254. EIGHT (8) REASONS WHY YOU MAY STILL BE SINGLE

(The Single Woman Series – Batch 4)

I’ve heard many possible reasons advanced by others on social media, in books, on pulpits and otherwise, as to why a person who wants to be married, may still be single. I’ve heard explanations given to the effect that a person is too picky or she is single because she is not putting herself out there enough and needs to get out more or her standards are too high or that she needs to dress more provocatively. In fact, people have said these things about me.

The truth is though, if you are a Christian and desire to be married one day, nobody knows for sure the reason or reasons why you’re still single. Only God knows that and sometimes he may reveal the reason or reasons to you.

Apart from all the reasons that people have given over the years (most of which have no scriptural basis), I would like to list a few possibilities here, based on scripture, as to why, if you desire to be married, you may still be single. I say a few because these reasons are not exhaustive by far. There are others. I only propose to deal with a few here.

If as you read, a reason does not apply to you, that is fine. If you are a Christian, I would advise that before you read further though, you ask the Lord to reveal to you any reason or reasons listed here, which may be relevant to you and your situation.

Dear Christian lady, you may still be single because:

1. You are rebellious

To rebel against God means to disobey his commands and instructions and to refuse to submit to him and the authority of his Word on any issue in life.

For example, God says to stop gossiping, badmouthing, backbiting and being malicious with your tongue against others, yet what do you do? You engage in this rebellious practice almost daily. You LOVE to hear a good news story and to spread it to others because it makes you feel important and truth be told, there are days that you feel so low, that you enjoy the misery and troubles of others. Misery truly loves company but this is rebellion against God and his Word.

The Bible says that as a Christian woman, you should dress modestly (this does not mean frumpy). Yet you choose to disobey and rebel by wearing tightly fitted, sexually provocative outfits, that reveal your cleavage (which is supposed to be for the eyes of your husband only), your legs, your shape and your body.

God is trying to grow you spiritually but you are fixated, just like women in the world, on the physical, which will do absolutely nothing for you. Promoting yourself as a sexual object by how you dress, will not bring you a man, at least not a God-fearing, quality Christian man.

Genuine Christian men know the scripture and want a wife that obeys it. They want her covered because they know her body is precious. If they should end up marrying her, they want to know that her body is for their eyes only. A woman who exposes her wares for all of the world to see is not in their eyes, wife material. Maybe she can fit the bill for something else but definitely not wife material.

When a woman dresses like that, she lets men know without saying a word, that she has low self-esteem, as she sees her value as tied up in her sexuality only, that she is desperate is more physical and worldly focused than heavenly and it sends a loud message that she is cheap.

Christian daughter of God, you also rebel against God when you defy and disrespect authority. The Bible is clear that we should respect, honour and submit to all forms of God-given authority but yet you have decided to do your own thing.

You disrespect your parents, your work supervisors, those in leadership positions in the Church, men and the government. You badmouth them to others and are rude and disrespectful to them.

It doesn’t matter what they did you. The Bible is clear that you are still expected to be respectful and to submit to all authority, even when they have wronged you in the worst of ways.

Mind you, submitting does not mean going along with wrong. If they want you to do wrong, you must respectfully decline and stand your ground, even as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego did before an ungodly king. You do not have to agree with those in authority on every issue, as truth be told, many times, their philosophies and way of operating in life are wrong and sinful. Yet, this is no excuse to be rude, disrespectful, to refuse to obey them when they give instructions that do not go against your faith and to rebel against them.

The Bible is clear that God will judge you for such rebellion.

Romans 13:1-2 states:

• “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.”

If you want to be found by a man after God’s own heart therefore and are tired of feeling stuck in your season of singleness, you should be very mindful of Psalm 68:6 which states: “God setteth the solitary in families: he bringeth out those which are bound with chains: but the rebellious dwell in a dry land.”

It is important as single Christian women, that we take a proper and honest inventory of ourselves and our lives and stop making excuses for our bad behaviour and attitudes.

