Celebrating Your Singleness: Are You Happy Being Single?
Being Single
Singleness is an interesting topic. Somehow in many churches across our land, being single is equated with missing out, lack of success, failure, and even the impossiblity of ever finding contentment. But does one need to be married to have value, to be contented, or to fulfill one’s destiny?
I hardly think so! Jesus is my all time favorite Single! He was single and He was satisfied, content in who He was as a single man. He didn’t need marriage to give Him status or make Him complete. Jesus was complete in His relationship with God and He is to be our example of what the Heavenly Father desires in our singleness.
Now I am sure you are going to say, “Yes but! Marriage completes a man and a woman.”
Hmmm! Is that true?
Having an illusionary idea of the perfect mate, we thoughtlessly give another person – who often is a stranger – incredible power to determine who we are and to decide our destiny. Rather than celebrate who we are as a single, a unique human being created in the image of a holy God, we see ourself as deficient.
Perhaps it is because we don’t know who we are, what we like or hate, or what we believe. Oh, not things our parents or teachers told us to believe, but beliefs we have thought about and embraced as our core beliefs. Beyond not knowing who we are or what we believe, we don’t know what our boundaries are. That creates dangerous vulnerability.
If you don’t know how to guard your heart, you are vulnerable to deception. Standing in a crowded room feeling lonely, even sorry for yourself, when a stranger enters, looks across the room, meets your eyes and gazes deeply into them, fireworks explode in your brain. As the song goes, “your heart knows in an instant that you’ll never be alone again”.
Your heart pounds, your face flushes. As you experience a dopamine rush, you don’t care if he or she is a thief, an arsonist, or a murderer. All cognitive thought shuts down. The only thing you know is a moment before you felt lonely and empty inside, but now you feel seen, valued, and your reptillian brain shouts “this is the one!”
Unreasonable Expectations
For the guy, as he looks at her, testosterone pumps through his veins, his fantasy of finding a true love is now gazing adoringly at him. He has no idea what she thinks, believes, or desires in life. There is no indication if she actually will be a compliment to him and the destiny he desires. All he thinks is she looks incredible. His conclusion: she will delight in giving herself to meet my needs.
For ladies with a Hollywood inspired fantasy of finding Mr. Right, a knight in white shining armor, who will whisk you away to a land of your dreams, the fantasy spinning in your brain feels authentic; there stands the knight you dreamed about. You know by the way he looks into your eyes that after he rescues you, he will fill your emptiness and you will live happily ever after.
Talk about beginning a relationship with unrealistic expectations for our spouse!
You believe this person will be the answer to your prayers. That may actually be true! But the Lord has a way of answering prayers slightly different than expected.
You have rough edges; so does your crush. So the Lord will carefully choose a person most qualified to help rub off those rough areas.
I am sure you are smiling and thinking that won’t be true of your heart throb. But statistics show it is totally accurate. Your strengths will often be his areas of weakness. Unless you are able to accept him as he is, your strengths will allow you to disrespect or even despise him. Unless he loves you unconditionally, where he is strong, he will have no sympathy for your weakness. That is part of being human.
And what is that, you ask?
If you are not comfortable being single, you won’t be comfortable being married. If you are not poised and confident in who you are as a single, then marriage is going to challenge you in fresh ways that will leave you feeling distraught, unsure of yourself, and very insecure.
What am I trying to say? The Lord wants you to be satisfied with where He has placed you right now. You are single! That is exciting! As a single, you have many opportunities you won’t have as a married person, especially once the children come along.
Embrace being single. It is an opportunity to explore, to adventure off in fresh paths where you can grow in who you are as a person during a time of relative freedom when you don’t have major commitments of marriage or parenthood.
Contentment is important. If you aren’t content as a single person, I assure you, you won’t be content when the glamor fades and you wake up to the fact your partner has smelly breath, isn’t always cheerful, and isn’t willing to meet all your heart’s desires; his or her focus is to do what he/she wants or feels is best for them.
Learn to accept yourself. You are uniquely you and God has designed a pathway specific for you in your singleness. Part of that is to establish healthy boundaries where you know how you will behave when tempted to do things you would not normally do. A key boundary to establish is sexual purity.
Give thanks in everything. Being single is a season in life where we are to give thanks. Are you giving thanks? If you aren’t, once you are married, you will be prone to grumble and complain about your mate.
Until you learn to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, you may actually miss the one God chose for you in your demand to fill your emptiness. Because you are dissatisfied with who God created you to be, haven’t taken time to be alone with yourself to explore the wonders of who you are, and haven’t take time to develop your relationship with the Lord, your immaturity will lead you into a relationship that instantly ignites a passion within you but will ultimately steal your identity and leave you more empty inside than when you began.
My dear friend, I urge you to take time to love yourself in a healthy way. It will pay dividends through the rest of your life, and even into eternity!
God bless you as you move forward to experience the wonder of being satisfied as a single.
Thank you so much for writing about the blessings of singleness. This was really encouraging for me. I was especially delighted to realize that Jesus is the best picture of a fulfilling and contented singleness. In my religious conception of Him, I often miss that He was human just like us, so I was blind to even think about Him as being single. I’m so happy I can look to Him not only as my example of a satisfied single, but also as the only One who can ever fulfill me and complete me.
Hi Joy. Yes, Jesus is a wonderful picture of a godly Single! It really makes a huge difference when we remember He was fully man – and faced all the dynamics, weaknesses, temptations we will ever face. And because the enemy wanted to conquer Him – the attacks against Him would have been huge, much greater than anything we will ever face. Yet, He triumphed over each obstacle thrown in His path, without ever yielding to lust for even a moment. He was content with His Father – and that contentment is available to us. May we learn to be satisfied in our singleness! Blessings!