One of Satan’s biggest temptations for married people is to want to be single. I’ve found that one of his biggest temptations for single people is to want to be married. This was the case for me when I was single and is the case for most of my single friends. Yet in spite of this, many married people have moments (some more frequently than others) where they wish they were single again. I blog a lot about the temptations I face as a married person and what married people need to focus on to be content. Today I decided to write a post for single people.
These 8 things honestly have nothing to do with sex. They all fall within God’s design for sex, marriage, and singleness. Don’t forget after all that Jesus and Paul were both single, and it’s something that Paul says, “It is good for a man not to marry…I wish that all men were as I am (single).” (1 Cor. 7:1, 7) God didn’t intend singleness to be miserable. There are jewels to being a Christian single that we often overlook because we are so busy wishing we were married, we miss what is right under our nose.
8 Hidden Benefits to Reflect On In Order To Be More Content In Your Singleness:
- You are freer to do more ministry (1 Cor. 7:32-34)
- You can do what you want to do with your time, when you want to do it. If you feel like going on a vacation, you don’t need to consult permission from anyone or argue about where to go, you can just call some friends up and get going.
- You don’t need to consult your spouse when making financial purchases.
- You can be as generous as you want with your money.
- If you want to be neat and tidy, you can be without a sloppy spouse making messes all around the house. If you want to be messy, you can be without a neat and tidy spouse always getting on you about cleaning up after yourself.
- If you want to get a dog or cat, go for it.
- If you want to work late, you can.
- You can enjoy a deeper community of friends, without the need to specifically invest in a spouse and children.
You get the idea. These may seem like small things to you. They are likely things you simply take for granted, as I did when I was single. But ask a married person and they will likely agree that these are things they at times wish they could still have. Which is the entire point.
We need to learn to stop wishing for the things we don’t have and enjoy the things we do. Ecclesiastes 3 tells us there is a time and a season for everything. 1 Timothy 6 tells us that godliness with contentment is great gain. Satan steals our joy and our life from us by getting us discontent with our present circumstances.
The grass isn’t greener on the other side, it’s greenest where you water it, even for singles.
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He is:
Author of Beyond the Battle: A man's guide to his identity in Christ in an oversexualized world
Host of the The Flip Side Podcast
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Was looking for some takes regarding this topic and I found your article quite informative. It has given me a fresh perspective on the topic tackled. Thanks!
Check my book The Two Sides of Being Single: A Biblical Perspective is a book that is dedicated to single Christians who are either desiring to maintain a single Christian life or who are seeking God to bless them with a husband or a wife.