If you know that you have been rebellious to authority, whether this be to men in the Church (who God has appointed as the head of a woman), your parents, management at work or the government, you need to be honest with yourself and with God. Go to him, even as I did, confess your wrong, if you are sorry, let him know and ask him humbly for forgiveness. Ask him for strength as well (as I know sometimes those in authority can provoke you sorely), to remain respectful of them when next you are faced with a situation and to continue to honour them.

2. You do wrong and do not repent

Many Christian women engage in practices that God hates daily and yet, day after day, week after week, month after month and even year after year, they continue on, without repenting of these deeds.

These women pray, fast and read their Bible. They even take an active part in the many activities the Church promotes as Ministry but they refuse to repent to the Lord for their wrongs.

It is wrong to think that a Christian who initially repented to God for her sins and accepted Jesus Christ as Lord, no longer needs to repent to the Lord for anything. Even as Christians, we sin less but we are not sinless and we need to keep short accounts with God.

I believe that David was described in the Bible as a man after God’s own heart, mainly because he had a repentant heart. When he did wrong, he was genuinely sorry and sorrowful for his sin and went to God and poured out his heart to him. He usually did not hide it (although he tried to do so with Bathsheba) and his heart was always sensitive to the will of his Father.

Just like you have a prayer life therefore, God wants you to have a repentant life. It makes no sense to pray and ask God for things, when you are doing wrong and not asking God for forgiveness for it and then turning away from that sin.

It is stated in God’s Word that, if when as Christians, we sin (although we ought not to), God has made provision for those sins to be forgiven, through Jesus Christ, our advocate with the Father. In particular, 1 John 2:1-2 states to Christians:

• “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”

However, we cannot obtain forgiveness from God and have our fellowship restored with him, if we do not first repent. You have to first be sorry for your sin because it violated the Word of God and displeased him. You then need to go the Lord and ask for forgiveness, resolving in your heart and mind, to not do it again.

To know when you have violated the Word of God, you need to know your Bible well. It is not enough to rely on what your Pastor or Elder taught. You need to spend time in the Word yourself. If you don’t, you would be violating God’s Word in many ways and daily and not even know it.

It is important to note as Christians, that when we sin, if we do not repent of it, ask God for forgiveness and mean it, that sin remains over our heads, even if it was done months or years ago. While this may not damn you to hell because you are a child of God through Jesus Christ his Son, the Lord will punish you for it.

Sometimes, as we saw with David when he sinned with Bathsheba sexually and when he took a census of Israel, even when we repent, God forgives but still decides to allow us to suffer consequences. Imagine how much worse your situation will be therefore, if you have not even repented of your wrongs.

There is much to repent for, like that sister in Church you gossiped about and badmouthed because you were jealous or going through a rough patch in your life and felt like lashing out at someone or that piece of dishonesty you did at work which nobody saw but God did or that time you dishonoured and disrespected your parents or that time you cursed God in your mind or that time you had a bit of a fling with a guy some years back. Yes you may no longer be with him because he left you but did you ever genuinely repent to God for your sin?

Yes you want God to prosper you with a loving Christian husband and family of your own. Yet Proverbs 28:13 makes it abundantly clear that: “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.”

1 John 1:9-10 states of the Lord:“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”

Ecclesiastes 7:14 states: “In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider.”

You therefore need to backtrack and consider the many ways you may have sinned against God in your words, thoughts and deeds, where you have not yet come to him and confessed them.

It is not enough to group them all together and say, Lord, wherever I wronged you, I am sorry. Please forgive me. You can say that in ending your prayer to make sure that you have repented of everything but when you KNOW of specific things that you have done, you need to first ask for forgiveness for them specifically.

Ask God to bring to the fore of your mind, any thing that you have done that you have not yet sought his forgiveness for and make sure you repent before him genuinely, before you move on.

3. You chose the path of a whore

This may sound harsh but it is the truth. For some women, when younger and maybe when even still in your father’s house, although you professed Christianity, you disobeyed God and took the path of a whore. By this, I don’t mean that you sold your body for money but that you made the decision to be unfaithful to your Lord by fornicating or engaging in other sexually immoral acts, although you were not married. Having decided to go down that road of whoredom, now, you want the Lord to put you on the path to being a housewife.

