Maybe the greatest temptations in singleness are loneliness and impatience. Impatience in waiting for our right soul partner and loneliness of being by ourselves. Perhaps you might wonder when will it be that your paths will cross or when will someone tell you, “I have been praying for you.” Our culture dictates that getting married will complete or make us happier and more content in life. For singles who have been out of the calendar (as what they say) are becoming anxious that they might end up being alone forever. And, for many of us, this leads to rushing into a premature relationship that is not orchestrated by God but by our own stubbornness and immaturity. A romantic relationship is meant to be centered on the will of Him who is able to write the best love story for each one of us if we just learn to give Him the pen, so He could write the best love story for you and me.
God is the best writer of love stories even from the start when He gave Eve to Adam. We see how the Lord has brought them to each other without their own efforts. They just waited on His imaginative way to bring them together as one. In the same way, we are to wait on God’s perfect timing and orchestration to give us the right one. I understand that waiting seems to be tiring and uninteresting, but we must learn to use our singleness as a time to really build our lives around Christ, so we would be fuller when we are married. The Apostle Paul mentioned something interesting about being single when he said that, “he that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord.” He continued by elaborating that, “the unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, but she that is married careth for the things of the world. . .” He did not discourage being married. Instead, he brought into the picture the difference between the two.
I wrote about singleness a few months ago (Finding My Joy and Contentment in Him) emphasizing contentment in being single because this is the season of learning, serving, and experiencing contentment in Him alone. If the Lord wills you and I to marry, then singleness will never come our way again. If we learn to fully maximize it, then singleness can actually be fun and enjoyable. He has given us different talents, spiritual gifts, and abilities that we can use to help build his Kingdom while we are serving Him alone.
So, what would I do now? Where should I start? Should I wait forever? You may ask. I cannot answer that for you. But I have listed down some ways on how we can maximize our singleness for the Lord.
Develop a Deeper Relationship with Him
The greatest relationship that we have is our relationship with the Lord. This should be our first priority in life regardless of our status. But like what Paul said, the cares of a single person are lesser than the cares of the married one. Use this time to fully get to know the Lord while we still have the leisure to do so. Make this time to develop our prayer and devotion time consistently. My friend would always tell me that when you are married, you need to accomplish a lot even at the very early hour of the day. Setting aside time for prayer and devotion is very difficult to find.
If as a single, it is so easy for us to neglect God and His Word, how much more when we already have valid reason of making our husband and children as our priority and not the Lord?
Involve Yourself in Church Ministries
Time plays an important role in our lives. Being single means, we have more free time than of the married ones. Most of the time, we are not maximizing it for productivity but for idleness. We entertain impure thoughts and involve in worldly activities that would eat up most if not all our time. The Proverbs 31 woman looks well to the ways of her household and she does not eat the fruit of idleness (v27). As we can see in her life, she does so many activities. The good thing is, those activities have purpose and eternal value. We know that idleness can lead to unfruitful activities like gossip, discontent, and self-pity. As a godly woman, we don’t want to be just busybody accomplishing nothing.
Prayerfully consider ministries that the Lord has called you to participate in. This can maximize your time and effort at the same time, investing to what is eternal. In the same way, we take away the tendency to just focus on ourselves and our seemingly miserable situation of being single. The more we focus our thoughts on ourselves, the more we are tempted to sin and the more we become selfish. Let us remember that we are saved to serve (Galatians 5:13). It is much better to participate in ministries that would enable us to share our lives with others.
Minister to our Brethren
When I was a new Christian, there were people that the Lord placed in my life who have helped me grow my relationship with Him. These sisters and brothers in Christ consistently following me up, giving me encouragement, and tirelessly counseling me when troubles and confusion came my way. That’s where I realized how beneficial it is to minister to our brethren. I wanted to do the same as a means to pay it forward. It is a great opportunity to point these sisters and brothers to Christ. When we look at the life of Jesus, this is what he did for many years here on Earth. Something that is worthy of imitating.
We will never know who needs help unless we become sensitive of the need of others. When we look beyond ourselves, we may see that we can do a lot of things for our brethren. Some might be in need of encouragement. Others may be waiting for someone to disciple them. Or maybe others are shy and searching for someone whom they can talk to about their faith. And we might be this “one” that they are waiting for. Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works (Hebrews 10:24) esteeming each other better than ourselves (Philippians 2:3).
Prepare Yourself for the Future
Singleness is the best time to prepare for a married life, practically speaking. It is this time that we should be learning how to manage our time properly, how to be organized at home, how to be selfless and care for others, how to manage our daily life, and so on.
I have learned that I need to manage my time well when I experienced a very stressful period in my life trying to juggle work, family matters, and church ministries. Time well spent is a time well invested especially for things that matter the most. And, I believe that this lesson will be beneficial when, Lord willing, I will enter a new chapter of a married life (maybe). Nonetheless, it is worth to be good at managing time.
There are still a lot of things that we can do to use our singleness to honor and glorify the Lord. Instead of wallowing in the thought that you are still single, make your singleness fun and enjoyable. At the end of the day, when this season in our lives will be changed to a married one (by God of course), we would want to look back with a smile and not regrets. We need to make the most out of this time that we have right now.
“Marriage is not the answer of unhappiness. Happiness can only be found in a balanced relationship with Jesus Christ. When you belong to Christ, you can be happy with or without husband, secure in Christ alone.” – Corrie ten Boom
Post was originally from:
https://changedlifedotblog.wordpress.com/2018/04/15/singleness-making-the-most-out-of-it/
