When will this season of singleness end?

The moment I joined campus, I started devouring every “Christian-based” piece of literature about marriage and relationships that I could find. 

Arguably, culture has set it quite clearly that, "Go to school, get a job, get married." So, since I still had about three years left before graduation, one of the things I thought I had to invest a good measure of my efforts in was to read, study and acquire as much knowledge as possible about the next season of my life: marriage. Little did I really think about this other thing called 'singleness'. 

When I eventually finished school, however, things turned out to have taken a different curve altogether for me: I went to school, graduated, got a job, and then became single! Now, I'd had no idea what this period of my life really was to be like; no one had told about it. It somehow occurred to me that singleness was an unavailable road towards marriage (specially for those that are hoping to some day get married); that it was a somewhat uncomfortable, almost unbearable period that you just can’t wait to get out of to the next amazing season of marriage. Nevertheless, I have come to understand and believe that God never intended for it to be so.

By no means in this post do I intend to say that marriage is undesirable. Marriage is very much desirable; I for one desire the gift of marriage, and I aspire to initiate one of the most beautiful marriages I and my children will ever know.

The primary purpose of this post is to bring more light to the subject of singleness, to nullify the devil that gets us so desperate that we end up settling for any average man or woman simply because we felt like singleness was "chocking" us.

In the first book of apostle Paul to the Corinthians, chapter 7 and verse 7, the apostle calls his singleness a "gift", wishing that all of us were also like him. But you see, each of us has their own gift(s). I believe Paul was happy about his singleness because he truly understood what singleness was and wished that we also get to understand it (the same way), and therefore enjoy it. Don't get me wrong here, I mean not to say that we shouldn’t get married like Paul did, no, not at all. I am saying that we should learn more about singleness and maximize it so that when we eventually get the gift of marriage, we don’t have regrets of what things we could have done before marriage. 

"Desperately praying away a given season is disrespectful to the current season." -Pastor Steven Furtick

As we focus all of our attention to when a given season is to end, we are unknowingly being robbed of all the gifts that are hidden in this uncomfortable season that we are praying away.

Understanding the gift of singleness:

Simply put, singleness is that season before one gets married. For as long as you see no marriage ring on your finger, you still have the gift of singleness (at least as far as the basic Christian principles under which I've been raised are concerned). This gift might be shorter for some and longer for others, and yet for others, it is for a lifetime. Yes.

I once lost a friend who was only 20 years of age, with no experience at all in dating or ever being in a relationship, as far as I knew (and I did know him quite well). So is it safe to say he had the gift of singleness for his entire lifetime? 

How sad would it be if he spent all his single life fantasying about marriage, waiting to become or start working on his dreams or do some things after getting married?

The one who gives the gift of marriage is the same who also gives the gift of singleness, and being a good father, he gives good gifts.

We might not know how long our season of singleness will last, so the important thing here is that we must live our lives to the fullest because: 

His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. (2Peter 1: 3)

We have been given everything we need for right now, no need to waste all our present admiring the future.

We need to start being the person we desire to become when we get married: be it kind, loving, classy, fun or whatever. How about you take that vacation to Mombasa, or Dubai, whether you have a beautiful family with you yet or not? How about you pay more attention and love your present family and friends?

What God expects of us from in this season:

The Cambridge online dictionary defines singleness as: "Attention to one thing i.e. singleness of mind/purpose."

So God expects us to single-mindedly pursue Him, 1st Corinthians 7:32:

"An unmarried man has no other concerns apart from the Lord and how he may please him..."

 We therefore need to let go of all the anxiety of how and when we are to get married, with almost nothing else in our minds but how best to serve God, and how to do that better.

Purpose. To discover our purpose in him, we need to focus our singleness on getting to know who we are, what we are good at, what our passions and talents are, plus our weaknesses too, so that we may improve in all areas.

So you ought to single-mindedly serve the Lord, to serve him in your calling, in that specific thing that you love doing the most. As single people, we out to intentionally and vigorously serve God through our different gifts like singing, education, kindness, relating with others, entrepreneurship, serving children, pastoring, real estate management, parenting, among other things.

Whatever God has called us to do in this season of singleness, we should fully throw ourselves at it, with as much time and energy as we can, because when we enter into the season of marriage, our time and energy will undeniably be split into many more portions as we shall have become someone's husband/wife, mother/father, daughter-in-law/son-in-law, sister-in-law/brother-in-law at the same time. The point here is, our responsibilities will at the very least double up and the time to serve the community will most probably reduce.

When we devote our singleness to serving God, as well as to personal development, we become complete, other than waiting on the other person who comes into our life to complete us (and yet they can't!).

When we wait on a man/woman to make us feel loved, valued, honourable, intelligent, we are waiting to take from the marriage instead of giving into it. As most preachers have clearly put it:

"When two people who have been waiting to take from a marriage get married, they become like two parasites wanting to suck blood off each other."

Therefore we shall have two frastuated individuals, because their spouses can't do what God only can do, which is to give us fulfillment through our knowledge of him.

Therefore, maximising our singleness is a wonderful gift that builds us for a better marriage.

Singleness is not a season of "waiting on your Boaz", it is a season for you to grow and flourish in God’s call for your life.

"When will this season of singleness end?" is a question only God can answer for each individual; however, our prayer should be that we learn to do everything we need to in this season.

Has the #relationshipgoals hashtag been in your face all the time, too?

Oftentimes, while we are learning to fully maximise our gift of singleness, purposely serving God single mindedly, the #relationshipgoals hashtag tends to always parade itself infront of our faces, not to mention cute Christian couples and the funny sentimental stories they always tell about each other.

How to cope with the intimacy and romance in our society, on social media and TV series? Perhaps that will be for another day.

However, epecially those who're already in their season of marriage, please leave a comment with some answers to this one if you can.

Please comment and share your story about singleness.

For now, allow me to sign this off with Hebrews 12:1-2,

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

Thank you!