If You Hate Being Single, Read This
A new perspective.
Why You Should Value Your Singleness
Most people who want marriage and family do not value their singleness nearly enough.
I know because I was one of them. For long stretches of my single years I treated the season as something to endure rather than something to honor. I did not see it as sacred. I did not take it as seriously as I should have. Looking back, that is one of the clearer regrets I carry—not because the years were wasted entirely, but because I missed opportunities to respect myself better, conduct myself better, and serve others more freely while I still had the undivided time to do it.
The shift happens when you stop treating singleness as a problem and start treating it the way Scripture does: as a sacred season.
Paul, who remained single his entire life, speaks of it with unusual clarity in 1 Corinthians 7. He does not present it as a lesser calling. He presents it as a strategic one—an opportunity for undivided devotion. Whether you sense a lifelong call to singleness or (like most people) a call toward marriage and family, almost everyone will pass through a single season. The only real question is whether you will value it enough to steward it well.
Here are three reasons you should.
1. It Frees You from Most People’s Biggest Worldly Anxiety
The vast majority of people carry a deep desire to be known, loved, and understood at the most personal level. Across cultures and centuries, the primary way that desire has been met is through marriage and family. That longing is not random. It is woven into us.
But longing easily becomes anxiety.
“Will my person ever show up?”
“How long will God keep me here?”
“Am I going to miss out on the life I actually want?”
I lived inside those questions for years. The desire for marriage had become an idol, and idols produce stress. Paul names this exact dynamic when he contrasts the concerns of the unmarried with the divided concerns of the married. Learning contentment in singleness is a genuine superpower—one most people never develop because they fundamentally misunderstand the season.
Singleness is not primarily about you.
Nothing ultimately is.
It is about what you do for God and for other people while you still have the freedom of undivided attention. When you begin to see it that way, the constant low-grade panic starts to lose its grip. The time becomes usable instead of merely endurable.
2. It Lays the Foundation for Holiness in Body and Spirit
Holy means set apart. Undivided. Integrated.
A common myth says: “Once I get married, the lust will fade… the comparison will stop… the jealousy will disappear… the old patterns will just melt away.”
They will not.
Who you are while single is who you will be in marriage—only with higher stakes and less room to hide. Everything bleeds. The habits of body and spirit you practice now become the habits you carry into the covenant. Marriage does not magically heal what you refuse to confront. It amplifies it.
This is especially true for leadership. You cannot lead a spouse or a family well if you have never learned to lead yourself. Jesus frames leadership as service. If you will not serve God by pursuing holiness in the areas of your private life while you are single, you will not suddenly become skilled at serving others once the ring is on your finger.
Valuing singleness means treating the present formation of your body and spirit as non-negotiable. The foundation you pour now is the one you will stand on later.
3. It Secures Undivided Attention to What Actually Matters
At the end of everything, the only thing that endures is your relationship with God and what you did with the life He gave you.
Singleness, when received properly, creates space for single-minded focus. It removes many of the legitimate, competing claims that marriage necessarily introduces. That focus produces consistency. Consistency produces growth. And growth in the direction of God is the quiet mechanism that prepares you—on His timeline, not yours—for whatever comes next.
What you value while single is largely what you will value when married. The person you are becoming right now is the person who will one day sit across the table from a spouse or stand in front of children. You remain responsible for your own soul regardless of relationship status. In that sense, everyone is still single before God.
Do not miss the value available in this season by constantly straining toward the next one.
Value it, and it will form you.
Ignore it, and you will carry the cost forward.
Singleness is not a holding pattern.
It is preparation and sanctification—whether the next chapter is marriage or a longer road of undivided service.
Treat it as sacred, and you will not regret the time.