Have you ever thanked God that you’re single?

I mean this question with the utmost sincerity. Have you? Have I? I don’t just mean the words you utter under your breath when you see a girl giving her guy grief or when you see how much money and energy your friend spends. No. Have we and do we ever take time out just to say ‘Lord I thank you for this season on singleness’? Have you ever looked and considered the benefits of your current state? We should not pass up the opportunity to grow in this season. This was an idea completely foreign to me until not too long ago. I thank God that I did not just let it go in one ear and out the other. It truly meant something to me. Singleness has blessings of its own; an undivided heart, time for just you and God, time to work on the traits that need working on, time, options – you have the choice to enter a relationship or not – freedom to serve God like you couldn’t if you were married/en route to marriage and so much more. 1 Corinthians 7: 32-35 is often misunderstood but is the basis for my point and I pray that as we read it God helps us to understand it fully.

Let’s take it to James 1:2-4. These couple of verses tell us to consider it pure joy when we face trials. I don’t know about you but for me, this journey of singleness has been a trial. I’ve battled selfishness, discontent, loneliness and so much more but God continues to see me through. Now if we fail to continue letting God refine us with these hard lessons we will go into marriage and be unhappy because we thought it would solve them. This idealistic representation of marriage being all roses and cuddles will damage us if we don’t yield to God’s transformation via breaking us and remolding us. He’s the potter and we’re the clay after all (Jeremiah 18). This portion of scripture then goes on to say that we should let perseverance FINISH its work so that we can be mature. If we only focus on ‘God when is she coming’ ‘Lord where is my boo’ we will stay in that state of discontent, be happy for a while if/when the person does arrive but then go back to the state of discontent that we thought a human relationship could fix. Why? Because we did not let perseverance finish its maturing work in us. We didn’t let go of that idol of marriage (so when it’s not what we thought, we are disgruntled), we did not let go of selfishness, envy, pride etc, we just sulked. We must use the time in our trials, seasons, etc wisely else we will remain the same. Grow through, don’t just go through. Let us accept our current position and become mature. God will not keep you single a day longer than He planned.

Marriage is not a ‘fix it’ for our problems, it will not solve our lack of joy. Only God can do that. Let us remember that marriage is for this earth alone, Christ however, is eternal so therefore devotion to Him is not a waste. Marriage may be the most common expression of God’s will but it is not the only expression. Use the time you have wisely before you have a husband/wife & kids to add to your list of worries.

So lets take this time out to thank God for whatever season we are in; single, married, engaged, there is a blessing, don’t miss it. Be at peace with where you are.