagers and older, they know they've got a friend.

Some of those kids have opened up. When they've been going through stretching times in their relationship with their parents or with the Lord, they've opened up their hearts. And I've been able to be an encouragement and a blessing to many of those kids in a way that supplements the direction their parents are giving, sometimes when the kids are having a hard time hearing it from their own parents.

That's how we are part of the Body. Sometimes I have greater freedom financially than somebody who has got six kids.

I remember some twenty years ago some friends who were getting ready to start school. The parents were not sure about this manner of Christian education being good for their family. I believed so strongly then, as I do now, that this could be a great blessing. God gave me direction at that time to invest financially in helping those people put their children in Christian school during the early years of their lives. 

Those children have now graduated from college, and they are walking with the Lord. And those parents have come back and said, "Thank you, thank you, thank you for plugging into our lives, for getting involved, giving of yourself at a time when you could have just kept it for yourself. But you plugged into the Body. You plugged into a family."

There are elderly people who need someone to listen. I went the other day to visit an elderly couple in my neighborhood. They needed encouragement. They needed someone to listen to them, and I didn't really do anything except provide an ear. But I was plugging-in to other people's lives. And I came away feeling, I am so blessed. I was so encouraged.

"Give and it will be given unto you." As you choose to function and serve within the Body of Christ, to cultivate relationships within the Body of Christ, you'll find that not only are you giving, not only are you being blessed but you're receiving, and you will be a recipient of blessings that God sends to you as a result.

Dannah: Amen.That was my friend, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. You know what I took away from that? 

One: single women have to be intentional about relationships. (And married ladies, what if we were intentional about being sensitive to the need for relationship our single sisters have?)

Here's the second thing I see: serve. If you are thinking about others instead of yourself—and doing it for God’s glory—you will end up being fruitful. Of course, living that out is the hard part!

Single and fruitful. I love that. I love those two words together.

I want you to hear from someone who has lived out these principles Nancy just taught on in an amazing way. Jill Miller works at our ministry headquarters in Michigan . . . but not in the way you might expect. Let’s listen to her story.

Jill Miller: My name is Jill Miller. I'm in my early sixties. I'm originally from Lebanon, Pennsylvania, but most recently lived in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

A real desire I had when I first started working full time was to be able to have more time for volunteering and ministry. It just felt like working full time took too much time and effort, and I couldn't serve like I wanted to. I even prayed, "God, am I not supposed to be in corporate America?" Because I was truly in the midst of a high rise office building and the whole nine yards in the middle of Dallas, Texas.

And He's like, "No, you're where I want you to be."

And I'm like, "Okay, well, how about can I just save money and then retire early?"

His answer? "Well, yes, and no. Yes, you can save money, but you can't save it all for yourself. You need to be lavishly generous."

And so I did that. I followed that path basically for thirty plus years. He is the one who grew my finances to the point where He allowed me to retire early. And so I was like, "Wow, thank You. How do I follow through with my (I don't know what to say) my vow, my commitment? How do I follow through on my plan?"

So I started volunteering at all kinds of different places—an hour here, two hours there. One of those that came across my pathway was the Revive Our Hearts Ambassador program. I really felt God leading me in that direction, so I ultimately became a Revive Our Hearts Ambassador and served in central Pennsylvania for a year or so.

There's longer story to this, but ultimately, God orchestrated things for me to volunteer in the office in Revive Our Hearts, using skills that I learned during that thirty-year period of working in data analysis and things like that.

And I was like, "Oh, this will be fun. Do you think that maybe I could come back annually when I come out for Ambassador Summit?"

They laughed and said, "Well, we could use you full time."

And I was like, "Oh, okay."

So that was the first seed that really got my mind thinking in that direction. "Oh, my God, are You asking me to be more involved in this?"

And ultimately, it was like, "Not only do I want you to be more involved, but I want you to move to Michigan, to a little town called Niles that is in the middle of nowhere."

I was like, "Oh, okay." So basically, I uprooted myself, left my family friend's house that I've lived in for thirty years, and moved to Niles, Michigan, to work in the office.

