Glorifying God in Singleness

When I thought about glorifying God in my life I would often think about what I can do in my schoolwork, on my job, in my friendships, or in a future romantic relationship to bring Him glory, but I never stopped to think about how I could glorify God right now in a state of singleness. Of course I had constantly heard the single woman’s encouragement verse, 1 Corinthians 7:34, “The unmarried woman cares about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But she who is married cares about the things of the world—how she may please her husband.” but I never took that as a way to glorify God, it was more of an advantage of being single that I read whenever I needed to feel better about not being in a relationship. 

One definition of the word “care” means to attach importance to. So you could read verse 34 as, “The unmarried woman attaches importance to the things of the Lord.” Whatever you think is important is what you give first place to. If you want to glorify God in your life then the answer is simple: put Him first. I hate to admit it but the desire to be in a relationship had made its way to near first place in my heart. I found myself thinking things like “I’m living for you Lord so why am I still alone? Didn’t you say you’ll give me the desires of my heart?” But the Word says to first “delight yourself also in the Lord” (Psalms 37:4). Delight means to take great pleasure in, and I wasn’t delighting in God or finding my pleasure in Him. Instead, I was looking for pleasure in a relationship. The desire for a relationship had become an idol and there was no way God was going to reward me by giving me something that was going to take His place in my life.

Now I’ve constantly heard of ways to glorify God in a relationship: putting Him at the center, remaining pure, etc. but I hadn’t heard much on how to glorify God specifically in singleness. In addition to putting God first, another way to give Him glory is found in the second part of 1 Corinthians 7:34: being holy in body and spirit. As a single woman, one of the ways you can glorify God is in the way you carry yourself.  Your behavior, the way you dress, your social media, etc. should all be glorifying to God. God sees everything, even something small like changing your outfit in order to wear something that is more pleasing to Him, and He will honor you because you honor Him (1 Samuel 2:30).

In the end, this isn’t one of those stories where I tell you how I decided to put God first in my life and then all of a sudden I had a boyfriend and got exactly what I wanted. No, I’m still single but a relationship isn’t on the throne of my heart anymore, and I’m constantly making adjustments to make sure it stays that way. God is intentional and maybe my singleness is being used to help someone else and bring more glory to Him.

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