To understand who a single is, let us try to consider what singleness is not.
Singleness does not connote or suggest inferiority. You are not under a course because you are single. Singleness is not a sin, neither are you disadvantaged because you are a single.
Singleness is not a handicap neither is it a disease. It is not a shame or a reproach to be a single.
Singleness is a necessary phase everyone both male and female must go through in the passage of life. Your season as a single is one of your best seasons in life.
It is a foundation laying time for your family life.
God made man operate in times and seasons. There are seasons of life. Singleness is one of the critical seasons of life.
One season of life prepares you for the next.
Singleness prepares you for marriage.
The season of singleness is primarily and principally a time of preparation.
The quality of your single life will determine the quality of your marriage. Your investments in this unique season yield generational dividend.
If you are not fulfilled as a single, you won’t be fulfilled in marriage.
Never be in a hurry to go through your singleness and not maximize the awesome and immeasurable opportunity it offers to prepare for greatness.
Never treat this season carelessly or with levity. Don’t go through this season with your eyes closed.
Who is a single?
1. To be single is to be UNIQUE: You are unique. You are so unique that of the other 6 billion people on the planet earth, there is no other person with your finger print
You are wonderfully and delicately made.
Don’t let anyone despise you. A wise man said no one can make you feel inferior without your permission. So don’t allow anyone make you feel like a nobody because you are somebody.
You are so special that if you were the only one on this earth, Jesus would have still died for you. Let no man despise thy youth.
You are unique. God says in Isa. 43, that you are honourable in His sight and He has loved you.
He loves you so much that He is ready to give men for you and people for your life.
Please appreciate yourself in the light of God’s unfailing word.
2. To be single is to be SET APART: To be separate, set apart from every distraction and encumbrances to attend upon the Lord without distraction. This I believe connotes focus, until you have a focus, you can never become a focus.
The single life relieves you as it were of the practical responsibilities of the married life.
It provides you ample time for the necessary preparation required to make a success of marriage.
It affords you the opportunity to develop quality relationship with God. And to engage in active kingdom service.
3. To be single is to be WHOLE – to be COMPLETE: Singleness does not suggest incompleteness; but completeness.
If you carry an attitude of incompleteness as a single, marriage will keep you farther from completeness.
If you are not happy as a single, you will not be happy in marriage.
If you are not fulfilled as a single, you will not be fulfilled in marriage.
God’s word says that you are complete. Agree with it and act as though it is true because it is the truth.
The Power Of Preparation
Your preparation will determine your manifestation – Bishop Oyedepo.
Joptham became mighty because he prepared his ways before the Lord. The future you don’t prepare for will surprise you.
You don’t prepare in the future you prepare for the future. Same way, you don’t prepare in marriage, you prepare for marriage. The adage says as you make your bed, so you will lie on it.
You don’t learn to shoot gun in the battle front.
I have said all this to show the awesome power of preparation. No one can prepare for you. Preparation is a non transferable personal responsibility.
It is the preparation of many that determines the answer he will get from the Lord.
Prov. 16:1
There is no accidental success. Every success is consciously prepared for. There is need for adequate preparation if a blissful marriage is our goal.
The depth of preparation will determine the height of manifestation. The single life offers us the irreplaceable platform for preparing for marriage.
There are different aspects of our lives that demand preparation.
AREAS OF PREPARATION
Acquire Knowledge
It is interesting to note that when Jesus was teaching about success in marriage in Matt. 19:3, He recommended reading “…have you not read…”. He expected them to have read.
Knowledge in this context can be divided into two categories.
i) Knowledge of God – Job 22:21: Acquaint now thyself with Him and be at peace there by good shall come unto thee.
You can’t know God and not enjoy peace and rest.
When you know God, parental pressures will not trouble you. Neither will the age factor destabilize you. So get to know God.
The word Acquaint means to familiarize. To do that you need to spend time talking and being with the person.
In the same vein to know God, we need time in His word and in His presence.
ii) The second kind of knowledge is to acquire relevant knowledge about marriage, relationship and the family life.
It is recommended by marriage counselors that you read at least 15 books on marriage and family before your wedding day.
Bishop Oyedepo once said “Marriage is a science you have to be taught how it works”.
Locate materials on marriage written by proven authors who have a testimony of what they are talking about.
A good marriage is not about finding the right person as it is becoming the right person. To become the right person in marriage you needed the right kind of knowledge.
Some individuals are busy preparing for wedding and they think they are preparing for marriage.
There is a world of difference between wedding and marriage.
Invest into your marriage by availing yourself of relevant books and tapes of proven authors. I will like to recommend the following text.
1. Marriage Covenant – Pst. Faith Oyedepo
2. Making Marriage Work – Pst. Faith Oyedepo
3. Success in Marriage – David & Faith Oyedepo
4. Building Successful Families – Pst. Faith Oyedepo
5. Help me I am Married – Joyce Meyar
6. Courtship after Marriage – Zig Zigglar
7. Raising Godly Children – Pst. Faith Oyedepo
8. 60 Things God said about Sex – Lester Sumrall
9. Finding a Partner – Bimbo Odunkoya
Discover Purpose
You are not a creature of chance; you are a creature of purpose. You are not a biological accident you are a child of destiny.
You are on this earth for a definite purpose.
Every manufacturer manufactures his product for a well defined purpose.
Every child God sent into the world came to fulfill purpose and that includes you.
When you don’t know the purpose for which you are created then abuse will naturally set in. you are not on this earth just for census. You are not here to add to the number of people op the earth. You are here for a well defined destination.