Yet, sometimes it doesn’t work that way. Sometimes when we are rebellious but then repent before the Lord, although he forgives us for our wrongs, he no longer allows us to enjoy some of the blessings that he wanted us to have, like marriage.

When, as God’s daughters, we demote ourselves by recklessly misbehaving sexually, having a fling or messing around with that young man, what we think to be fun and adventurous today because we are in ‘love’, later on in life, we may realize the foolishness of our decision, as it can come back to haunt us. What we did can bite us later on because having grown spiritually in the Lord, become serious about him and his Word and repented of our folly, even after we have been forgiven because we genuinely repented, the fact remains that we made a decision to take the path of a whore. Even if we did not give up our virginity but still engaged in sexual acts, we made the decision to take the path of a whore.

The path of a whore is full of sterility, regret and sorrow. No blessing can come from there, as it is a path that God hates. Having decided to take that path, we may well have disqualified ourselves from ever becoming wives, which is on a completely different path.

Had we kept ourselves as Christian women, the outcome may have been different. For, I sincerely believe that once a woman is a genuine Christian and is seeking to live for the Lord and has a desire to marry, once she has kept herself sexually in that she did not take the path of a whore and waits on God to provide for her, provided that it is not God’s will that she remain single all her days, he WILL provide a husband for her, in his timing.

It doesn’t matter how scarce good men seem to be. With God nothing is impossible and once he has willed his daughter to have a mate and she is submitting to his will, he honours her purity and brings her a mate.

It thereby follows that for many Christian women who lament that there are no good men and that God has forgotten them, the fact of the matter is that, somewhere in their past, they most likely (although not always) chose to go down the pathway of a whore and now, having come to their senses, they want God to put them on the pathway to becoming a housewife.

However, no matter how sorry such women may be for their pasts and that they’ve been forgiven by God because they repented, the fact of the matter remains that actions bear consequences and for some women, having taken that path, God never places them on the path to becoming a housewife. Such women therefore spend the rest of their lives single, regretting their foolishness and watching as God puts his other daughters who did not engage in sexual immorality but kept themselves pure, into good marriages.

This is a hard pill to swallow but it is the truth. The fact of the matter is that some women disqualify themselves from ever becoming a housewife, the moment they decide to go down the path of whorish behaviour.

In fact, so serious was this offence against God, that in the Old Testament, whenever an unmarried Israelite woman was found to have engaged in whorish behaviour while still in her father’s house, even if she duped a man into marrying her, when he eventually found out that she was not a virgin (not a maid), she was to be stoned to death.

In Deuteronomy 22:13-22, the Israelites were commanded:

• “If any man take a wife, and go in unto her, and hate her, And give occasions of speech against her, and bring up an evil name upon her, and say, I took this woman, and when I came to her, I found her not a maid: Then shall the father of the damsel, and her mother, take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel’s virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate: And the damsel’s father shall say unto the elders, I gave my daughter unto this man to wife, and he hateth her; And, lo, he hath given occasions of speech against her, saying, I found not thy daughter a maid; and yet these are the tokens of my daughter’s virginity. And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city. And the elders of that city shall take that man and chastise him; And they shall amerce him in an hundred shekels of silver, and give them unto the father of the damsel, because he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel: and she shall be his wife; he may not put her away all his days.

• But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel: Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, TO PLAY THE WHORE in her father’s house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you.“

Today, those who took the path of whorish behaviour as professing believers but God still decides in his mercy, to place them into marriages, know that they don’t deserve it. They are therefore humbled as they walk down the aisle, that God still provided them with a spouse and thankful. The Word of God says that he will be merciful to whom he will be merciful, meaning that he administers mercy as he sees fit and sometimes, although a Christian woman engaged in whorish behaviour in her past, upon repentance, God having all the facts and knowing the heart, in his mercy, still decides to provide her with a husband.

