Being "Single-Minded"

It’s crucial you understand that, whether you are single or married. The pressures people are under are bad enough, and they certainly don’t need the additional hassles of other Christians adding to the burden.

You: I confess that the words I’m about to utter, I utter with fear and trembling, because I don’t want to come across like I know everything about folks who are single, especially those who have been single for many years, either because of divorce, death, or have never been married.

I married relatively early in life – I was 23. And so I don’t pretend to understand the emotional struggle that many single people have, especially if they have been single for many years of their adult life.

Whenever I think of speaking about things in which I have little actual experience, I think of a young single pastor I knew who was telling me about a message series he did on marriage and how he had them on the edge of their seats.

And I’m listening to this guy and thinking, “They’re on the edge of their seats because they’re this close to lynching you for thinking you know what you’re talking about!”

So please don’t feel that this married guy has it all figured out, okay?

But I do want to offer what I think are some practical suggestions for those who are single, whether God has called you to be single for just a while or for a lifetime:

1. Push off the pressure to feel you have

to marry in order to be fulfilled or because people simply expect it.

Feel free to tell people that at it’s just possible that God is calling you to a life of singleness for the sake of the kingdom.

If you feel that that’s what God is calling you to, then you’re acting in obedience to Him, and that is more important than fulfilling other’s expectations for you.

Now again, I don’t say this lightly. The pressure may be coming from a parent, a relative, a friend, or from yourself as you see those around you entering into marriage.

Please understand that the pressure isn’t coming from God. And to me, that’s what I want you to take from this.

God isn’t up there going, “When is this person going to get the message? How many people do I need to send into their life before they get a clue?”

Deb’s brother, Doug, married his wife, Marla, when he was 32 and she was 34.

She was telling me the other day that people were all over her to get married. She got to the point where she hated going to parties because someone there would always want to introduce her to some guy they thought would be perfect for her.

It didn’t matter that some of them didn’t love Christ, or that maybe she didn’t want to entered married life with step-children, or that the person just didn’t fit in with her idea of a mate.

They just thought that she was getting along in years and they wanted to do something about it! But she was waiting on God, and she said that there are advantages to being single.

For instance, you can be much more spontaneous, you have more freedom and flexibility, and you can have more time away and alone. You can travel.