Seeking God In Singleness

For 2015, my one “word” is seeking.

There have been so many times lately when my life has felt at a crossroads and it has been in those times when I needed to hear what God would say.  But it hasn’t always been this way.

When I was in the 7^th grade, I started reading romance novels getting so absorbed in the stories. I could live through the eyes of the female protagonists and fall in love over and over again. But the sad part would be when the character got her happily ever after and all I got was a finished book. I kept wondering when it was going to be my turn. When that turn seemed to take longer and longer, I decided to take my love life into my own hands and do something about my lack of romance.

About a year after I became a Christian, I met a guy. One thing led to another and before I knew it, I was head over heels in love for the first time. I wanted to be the one who would fill in all the broken places of his heart, who would get to walk down the isle with him and finally have my story book ending. My biggest mistake happened at the very beginning  even before we went out together on a spur-of-the-moment outing. It’s something that I think we could all look back and say, “Oh, I wish I’d done that too” because we’ve all dealt with heartache at least once in our lives and it’s this:

I never went to God in prayer seeking His face but instead tried to force His hand.

This guy was the only one who had paid any kind of attention to me and he just had to be “the one”. It didn’t matter that he was coming out of a messy break-up that still hadn’t been fully resolved or that his speech wasn’t as edifying as it should have been (which was only an indication of where his heart was). I ignored all those (and more) blaring warning signs from God.

As daughters of God, we have an awesome privilege of being able to go to our heavenly Father with boldness and seek His council when it comes to our singleness. We may not always avoid heartache but we can certainly minimize it if we’re willing to hear and be obedient to what He says.

Even before we start seeking God for a husband, we can seek Him in the areas of our own lives and hearts that need to be strengthened. Areas like:

Knowing who we are in Christ. We have been given new identities as daughters. Through Christ, we’re able to let go of our past shame and trust in the blessings promised to us.

An intimate and deepening experience of the Father’s love for us. Many women who come to Christ have such distorted images of what a father is because of their earthly fathers failing them.

Becoming good stewards of the time and resources He’s given to us. Even though we’re single, it doesn’t mean we’re not busy. We’re working, going to school, being involved in ministry, investing in friendship and community, choosing careers or trying to be entrepreneurs and following our dreams.

Letting go of perfection and holding on Christ. We’ve become so used to our lives being performance driven rather than character driven that we are racing to be the best. How many times do we fall into the comparison trap only to feel like we’re not good enough? God wants to release us from the burden but it can only be through spending time in His presence.

Seeking God means pursing, requiring, desiring Him and forsaking the other things we find our comfort in whether it be romantic movies, stories, or the relationship statuses of our friends and family. It’s not that a potential romance doesn’t have a place in our lives but it doesn’t take God’s place in our hearts.

Seeking God means that we put His thoughts and feelings before our own especially when they go against what we may want for our lives. We don’t have to fear His “No’s” because we think we’ll never be married. We can wait for His “Yes” with hopeful expectation because we trust that He loves us enough to give us His very best.

Liv is 34 years old and lives in New York City. She has lived in NYC for most of her life except for a four-year period when I went to high school in Connecticut. She is a single daughter serving - encouraging women of all ages in their singleness and identities in Christ. 
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