This may be the exception to the general rule though, so we cannot act wantonly and then hope to rely on God’s mercy. The fact of the matter remains, that not keeping yourself while unmarried and engaging in sexual acts of any kind or to any level before marriage as a Christian, reaps serious consequences. That which you laugh at today and consider to be fun is what you may cry over tomorrow, when you reap for what you sow, even after repentance.

If, as God’s child, you decide to play the whore in your father’s house or to take the path to whoredom (meaning engage in some form or level of sexual immorality as a single woman), just remember that you may well have disqualified yourself PERMANENTLY from ever being put on the path of becoming a housewife and so may end up remaining single for the rest of your life.

If you have seen the error of your way, have genuinely repented and confessed your sin, this is good but know that this does not guarantee that God will ever make you a wife. If, as one of the exceptions, in his mercy, he decides to still grant you a spouse, there may still be consequences as you may marry late, marry and remain childless, marry someone who is widowed (which may not have been your ideal) or marry someone who has a child or children from their own past relationships and so on.

Even where God decides in his mercy to still grant you a spouse, know as well that he is doing it for his own name’s sake and HIS glory, not yours. In Ezekiel 36, when God decided to intervene to change Israel’s story despite how much they had polluted themselves by their behaviour, he let them know that he was not doing it for them but for the sake of his own name, which they had allowed the heathen, meaning unbelieving people in the world, to mock, by their actions.

God told his prophet:

• “Son of man, when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by their own way and by their doings: their way was before me as the uncleanness of a removed woman. Wherefore I poured my fury upon them for the blood that they had shed upon the land, and for their idols wherewith they had polluted it: And I scattered them among the HEATHEN, and they were dispersed through the countries: according to their way and according to their doings I judged them. And when they entered unto the HEATHEN, whither they went, they profaned my holy name, when they said to them, These are the people of the Lord, and are gone forth out of his land. But I had pity for mine holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the HEATHEN, whither they went.

• Therefore say unto the house of Israel, thus saith the Lord God; I DO NOT THIS FOR YOUR SAKES, O house of Israel, BUT FOR MINE HOLY NAME’S SAKE, WHICH YOU HAVE PROFANED AMONG THE HEATHEN, WHITHER YE WENT. AND I WILL SANCTIFY MY GREAT NAME, WHICH WAS PROFANED AMONG THE HEATHEN, WHICH YE HAVE PROFANED IN THE MIDST OF THEM; and the HEATHEN shall know that I am the Lord, saith the Lord God, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes.

• For I will take you from among the HEATHEN, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God. I will also save you from all your uncleannesses: and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that ye shall receive no more reproach of famine among the HEATHEN. 

• Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall lothe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations. Not for your sakes do I this, saith the Lord God, be it known unto you: be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel.

• Thus saith the Lord God; In the day that I shall have cleansed you from all your iniquities I will also cause you to dwell in the cities, and the wastes shall be builded. And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by. And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced, and are inhabited. Then the HEATHEN that are left round about you SHALL KNOW that I the Lord build the ruined places, and plant that that was desolate: I the Lord have spoken it, and I will do it.”

4. You are idolatrous

All you have been able to think of over the past months or years is getting married and having a husband. There are so many other things you could be praying for, including the needs of others and God’s work, yet all you do is whine day and night to God for a husband.

Don’t get me wrong. God loves persistence but there is a thin line between persistent prayer and obsession. Some women have a Rachel mentality and go to God even as Rachel went to Jacob when she realized that the years were rolling on and she had not yet been able to get pregnant. She told him, “Give me children or else I die!” (Genesis 30:1). Ironically, she did die and right after the birth of her second child.

It is good to desire a husband and to be married but it is bad to be obsessed over it. When your desire is all that you can think about and long after and hope for, you have taken it and made it into an idol.

As I have said to single people (including myself), have a desire but don’t set your heart on it.

Your first love is not a man but Jesus Christ. It is in him that you are complete and not a man. Colossians 2:10 states of Jesus: “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power.”

Until you get to this place of understanding, you may continue to be stuck in your situation of singleness. God will never give you a man, marriage or family to idolize because then it would take you away from focusing on him. He is a jealous God and demands first place in your life, always.

