A Call To Be Single
The single season can be one of the most challenging seasons for a woman. It’s a time where loneliness and confusion try to reign and thoughts of discouragement and discontentment do their best to creep in. The time of being single can feel like a pause, especially if you aren’t content in being single. It can feel as if you are waiting for your life to begin and you’re stuck until that ring is on your left hand. Nowhere in our Bible is singleness looked at in a negative light. In fact, this opportunity is looked at as a gift. That might not be the case for many of you in this season, but it is. This article is a look at the call of being single. Jesus has planned and purposed our lives for such a time, and we need to make the most of every season and opportunity that He gives us. There are two very important callings during the season of singleness.
“An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord's affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world--how she can please her husband.” (1 Corinthians 7:34, New International Version).
A Call to Better Yourself
As we see in the scripture a “married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world- how she can please her husband.” ( 1 Corinthians 7:34, NIV). Married women are called to submit and respect their husbands, just as husbands are called to love and care for their wives. As a single woman your responsibilities do not fall onto taking care of a man, it falls onto taking care of yourself and the things of God. We are called to be in ministry during marriage also, but Paul is very clear in this passage that our concern is for the Lord’s affairs, and “Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord.” This time of being single is a gift. It is the only time in your life that you will have the opportunity to press into God without considering another person. Marriage is a beautiful, God-orchestrated gift, but it takes work. Your call as a single woman is a gift, and a precious time for you to better yourself; strengthen your relationship with Christ, serve whole-heartedly, plug yourself into a community of women, learn how to cook, work on areas of your life that are sinful, take up a fun hobby and get yourself ready to be a woman that is worthy of a man of God.
“I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” (Philippians 4:12, NIV)
A Call to be Content
Relationships aren’t always what you perceive. When we are single it is so easy to see what others have and run after it. You see the couple walking down the street laughing and holding hands, or the couple in your church with their perfectly dressed children and you dream about how great that would be. But what you don’t see is the work that goes into those relationships. You didn’t see the fight that the couple had an hour before, or the situation they are having to work through. You didn’t see the parents running around the house before church trying to get their children ready. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side. If we don’t learn to be content during our single season, then we are always going to be looking at other people’s situations asking God to change our situation. Contentment doesn’t come from a guy, or a child, or a new job, or a graduation. Contentment is a choice; it is an opportunity to use the season that God has you in no matter the call. Being single isn’t easy, but neither is being in a relationship. There’s a saying that says every single person wants to be in a relationship, and everyone in a relationship wants to be single. There is no perfect situation, we will always want what we don’t have, until we learn to be content with the season God has placed us in.
The call of being single is often a temporary call. The season of being single is a time for God to work in a place that seems desolate and barren. It is essential, as women of God, to seize every opportunity that God gives us. Singleness is an opportunity. An opportunity to learn, grow, seek, and pursue the calling that God has on your life.
