Embracing Singleness is not easy. Sometimes being single can be lonely and depressing. In this post we give 3 tips to enjoy your singleness – it can be life-changing.
TL;DR: The Summary
Historically, both in literature, worldly culture and church culture, singleness is often met with negative perceptions. It’s a sign of lack, loneliness and incompleteness. Women especially are thought to be ‘left on the shelf’, ‘expiring’, but although that’s the narrative that has been, intentionally or unintentionally, sown into society, it doesn’t have to be the end of the story for you. The Living in Love and Faith course has a great chapter about this in chapter 5 of the book, which can be downloaded as PDF.
In this blog, we have the ‘secret of contentment’ for you in your singleness. We have compiled some top-tier advice from a group of SALT singles and it’s all here.
Embracing your singleness is as simple (although easier said than done… sorry!) as these three steps:
It may feel completely impossible, but with God all things are possible!
Intro
POV: you’re still single and it’s tough. You’re feeling disheartened and if you’re honest, you’re cross with God. You decide to meet up with that one single friend for coffee, hoping to share your best stories from the Christian dating world, talk about your married friends and just have a good moan about “where are all the single Christians?” But then something weird happens. Your friend arrives and they are thriving. They’re ridiculously busy, they love their church and no matter how hard you poke them, they show no sign of pining for a spouse. How are they doing it? What is their secret?
Embracing Singleness Tip #1: Embrace Jesus
It will come as no surprise that the number one answer for embracing your singleness is Jesus. Resist the urge to roll your eyes. It is practical advice. It will transform your perspective. Sit tight, read on and watch as Jesus thaws your cynical single heart.
Imagine meeting Jesus, rushing towards him filled with an indescribable feeling of meeting your Lord and Saviour. You reach towards him to embrace him, but your arms are already full. You’re carrying so many worldly cares in your arms: making yourself attractive, financially preparing for marriage and obviously hunting down your ideal spouse. Time to throw them aside because you cannot hold both. You cannot cling to the idol of marriage and embrace Jesus.
Shedding the Idol
But how can I cast this idol aside? How could I ever stop wanting marriage? The answer is more simple: you can want marriage without idolising it. When you have a healthy relationship with Jesus it naturally follows that you will have a healthier concept of marriage too. We must first understand why we crave marriage so much.
God teaches us, even from Eden, that as humans we are designed to be relational. In Genesis 2:18 we read God’s monumental assertion that “it is not good for man to be alone.” God actually programmed our hearts to love and desire someone other than ourselves. In 1 John 4:19 we read the beautiful line “we love because he first loved us”. Not only are our hearts programmed to love, they’re programmed to worship. So it is no surprise that when we live in this couple-obsessed culture, we begin to worship marriage as our ultimate saviour.
We try to fill the Jesus-shaped hole in our hearts with another human: we desperately search every party and church gathering for “the one”. Then we flick through hundreds of profiles on Christian dating apps trying to find love at first swipe. We even ignore red flags in relationships because we are too afraid to be single. But friend, not even the most amazing spouse on earth can measure up to Jesus.
Steps to embrace Jesus
In order to embrace Jesus the first step is to let him take his rightful place in your heart. It is such a gift that God has given you this time of singleness to work this truth out. It’s so much easier this way than to discover in a pool of heartbreak-induced tears that humans just can’t love like Jesus can. This means that you have already found your “person,” or, more specifically, he has found you. You belong to Jesus, you are his, and he has showered you in his grace and love.
Embracing Jesus means accepting this life changing truth: he is the only source of contentment. Read it again: he is the only source of contentment. Not money, not beauty, not sex, not marriage. Finding contentment does not mean changing our circumstances (i.e. relationship status), it means adjusting the posture of our hearts.
Transformation
You may have noticed that humans are very easily influenced by the person they spend the most time with. Remember your bestie who changed personality when they started dating that toxic boy/girlfriend? Yeah… but this works positively too! Let your heart be moved towards Jesus: start to intentionally spend time with him like you would in a new relationship. Read his word, talk to him, sing his praises (literally!). Cue the honeymoon period and you will start to believe the deep life-giving truths that he tells you about yourself: you are whole, you are loved, you are safe in the future he has secured for you. The greatest truthbomb of this new relationship? It’s 100% exclusive, in fact, it’s covenant, which means it’s super official, it’s God-level official. You have embraced Jesus, which means all those annoying and anxiety-inducing desires to find a spouse can take a hike!
“Singleness” doesn’t have to stir feelings of shame, impatience and pessimism. “Singleness” = freedom, wealth and time. Hurray for Jesus blessing you with this wonderful gift of singleness!