Your relationship with him is much more important than one with a man down here on earth, as while marriages are temporary (in that they are applicable to this earth only), your relationship with the Lord will continue on even after your die.

Stop worshiping the idea of marriage. It is honourable yes but you are too fixated on getting hitched. If you are single, abide in it for the season that you have been called to it by God and focus on (1) becoming more spiritually mature in Christ and (2) doing his Kingdom business which is all about sharing the gospel with the lost and edifying the Church with your spiritual gift or gifts.

Be content wherever God has you now, knowing that he knows best. In Philippians 4:11, the writer states: “Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.”

Avoid being stuck in depression, worry and desperation over getting a man. God is fully aware of your so-called biological clock and your desire to experience all that pertains to married life. He is well able to provide and if he hasn’t yet, it may be because you have erected marriage, getting a man and a family, as an idol in your heart. Jesus alone deserves to be on the throne of your heart and God hates idolatry.

If you are sitting on the gift that God gave you and even your talents because you are waiting until a man comes along before you get busy doing God’s work, then you are wasting your time, being a poor steward, being selfish and showing that you have your priorities all wrong.

Whatever you may desire in this life, you need to put God first. For, God is not a God that is satisfied with second place, nor does he compete for first place in your heart.

When he is first and where he should be, you will find that, while you still have a desire to be married and to have a family of your own, this fades into the background, your relationship with Jesus being the most exciting of all!

Allow me to share a secret with you: It is usually when you have reached this point, that God sends a husband, if it is his will to send you one. This should not be surprising. Matthew 6:33 reads: “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”

In Luke 4:8, Jesus stated: “…it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve.”

Stop making marriage and finding a man an idol. Let go and let God have his way, whatever that may be and however that may look. Yes, maybe you had envisioned yourself getting married much earlier but God had other plans. I certainly did. Submit to God’s will for your life with a good attitude and let him have his way in your life. Focus on your relationship with Jesus and nurture that. If God decides to send a man, then great. If not, it may be difficult but you will not die.

In Exodus 20:3, God commanded the Israelites to put nothing above relationship with him. He told them: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me…” In Exodus 34:14, he told them : “For thou shalt worship no other god: for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God…”

In Exodus 20:5, he stated of idols: “Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.”

In 1 John 5:21, it warns: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.” Finally, in 1 Corinthians 10:14, it states similarly: “Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry.”

5. You have wrong motives

Be honest. You want to find a man and get married, so as to compete with and outdo that Church sister or cousin or family member or work colleague or neighbour OR to be established in the minds of others as a married woman OR to get those aunts and sisters in the Church to stop provoking you about your never ending single status OR to take revenge on an ex-boyfriend or past flame who treated you poorly OR to show off and be puffed up with pride OR to get lots of attention as a bride OR to serve yourself and your flesh physically OR to increase your social standing and acceptability in the eyes of others OR to consider yourself as having arrived in life or to consider yourself as finally having value, by the world and many in the the Church’s standards.

In essence, it is all about you, not the Lord and you want to use marriage to satisfy your own selfish, competitive, boastful, lustful desires.

You may be able to fool people and sometimes you yourself are self-deceived as to your real motives for wanting something but God knows your heart. He knows you better than you even know yourself.

When you desire to be coupled and married for the wrong reasons, God knows and you should not expect him to grant you that desire, until you let those wicked motives go.

James 4:2-3 states of Christians: “Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.”

As a Christian, you belong to God and not to yourself. He must increase and you must decrease, even as John the Baptist said in relation to Jesus. It is no longer about you but about God’s glory and divine purpose. In Isaiah 43:7, God stated through his Prophet “Even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him.”

God has brought you into the household of faith to serve and glorify HIM. Yet, in your desire to get married, there is nothing about God in that equation. There is nothing about bringing him glory, using your marriage and family as a ministry to reach the lost with the gospel and to edify the Church. There is nothing about marriage giving you an opportunity to grow spiritually which is important, as you are preparing for heaven while on earth. There is also nothing about wanting to showcase God’s glory or to operate within the borders he has set for sexual morality because you love purity.

