I am 24 years old and in the short time I have been alive, God has opened so many windows and poured out so many blessings to me. He has truly given me a life I could have only dreamed of as a child. But I would be lying if I said that I have always felt this way, if I said it did not feel, for a long time, as though one thing eluded me in life: a meaningful relationship. My mother married my father when she was 20 years old and for so much of my life, I measured my life against that fact, believing her life trajectory to be the blueprint for mine. So, when I turned 21 and had no boyfriend, let alone a husband, I was disappointed to say the least, already feeling like I was failing at life when in actuality, my life had just begun and that was without social media but add that to the mix and a lot of us are asking God, when will it be my time? Where’s my husband? Where’s my wife? Why am I single?
A lot of us construe our singleness as a punishment, something God is withholding from us, and as a waiting room that we can’t wait to get out of. As someone who used to view it the same way, I can confirm that way of living and interpreting God’s will is not only a short-sighted perception and uncharacteristic of the God we serve, but it is also a perception that robs us of the opportunity to truly live and be the people God created us to be.
When we finally get the job, the home, or the ______ (fill in the blank for yourself), we cannot wait to post on Instagram about how we finally understand why God has us wait and to share that testimony, so where is our patience, expectancy, and faith in the same God when it comes to our singleness?
I felt like something was wrong with me for most of my life if I wasn’t in a relationship if someone didn’t like me and that thinking warped my perception of myself and prevented me from seeing that my worth, gifts, and purpose were not predicated on being in a relationship, not in the way I thought. Being in a relationship wasn’t going to change the fact that I had low self-esteem, that I believed my life was of no consequence, and that in a room full of people, I always felt alone and even when I finally got into a relationship, I still felt all of those things. It didn’t make anything go away and all it did was bring all my insecurities to the surface. I didn’t have any more clarity, peace, or self-esteem when I was in a relationship than when I was single. Granted, that relationship was going nowhere fast, but my finer point is none of those unhealthy feelings started to change and ultimately, dissipated until I was in a relationship with God and it was in the development of my relationship with God that I discovered my purpose and that I started to find the peace I thought would come from having a boyfriend. Before the foundations of the Earth, God created each and every one of us with a distinct purpose, with specific gifts and sensibilities, and as such, there are things each of us must do, things that God has called us to do before we can become one with someone else and what an opportunity that is!
If we live our lives right, we are always in service to the Lord and that should be what is most important, that we are always doing His work – regardless of what our relationship status is when we do it. We have to stop thinking that our lives can’t begin until we are in a relationship because that isn’t living, it’s stalling.
Because if we do, we are wasting the gifts God has given us, we are wasting time and invariably delaying the very thing we seek from God. I know when I was younger, I would see relationships plastered on social media, which they still are but the issue at hand is not really with the relationships, but with the fact that oftentimes, the pressure we feel, as single people or the shame we feel in being single can come from seeing other people in relationships and doing what God told us not to in the 10th Commandment, which is covet. We see what someone else has and we want it believing we are lacking without it when we may not have even been thinking consciously about the fact that we were single or it didn’t have meaning until the moment we see someone else has something we don’t. We are not deficient and our flesh, in that moment allows us to believe that we are.
Let me ask you this: if God gave you marriage or a relationship right now, would you be equipped to receive it? God does not always give us things when we want them, not to punish or deprive us, but because He needs us to prepare for what we are going to receive. We know there were many years between when God told David he would be king and when He ascended to the throne. We know the time it took Sarah to get pregnant after God told her and Abraham that they would have a child. (She tried to do it her way as well and it caused nothing but calamity.)
“He has made everything perfect in His time“(Ecclesiastes 3:11). I get wanting not to be single, but it’s not a transitory period, it is a ministry just as marriage is, but the next time you think about begrudging being single or questioning why you are still single or even questioning God, remember that He created the world in six days from nothing, that He sent His son to die on the Cross so that you and I would be reconciled to Him, that He has never failed us yet. As meticulous and magnificent and omniscient as He is, do we really believe He has forgotten about us? Do we really not trust that there is a reason that at this time He has called us single? Do we truly believe He is mistaken or have other influences and spirits led us to believe that?
Being single is not something to do to pass the time, it is an opportunity to intentionally seek and serve Our Father, to grow into the people He created us to be.
“Let patience have her perfect work that we might be perfect and entire, lacking nothing” (James 1:4). A relationship, a marriage is a complement. In our service to God, we have the opportunity to be entire in and through Him. In case no one has told you, you are here for a distinct purpose, being someone’s spouse may be a part of that but God has put something in you and has assignments for you that He places there as He was creating the Heavens and the Earth. Now is the time to discover what it is!
“No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly” (Psalm 84: 11). If you want to be in a relationship or married because of a couple you saw on social media or because you’ve seen worldly relationships that you believe are prospering, I will tell you what my dad told me. You don’t want what anyone else has and more importantly, waiting on God does not mean you are idle. “Don’t be weary in welldoing for in due season we shall reap if we faint not”(Galatians 6:9). These are the promises of God! If you want to be in a relationship because you’re lonely, it’s God you should be seeking to fulfill you, not another human being. No one else is going to fill that void. Do you want to be in any relationship or do you want what God has for you?
