 Singleness. To many it sounds like a disease or a curse, definitely something that you don't want to stay in and to get out of as fast as possible, right? After all, God said it was not good for man to be alone. Now the question is, is singleness just the in-between stage where nothing of real substance can arise from? Is singleness just the breeding ground for loneliness, temptation, and selfishness? The stigma around singleness is real. They say, no, nothing good can really come out of singleness. You know, it's just a breeding ground for temptation and loneliness and selfishness, and you should not be content about that. I've heard these things being said by Christians, and that brings a stigma that is not biblical. It's not a biblical perspective. So what I did is I went to Instagram and I asked a bunch of you guys, what are some of your questions around singleness? I am single, and that's not an advertisement, but that is a fact to tell you that I am ready to answer these questions. So I have some of these questions along with some of my own thoughts that go into it, and I hope it'll be beneficial for you. So let's get into it. So the first question is, are some of us called to be single? And the answer is yes, and I have the answer here in 1 Corinthians. So God, through the words of Paul and 1 Corinthians, speaks of the benefits of singleness here. I'm going to read this for you. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy and embody and in spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord. So it's clear there that Paul is convinced that singleness is actually a good and beneficial thing for a believer, if at all possible. It means you're able to serve God without your divided attention onto a spouse. Because I don't think a lot of people, this is something interesting that I've been thinking about. I don't think a lot of single people really realize what a relationship is. They see the beginnings of a relationship. If your friend gets into a relationship, they see that kind of, you know, whatever dating process. And that looks fun and that looks exciting. And even maybe the first year of marriage, oh man, I wish I had that with somebody. But they actually don't realize how much work goes into it. And that's something I want to try to convey to singles is like, you know, it's good to have that desire. It's good to have that hope for the future. It's good to have that longing if that is what, if that is something that God's placed on your heart. But at the same time realize that it's not easy. At the same time realize that is not a cakewalk. It's not just all happiness and roses. It's tough and it's work. And yeah, I just want to get that across to people that it's not all easy. So I think there's something to be said for focusing on serving God wholeheartedly and using that as your main purpose as being a single person. So we can see that not only is singleness a fine stage to be in an acceptable stage, but it's actually a very beneficial stage where we can focus wholeheartedly on serving God. So this is part of my reason why I don't want people to waste their singleness. I think there can be such a temptation to look at, oh, maybe your friends as you get older and to your, you know, late teens, early 20s, and maybe your friends start pairing off and you're like, oh my goodness, what's going on? Am I, I'm getting left behind. This is crazy. I got to do something quick. But at the same time, you got to look and say, hey, this is a great time for me to step back and look at how I can serve God wholeheartedly while I have this time. And I think that's something that we miss out on and we end up wasting our singleness. So I don't want you to do that. So I want to give you some thoughts in regards to how not to waste your singleness. So one of the first ways that you can not waste your singleness is to become the person that you want to be with. And not only is that a, you know, that shouldn't just be a selfish thing. Like, oh, I want to be with a perfect person. So I'm going to become a perfect person. Like that's not going to happen, right? But it should be in the perspective of saying, hey, I want to honor God in this, but I also want to honor my future spouse by becoming that person, that Godly person that I want to be and that God wants me to be. So looking at the characteristics that you look for in a potential spouse, maybe you're not at the stage of actually looking for potential spouse. And that's fine. But in the future, you can say, you know what, I want the person that I'm with to be kind and caring and understanding and loving and all these kind of things. Are you those things? This is a good introspective question that we ought to be asking ourselves. And it can help us reorient our thinking into what we want to become. And it's important to keep this in perspective, though, because you're not going to be perfect. You're not always going to succeed in everything you aspire to. But that's the process of sanctification where we're going to be coming and we're going to be growing more to the image of Christ, right? And so it's a process. Yes, it's a process, but we ought to be asking ourselves these questions and looking at these things. That's one important way that you're not going to waste your singleness. But I want to be clear. You're not only doing that for your spouse above and beyond anything that you want to do for your spouse. You should be doing it for God because at the end of the day, it should be God that you're doing anything on this earth for above and beyond anyone else. That should be your highest motivator is to please God in everything you do. So keep that in mind. So another question I got from Instagram was, how do you deal with the pressure slash temptation that society places on relationships? Now, this is a big one. It's become kind of a joke now, a hashtag relationship goals. And