How do you see your being married benefiting God? Have you even given it any thought? Have you even contemplated how your marriage could benefit anyone other than yourself?

You would do well to take a page from Hannah in the Bible. She understood, as badly as she desired a child, that it was all about God’s glory and not her own. She therefore went before God with her petition and put forward a case, not for how her having a child would benefit her but how it would redound to the glory of God. She promised the Lord that if he granted her a baby, she would selflessly give him back to him and this is exactly what she did, when God answered her prayer. She did not hold on to Samuel. She let him go and God then blessed her with more children.

6. You are under construction

It would be foolish to move furniture into a building, when the windows and doors are not yet up, the flooring not yet laid and the fixtures not yet installed. Similarly, you shouldn’t expect God to grant you a husband and family, when you know you are in need of much work spiritually and he is trying to work on you and your heart first.

You may have some poor attitudes you know the Lord is trying to remove from you, some poor habits and addictions he is trying to break, some people he is trying to move out of your life and spiritual character he is trying to develop in you. He may be trying to grow your faith some more first or to teach you more dependence on him or discipline, patience and self-control.

He may be trying to get you to that place where you pray more, fast more and spend more time in his Word. Why would he send you a man in the middle of all that, when your spiritual growth and development is the most important? That would be nothing but a distraction.

The quicker you submit to what you know God is trying to change in you and grow in you, the sooner that man may appear on your doorstep.

I say on your doorstep because a daughter of God never has to go out looking for a man. If it is God’s will to grant her a spouse, she just needs to keep her eyes on the Lord and he will work out the logistics to ensure that she is presented to the man he has appointed for her, whenever he is ready to do so.

I know in my own case, I am under construction. There are some things that the Lord is trying to remove from my heart and as painful as it may be sometimes, I welcome this season of development, as I have come to realize that my growth spiritually is much more important than me getting a man and a family of my own. I must therefore submit to the process and allow God to have his way in my life. He has my best interest at heart and sometimes, what is best for you is that your desire to have a husband and family be delayed.

This leads to my next point as to why you may still be single.

7. It is not his timing yet

God may have a husband and a family of your own in his plan for your life but it is not the right timing for it just yet.

This may be because you yourself are delaying the granting of this gift, which God has purposed to only grant you after you have grown to a certain level spiritually in him. It could be that he has some work for you to do in your single season and wants you to achieve that first or reach a certain level with that work first. For example, there may be a book that you know he has been impressing upon your heart to write or a Ministry that you know he wants you to start or to get involved in. You may have started it but he may have decided to only grant you your request when it reaches a certain point, based on his own purpose and plan.

In some cases, you are doing all that you are able to do and are spiritually mature in Christ (although there is always room for improvement) but even in such a situation, God may delay granting you your desire, simply because it is not his timing yet.

In other words, since we are all actors in God’s play called life and it is not about us but him, you may still be single because God has a set time based on his heavenly agenda and Kingdom business, to grant you that spouse and that timing has not yet come.

This may inconvenience your plan yes. It may result in you getting married and even birthing a baby at an older age than you would have liked but remember, it is all about God’s glory, not yours. You are merely an instrument that God chooses to use and that involves falling in line with HIS timing, whatever that may be.

In the Bible, God did this with Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Hannah, Elizabeth and Manoah’s wife, all of whom desired children but were barren. God delayed this, even having some reach a very old age before he granted them the desire of their heart, as he had a special purpose and timing for the children they were designated by him to bear. He therefore waited until the time was right, based (not on their desire) but on his divine plan and purpose, to grant them.

All of these women, barren one day and allowed by God to bear the next, gave birth to spiritual stalwarts. God had a heavenly plan and he shut these women’s wombs (to their dismay) until he was ready for the child he had appointed for them to bear, to come forth to do his work or to promote his glory.

Sarah was the mother of Isaac. Rebekah was the mother of Jacob who God renamed Israel. Rachel was the mother of Joseph. Hannah was the mother of Samuel the Prophet. Elizabeth was the mother of John the Baptist and Manoah’s wife was the mother of Samson.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 states of God: “He hath made every thing beautiful in his time.”