Hints for you
- Start battling intrusive thoughts with scripture and reminding yourself that you already belong to Jesus (way better than a spouse anyway).
- Stop comparing yourself to other people: delete the insta app, stop watching Jess & Gabe (we know you do it).
Embracing Singleness Tip #2: Embrace Others
Okay, so you’ve realised the huge potential that this season of singleness offers you: time, money and freedom. What can you do with it? Well, to fully embrace others in your singleness, my number one tip would be to start filling those hours you’ve previously spent moping on your bed watching The Notebook with kingdom-building activities.
In Galatians 5:13 we read: “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.” Although Paul is not writing about the freedom we find in singleness, it is wonderful that this instruction applies to we who are single. This clear instruction from Paul provides us with guidelines of how we should steward the freedom we have in our singleness. Instead of indulging the flesh, we must serve one another humbly in love. I don’t know about you, but I’m reading this as, ‘Instead of hunting for thrills and spouses, devote your time to those who don’t have the same privilege.’
Ideas
Contentment follows from this investment in other people. It’s not hard to find inspiration. Just look at Jesus, always serving those who no one else wanted to go near. Not everyone has to run a soup kitchen or fly across the world to do life changing missionary work (by all means go for it if you can!). Become a proactive member of your church, serve on different teams, dare to offer help when and wherever it is needed. Give up a Saturday to help a family move house, cook meals for the new parents who haven’t slept in a week, offer to babysit, befriend a freshman who is in need of companionship. These things will bind your church family tighter, and you have the resources to make it happen. So what’s stopping you?
Hints for you
- Befriend a mum/dad from your church, offer them help in any way you can and reap the reward of growing to understand the immensity of the roles God has given them
- Take a look at your calendar – do your activities build the kingdom? Make a conscious decision to tweak your schedule to have a good mixture of kingdom building, work and relaxation
- Watch this video: How to be Single and NOT Lonely. And check our blog post about it too: How to overcome loneliness!
Embracing Singleness Tip #3: Embrace the Now
My final, and maybe favourite tip, is that God has kept you free of the role of wife, husband, mother, father for a good and life-giving purpose. Simply because you are free of these titles it is possible for you to do and be so many things which become a hundred times harder once you’re married.
Being ambitious to serve God is a good thing. Being ambitious for the way God’s power can move in your life is a good thing. It’s a beautiful thing! So don’t limit your place on earth to being someone’s lover. Is there a career change you’ve been side-eyeing for years? Have you always wanted to move to Edinburgh but never plucked up the courage? Maybe it’s that book you’ve been putting off writing. Or that Masters that you know you would absolutely love to study? Put yourself forward for the promotion. Apply to that job outside your comfort zone. Start the podcast. Sign up for the marathon. Ask that really cool friend if they want to collaborate on a crazy project with you. Equip yourself to serve God better. Be ambitious! And make the most of your now.
Investing in the future
Another huge bonus about your singleness is that you can begin to intentionally and wisely invest in the future spouse that you will become. Perhaps you’ve already written your list of qualities you want in your dream spouse, perhaps you pray over it every day. Well the time God is giving you is a great opportunity to look in the mirror and ask yourself whether you see the qualities you have written down. The longer you are not married, the more time you have to grow, the more prepared you will be if God does send a spouse your way. Spend time in the Word, read books about marriage, read books about womanhood and manhood, attend courses and conferences about living a godly life. Seek the feeling of inspiration which can only come from the gospel because it will feed your spirit and grow you. How attractive is that?
Hints for you
- Spend some time prayerfully daydreaming – what can you do now that is possible because you are single? Take a leap of faith!
- By all means keep praying for your future spouse, but I would encourage you to pause these prayers in favour of praying for your own preparation for marriage. It will change your mindset from greed and lust to humility and growth.
- And ff you get an opportunity to go on some dates – don’t be shy! Should you say yes to a first date? Why not?
Let’s Conclude
The coffee has been drained, the conversations have been had and you look at your friend in a new light. There is no great conspiracy, God has just opened their eyes to the immense gift of this season and they are truly making the most of it. Maybe right now, even after reading all this, the thought of embracing your singleness still makes your toes curl a little. Trust God that you can be one of these thriving, content singles too, pray that he will help you. I know he can, because he did it for me. There will come the day when you feel genuine gratitude for your singleness, genuine joy at telling new friends “yes! I’m single!” and genuine wonder when suddenly you become the friend at coffee glowing with energy and inspiration you take from being single. You will be telling others that life is so much bigger than they think it is, because this season is an absolute gift.
Call to Action (because we singles move!): Watch more videos about celebrating singleness on our YouTube channel especially this one: Singleness is a gift… what if I don’t want it?!
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