Sometimes people look at fruitfulness as raising children. And while that is true, it's not the only end game. If you will, being fruitful can be spiritual children, where you have invested in kids. And so, for instance, right now I can say I teach Sunday school to third to fifth graders. That's investing in kids that may or may not see fruit for years to come. So you're investing in other people's lives, investing finances.

Again, a harvest can be reaped, because you have sown seed, you've watered seed, you have fertilized. I mean, go to that agricultural analogy. There are so many steps in that. God is certainly the one that provides the sunshine and the actual growth, but He uses us to be part of that process. Our fruitfulness often comes in ways we may not even see. Sometimes we don't even see the harvest, we only get the plant. We never know, may never know until Heaven, how much our investment in people and in ministry has has benefited others.

There's all kinds of ministry opportunities, not just Revive Our Hearts. There are local ministries, like a pregnancy center or serving on a Board of Directors. There is being involved in volunteering in certain things that helps one whole segment of people that you may never even see in a church building, or ministering to women, or being a women's ministry leader at a local church. It could be investing in the ladies in the church, coming alongside of them during a need, it could be meals, visiting in the hospital, it could be just encouragement, it could be teaching and helping them grow. I'm just listing off some of the things that have crossed my path in the in the recent past. One-on-one relationships can really do a lot as well.

I have to say to that ministry to those who are not believers, who are not in the church . . . I make specific attempt to interact with those I see regularly, like at the gym, or something like that. People that are outside of church or the ministry, I just try to be a light and an encourager from a spiritual perspective. Sometimes that really doesn't seem very fruitful. And yet, I don't know what God is doing, what seeds are planted in those areas as well.

Using time for ministry, volunteering, whatever you want to call it, is an investment in other people and in ministry. You probably won't see the end results. You may only play what appears to be a small part, and yet it's a piece of the tapestry. It is valuable not only to the ministry or to the person who you're ministering to, but there's a spiritual component. It may not just be giving of your money, but it could be time, it could be making food, it could be doing anything like that, that is reaching out and helping another person.

That can be joyful. If it's not joyful, if you were really struggling in whatever you're trying to do, it's probably either that you're trying to do it in your own strength, you weren't supposed to do it, or you're got a misplaced something or other, because giving is truly joyful. It is a sense of satisfaction, of meaningful purpose in life, to to give to others. It's a great thing. And if that's not the motivation or the the feeling that you get from doing it, then is it the right thing? Am I not supposed to doing it now? Should I be doing it? It's the heart check for wrong motives, from peers, from ministry leaders, or whatever. But volunteering, ministry opportunities, giving should be joy producing. That's a good test.

Dannah: I love Jill Miller! I think of her as a friend. She has been intentional and focused on others, sacrificial and fruitful in her singleness.

These principles of fruitfulness are all true whether you’re single or married, but it sure was fun to focus on our single sisters today. 

I want to go back to where we started today: fruitfulness is a sign of life—life that starts in God’s Word. Not just being in it, but as Psalm 1 says, “delighting” in it. 

I can’t think of a better time to delight in God’s Word than this time of year as we celebrate the birth of Jesus. A lot of us have live Christmas trees in our house. They’ve been cut off from their roots. This means we can water the all we want, but eventually they’re going to wither. 

But you, my friend, you never need wither, not if you choose to position yourself to delight in God’s Word. If you’ll do that, Psalm 1:3 promises you will become “like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither.”

If today’s program was helpful for you, can I suggest sharing it with someone you know who might be blessed by it? 

And if you’d like even more women to hear programs like this one, would you consider giving toward the year-end needs of Revive Our Hearts? It’s people like you who choose to give who make it possible for us to keep telling women all around the world that they can be fruitful in Christ—fruitful in every season of life!

And this month when you donate, your gift will be doubled, dollar for dollar. So again, would you pray and ask the Lord if He would have you contribute?

You can give a gift by calling 1-800-569-5959, or go to ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend and click on today’s episode. 

Next week, we’re going to keep talking about fruitfulness! Come back to hear how you can experience that in yet another challenging season of life: motherhood.

Thanks for listening today. I’m Dannah Gresh. 

We’ll see you next time for Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

Revive Our Hearts Weekend is calling you to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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