A symbol of your covenant

Now what? You’ve made your commitment – covenant – with God to remain celibate until marriage (or, just to remain celibate, if that applies)… and I know you’re wondering what you should do now.

Step 1: Make the covenant.
Step 2: Obtain a symbol of that covenant.

Pastor Bronner said there’s always a sign of every covenant. For instance, when God made a covenant with Noah that He would never destroy the earth again He put a rainbow as a sign of that covenant. “You have to have something that you can keep before you that says, ‘This is my covenant. I understand why I have it and I understand the virtue that is in it. I understand the blessing.’ The greater the commitment of sacrifice the greater the blessing,” said Pastor Bronner.

“I wear a wedding band because this wedding band reminds me of my covenant,” he explained. “Now, in the same way that a person who’s single might be afraid to make a covenant towards celibacy, a lot of men are afraid to make the covenant for marriage because they don’t trust themselves in terms of being able to be faithful to one person. …The wedding band is an external sign of an internal covenant. Now, married people have an external sign of the internal covenant that they make to keep them devoted to their marriage. I believe that single people ought to have a covenant sign of their commitment to celibacy.”

Remember Michael from the last post? The symbol of his covenant was a silver ring with three braided cords intertwined as his covenant sign. Each time he looked at that ring it reminded him of his promise to God.

The ring I chose was a thin gold band with diamonds. I kind of joked that, “I can buy my own diamond!” So, it served two purposes for me: 1) I remembered my covenant each time I caught sight of that ring. 2) The covenant – and the symbol – helped me to feel complete and fulfilled. And it can do the same thing for you.

When I got married, I passed my covenant ring onto my young daughter. She’s 14 now… don’t miss a single post. Eventually we’ll talk about passing the covenant down to the next generation and helping them to commit to a celibate lifestyle until marriage.

"If you really want something, you can figure out how to make it happen." -- Cher