Hi friend!! Today we are going to talk about the topic of singleness!! I wrote a blog a long time ago about why the single season is a gift from God and recently I have been wanting to write more about singleness as well as possibly doing a singleness, dating, and marriage series on this blog! I am not an expert and don’t know the answers to everything BUT everything that I am sharing with you guys is what God has taught me and the different resources that He has given me to learn more about these topics.
I want to touch on singleness because I know that it is definitely hard and that people struggle with it. I am currently single and have been so far in my lifetime SO I get the struggle completely. I want to encourage you guys and myself today to trust where God has us and to keep our eyes on Jesus Christ and seeking Him wholeheartedly no matter what.
ENCOURAGEMENT #1 – IT IS OKAY TO HAVE THE DESIRE
My first encouragement to you all is that it is 100% okay to have the desire to date or to be married. There is nothing wrong with wanting to find your life partner. It becomes an issue when this desire is not godly. A desire to date or be married becomes ungodly when it is put above God like an idol or we are desiring a relationship that is not going to honor God, examples of this could be not putting God in the center of your relationship, not treating our partner well, not honoring God in the boundaries (like physical, emotional, spiritual boundaries) we are going to set in our relationship, etc. If you have the desire to date and be married one day, and it is to honor the Lord, God has given you that desire! If it is not a godly desire ask the Lord to help you have a godly desire and a relationship that will honor Him. I constantly keep asking God to help me have a godly desire when it comes to being in a relationship one day because sometimes it is easy to slip up and to have the wrong intentions and I want a relationship that will honor Him. Remember that God wants you to come to Him with everything.
ENCOURGAEMENT #2 – REMEMBER THAT GOD HAS YOU WHERE HE HAS YOU
Let’s really think through this statement – It is not an accident that you are where you are right now because that is where God wants you to be. If you are supposed to be in a different season, you will be in that season. You guys, this is something that I seriously need help remembering every day. I am reminded of the verse Isaiah 55:8-9 which says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways. This is the Lord’s declaration. For as heaven is higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts”. This verse reminds me that we do not think and process like how God thinks because we are humans and He is God. Additionally, God is mighty, powerful, and all-knowing – if He has us where we are right now because that is where He knows we need to be, He knows what He is doing (read it again if you need to haha). Sometimes that is hard for me to understand because I want to know, “God, why have I not met my person yet?” or telling Him that I am tired of being single. But friends, this helps us learn to trust God even when we do not understand what He is doing.
Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding; in all your ways know Him, and He will make your paths straight”. As hard as it is, we do not need to always understand what He is doing, we just need to rest in the fact of knowing who our God is, knowing that He knowns what He is doing, and that He is leading us where we need to go in our lives as long as we are obedient to where it is He is leading us.
To add on, I think being in long seasons of waiting helps us to depend on God more, cling to Him more, and transform us to be more like Christ. For example, in seasons of waiting, we can learn how to be more patient which Jesus Christ has the characteristic of patience.
ENCOURAGEMENT #3 – CHASE AFTER JESUS
It’s easy when we are single to want to chase after a relationship or create romanticized scenarios in our heads instead of chasing after Jesus. For me, which I am not proud of this, I have struggled a lot with creating scenarios in my head of being in a relationship with someone who I am not dating or that I have never talked to in my life – and this is dangerous. This is something I am highly convicted of as I am writing this because I personally do not want to create things in my head that do not and have not existed yet and in the end, I end up hurting myself or getting disappointed. It also distracts my mind away from God. If anything, I want my mind to be on Jesus first because He is my Lord and my true love, He should always come first. I have been praying to God to help me not create scenarios in my head, romanticize, or idolize relationships and I encourage you to pray about that too if you need to. Some ways we can seek and chase after Jesus would be to constantly be in His Word (the Bible), prayer (“Pray constantly” – 1 Thessalonians 5:17) + communicating with God constantly, worship Jesus through not only just songs but how we live our life and invest in a good Christian community that can help to keep us accountable and push us to Jesus. Dedicating every day to Jesus can help us to seek after Him more.
Matthew 6:33 says, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you”. – In this verse, Jesus is talking about seeking His kingdom first and righteousness. Furthermore, I think back to singleness and how we can worry about, “What if I never find someone” or we are anxious and tired of waiting but we need to seek God first in everything that we do. We need to seek God and trust that He is the Great Provider, He will provide us with what we need according to the plans He has for us in our lives. We should be pursuing God first and knowing that He will take care of the rest. Also, God enjoys giving us gifts, if you are desiring a godly relationship, God wants that for you. We need to take this desire, give it to God, and trust He knows what He is doing and will provide according to His plan, not our plan.
ENCOURAGEMENT #4 – YOU ARE A PRIZE
My last encouragement is that YOU ARE A PRIZE! You are God’s most treasured, prized possession!! We need to speak life into ourselves and know who we are in Christ. Knowing our identity in Jesus is SO important and can help remind us that our identity is not in being single or in our love status. Not to sound cliché, but we do have the greatest love of all and that is Jesus! Jesus is enough and His love is enough. No one can ever love us as much as Jesus loves us. Of course, this does not diminish the desire we may have for wanting a relationship but it reminds us whose we are and that Jesus is enough.
I want to encourage you guys with this verse, “God, how precious your thoughts are to me; how vast their sum is! If I counted them, they would outnumber the grains of sand; when I wake up, I am still with you” – Psalm 139:17-18. Remember God treasures you because you are His creation!
Okay friends, those were the four encouragements I had for you and myself! Thank you for clicking on this blog and reading it, I appreciate it so much! Remember even though singleness can be hard at times, it is a beautiful season and I pray that if you are in that season that you and I would cherish it because it is where the Lord has us. Remember He is faithful and always knows what He is doing. Love you all!
Love Bea ♡
Spreading God's Love 