everyone seems to be well, most people that aren't married, maybe in the early 20s, late teens are aspiring towards this goal of, oh, this perfect relationship. Oh, if I only had, you know, a boyfriend or girlfriend, then I'd be happy. Then I could, you know, do all these fun things and do, oh, it'd be great. Life would be so fun. But we have to look and that puts a certain amount of pressure on us when we see all these different things and hear, you know, have people around us that are in relationships and maybe have family pressures that are like, are you in a relationship yet? How's that gone? You know, all this kind of thing. But when we see that we can put a proper perspective on. Like I said, when we have a proper perspective of saying, you know what? Hey, relationships aren't all easy. Actually, they're really hard. So when you realize, okay, relationships are actually hard, then you can take a step back and say, am I actually ready for a relationship? Like really financially, you know, not only like emotionally, you know, like spiritually, but like all these different things that come into play. Am I really ready for all that? And if the answer is no, then you need to keep that in the forefront. You're my number one. When you start thinking, oh, man, I wish I were in a relationship or when, you know, things coming from the culture saying, oh, you have to be in a relationship at this age. You need to keep that in perspective because then you say, well, you know what? I'm not ready for that. I'm not ready for that. But if you start thinking lies about what a relationship actually is, it can be easy to be like, well, maybe I shouldn't just get in a relationship right now. We got to be careful. So another thing I want to point out is focus on making plans for God and not for a future spouse. Now, this is kind of counterintuitive. You're like, wait, but I want to prepare for having a spouse. You just told me to become the person that I want to ultimately marry. But at the same time, I want you to do those things for God, not for a future spouse. I want you to do those things for God and your love for God. See, if you're only doing this for your future spouse, you're going to be focused on your future spouse. Oh, this is all for them. This is all for them. This is all as a ploy. So then I can become the person that they want to marry. So then they'll marry me and then it'll be great. And then, you know, I'll be happy and all this kind of thing. It's very self-centered. But when we understand of doing all these things for God and becoming this person for God, we can really focus on his timing and say, you know what, God, I did these things. I'm doing these things for you. I'm becoming the kind of person that you want me to become. And I'm listening to you. And I think something really important that we ought to think about is going at God's pace. So often we like to, you know, bowl those through things and we just like to go, go, go, go. And we can make it happen because, you know, we want it to happen now. But we ought to be attentive and aware of what God wants for us. And we can only do that by slowing down and listening and being patient and having an overall perspective and attitude of trust towards God. Because if we don't trust him, then we'll be antsy about getting going. Oh, man, what if I missed the boat? I got to get married right now. But if we trust him, then we'll be perfectly okay at going at his pace, whatever that may be. We won't be antsy about, oh, I got to get in a relationship right now. We'll be calm and collected because we'll have purpose in what we're doing. We're doing these things for God. We're making plans for God and we're moving at God's pace. That's an important thing to think about as we're single and something that's important as we try not to waste our singleness. So another question here is, what are some of the ways that you prepare for marriage while being single? Now, I kind of answered this before, but some practical ways. You have parents, you have siblings, perhaps. How do you treat them? Are you kind of dismissive of them? Are you inconsiderate? Are you, you know, how do you treat them? This is an important question to ask. I would like you to ask yourself this question. Look into your own heart and look into what, how you've treated them and really see if that's how you would treat a spouse. Because, yeah, at the beginning, okay, you know what? Everything's wonderful and in a relationship and you're like just treating them the greatest, your greatest person ever. But as time goes on, things become more normal and your habits creep up again and how you generally treat people will come through. So that's something important to look like as you look for and look at as you're preparing for a spouse is how do I treat people? How would I like to treat people? How would people like to be treated? And it's something so basic like that, but it's often overlooked. So something to keep in mind. You know what, there's a time for different stages and, you know, you may enjoy different stages more than others. But I think it's important that we not waste our singleness and trust God in the midst of it. Because if you trust God and go at his pace, you'll be fine. So that's my encouragement for you today. If you enjoyed this video, be sure to give it a like. Also tell your friends about the channel and subscribe. If you're interested about more content throughout the week, I write a week. Generally, it's a weekly blog post, maybe bi-weekly blog post on dailydisciple.ca. We talk about same topics on the, as a channel here. So you'll want to check that out for extra content. Yeah, I enjoyed talking with you guys about this and taking your questions on Instagram. Be sure to follow me on Instagram for future kind of polls and questionnaires like this. Thanks for watching guys and I'll see you next time.