How do you know if singleness is for a season or lifestyle?

I've been praying about it for a while now but I haven't gotten any clear signs/answers of confirmation. Maybe I got an answer but didn't realize it or I'm in denial. Are there any telltale signs?

I've been praying about it for a while now but I haven't gotten any clear signs/answers of confirmation. Maybe I got an answer but didn't realize it or I'm in denial. Are there any telltale signs?

I've been praying about it for a while now but I haven't gotten any clear signs/answers of confirmation. Maybe I got an answer but didn't realize it or I'm in denial. Are there any telltale signs?

Wise people have told me that God's guidance is more like seeing just the next step or having a navigator sitting in the car with you who knows the way to where you're going rather than a gps or google maps which shows you every step of the way from now to the end of your journey.

Jesus said lots of people wouldnt understand why people dont get married, (he didn't) so I dont expect a lot of sympathy for being single -- I think people expect more from being married.

Hi Johari,

Many of us here are long-time singles, so we certainly understand what you're saying. I can't think of many people in the Bible whom God seemed to actually call into a single status (Jeremiah comes to mind,) but that certainly doesn't mean that He won't.

I'm pretty sure that He sometimes does, as I've met two women over the years who were adopted by single Christian mothers who never met the "right" guy and never felt any particular leading to get married. They DID, however, feel a very strong calling to adopt children on their own (one even adopted 5 girls and raised them alone.) Neither of these young women felt as if they had been traumatized or were missing out because they were raised without a father. I'm definitely not saying this is for everyone, but these cases certainly seemed to have a special touch of God's grace over them.

I can tell just tell you from my own experience that I've never felt that my singleness was a particular season or "calling" -- it just happened, and continues to happen, as time goes on. This used to cause me a whole heap of anxiety and stress -- but after several years of this, now I just try to tell myself that God will prepare and equip me for whatever happens.

For a good year, I was taking almost daily walks before sunrise because I loved the still and quiet of the "calm before the morning." However, there were a few days when I accidentally overslept and wound up walking in the bright sunlight instead. And I found an astonishing difference.

When the sky was dark, and I couldn't see the landscape around me, I brought a flashlight, but of course, couldn't see much past that small, concentrated beam of light. But when the morning broke and the sun started to come through in full force, I could see everything around me to the point of having to shield my eyes from seeing everything around me drenched in bright, all-encompassing light.

And for some odd reason, I found that when I could see EVERYTHING -- the sky, the trees, the houses, every detail of the landscape, and the length of the road ahead of me, I always, always wound up wanting to turn back sooner. I was always tempted to cut my walking time in half, because the bright, revealing light made the atmosphere too hot, the road suddenly look too long, and the journey appear to be twice as long as it was in the dark (even though it was the same distance.)

Oddly enough, when I'm walking in the near-dark with only that narrow beam of light to guide me just a few feet ahead, and street lights to give me a slight preview of my surroundings but nothing in detail, I walk faster, with more purpose, and for a longer time. I guess it's because my mind thinks to itself, "I can manage to walk as far as this beam of light," where as in regular daylight, the journey ahead looks to be daunting and unending.

Full-on daylight always makes me want to turn back sooner, but a tiny, thin beam of light constantly seems to pull me forward, beckoning me to continue, and I am more apt to heed its call when it is the only immediate light that guides me.

God made me think one day about how much He works like this in my life as well. If you would have told me XX years ago that I was still going to be single, I would have given up all hope and shriveled up into a ball of despair. Many times, I still did, and sometimes still do today.

But for some reason, God doesn't expose the full sun to me across the map He has regarding His plans for my life.

Instead, He seems to guide me with just one little flashlight of the day ahead of me, one at a time. God seemed to be telling me that if He showed me the full exposure of everything He has planned for my life, I would be certain to turn back, missing out on landmark lessons that might just be a only a few more days, or, albeit, years, ahead -- if I had just kept walking.

I don't know exactly where this little light is following, or what will happen along the way, or even where it has me going.

But I do know that I feel compelled to follow it, and there have been some unexpected adventures along the way, both good and bad.

Blessings to you, Johari! You are certainly not alone.

Please keep us posted as God reveals more of the guiding light He for you in your life.

Part of me thinks it would sure be nice to know the whole route. When I go on a trip I don't just punch the destination in my phone and take off, I map out the whole route and make sure the turns are on a list I can access at any time.

Of course if God DID give me the whole route, I would probably try to find shortcuts to bypass the parts I don't like... or just get scared and stay home, AKA never live my life at all. It's probably a good thing I only know the next "go straight for 52 miles."