If there is one thing that you take away from the resurrection of Lazarus’ story, let it be that God cannot be rushed. He will delay as long as he sees fit, even going on detours while you wait. He has a set time planned for everything he does and you need to submit to it. It is not about you. It is for a purpose much bigger than you.

8. It is not his will

In some cases, it was never God’s will to grant you a husband and if that is the case, no amount of prayers, fasting or obedience to his Word will change that.

Remember, we come into this earth with a role given to us by God, even before we were conceived in our mother’s womb. God has a plan for the work we would do on the earth for his Kingdom, even before the foundation of the world and the role that he has appointed to you, may not involve having a husband or a family of your own.

In such a case, I believe that God will strengthen you and give you peace about the situation, provided you are submitting to him.

In some cases, God may have desired to grant you a spouse and a family but through your years of disobedience and rebellion, you wasted precious time and so, on account of your own actions, it is his will that you remain single. In such a case, you can’t get angry with the Lord (as some women have the nerve to do) but with yourself for refusing to submit to him and his ways earlier.

Ask the Lord to reveal his will in relation to this matter of marriage to you, whatever it may be.

I went to the Lord a little over a year ago and asked, letting God know that whatever his answer, I would be okay but I wanted to know, so that if it was his will for me to remain single, that I would not waste any more time hoping, praying for and investing in the idea of a husband. See, I believe that God informed me through his Word a few years back, that I would be a joyful mother of children and that me and my children would increase and increase, yet, years later, no man had yet appeared on the horizon. I therefore wondered if I had heard wrong.

I told him that I knew that Jesus was enough and that if he said he was never going to grant me a husband, that while I would shed some tears and be disappointed, I was convinced that Jesus was enough to get me through my entire life journey safely. I knew I would be fine.

I had reached a point though, where I just wanted to know for sure, either way, whether I would get married and if I had heard wrong.

A week later, the unexpected answer came and repeatedly from different sources, like a random Preacher on a radio station or a message a Christian sent me on my whatsApp although he did not even know what I had prayed with one word: WAIT. After about the third time of hearing the same message and wondering why this theme was suddenly propping up, I remembered my prayer a week or so earlier and felt in my spirit, that this was God’s answer. It was totally unexpected. I thought he would say yes or no but what I was hearing in my spirit was WAIT.

I therefore purposed in my heart from that moment, to WAIT until God worked the miracle (because it would take nothing short of a miracle to pair me with someone, the right one).

Based on what I heard, I knew that God intended to do it but the timing was not yet. I am therefore patiently waiting on him, even as he continues to do a great and much needed work in my heart (for which I am grateful). I know that when he deems the time to be right for love to come my way, HE will provide, to his honour and glory.

(Written on 10th December, 2018, added to thereafter)

Dear Reader, if you found this Article useful, informative, beneficial or edifying, then you will surely also be interested in reading the following Articles for more tips, information and details:

• Note 2 – ‘I Desire To Be Married’
• Note 52 – ‘Bringing God Glory On The Road From Being Gloriously Single To Gloriously Married’
• Note 56 – ‘Rebekah, Zipporah And Ruth – How They Got Found’
• Note 59 – ‘Nine (9) Tips For The Single Woman Hoping To Be Married’
• Note 71 – ‘Keep The Right One From Me Lord, Until…’
• Note 72 – ‘Qualities That Got Women Noticed And Eventually Married To Good Men In The Bible’
• Note 106 – ‘Are Some Of God’s Children More Loved And Favoured Than Others?’
• Note 112 – ‘Lessons I Have Learned From The Lazarus Story.’
• Note 146 -‘Three Idols In The Church – Getting Married, Having Children And Working A Secular Job’
• Note 150 – ‘What the Bible Has To Say About Singleness, Marriage and Widowhood’
• Note 253 – ‘Seven Practical Things You Can Do While You Wait On Your Prince Charming’
• Note 275 – ‘How God Wants Us To Treat With Our Idols’