The latest statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau estimate that the number of single or unmarried Americans make up 43% of the population or 95.7 million individuals. 63% of these have never been married. With so many single people one would think it would not be difficult to find romance and settle down with a partner for life. But this is not so easy in our high tech, fast moving, mobile society. Yet, God can be our source for dealing with the issues that confront those who are experiencing difficulties with their singleness. I was single for a number of years and I often dealt with feelings of worthlessness due to the lack of romantic relationships in my life. Now looking back after five years of marriage, I see now that there is a better approach that I could have followed. That approach would been to change my focus from seeking romantic love to spreading the love of God by becoming involved in ministry to others.

As a single adult I spent much time, energy and money searching for a mate. All these resources could have been better used to help others through some time of ministry. And in taking this approach I would have avoid a lot of discouragement and rejection. Instead I could find a way to share God’s love and bring joy to others by ministering to their physical and spiritual needs as a volunteer for a established church or ministry or by starting my own ministry. I expect that through involvement in ministry I would have a greater level of satisfaction with my life and seldom have feelings of worthlessness. Also I expect that I would meet lots of people and that new opportunities would open up for me that would one day lead to meeting my future mate–someone who shares that same desire that I have to serve the Lord.

So this approach is what I call the ministry of singleness: that rather than spending their time in seeking to fulfill their own desires and experiencing the pitfalls and discouragement that may result, single Christians could focus attention to fulfilling the needs and desires of others that would in turn bring them purpose, satisfaction and ultimately the love which they are seeking because God’s kind of love never fails.