And sure, Paul was single. Paul also said that it was OK to get married. Paul also said that it was just his own opinion that singleness is better. Paul also said that you’re not sinning by marrying. Aren’t those things true as well? Paul also said that a widow would be happier if she stayed single — but he also clarified that this was just a personal opinion. Besides, Paul wrote these things to the Corinthians as they were dealing with some bad things. It also seems like Paul thought the Corinthians were living in the End Times. It makes sense for him to caution people about marrying in those circumstances.

Sure, Jesus was single. So what? I’m not Jesus. Jesus also created the world, looked at man being alone…and said it wasn’t good. How interesting! Even when the world was perfect, he said it wasn’t good for him to be alone. Jesus also said that not everyone was able to accept celibacy. I agree with Him! Haha! So what if Jesus was single? Did Jesus care about getting married? Who knows? The Bible never says anywhere that he desired marriage, or struggled with being single. Sure, maybe He did. But we don’t know. Personally, I doubt it.

Sure, God loves us. But it’s not THAT kind of love. God can’t meet your desires for romance/intimacy/sex. This can be quite difficult for the Christian single. Platitudes only get you so far. “Not a single romantic gesture of our own making can outshine the Gospel.” Well, OK. Doesn’t change the fact that I desire romance. And the Gospel doesn’t get rid our desires, now, does it?

Are we required to be “content” in singleness?

If you’re single, you hear people pontificate to you about “contentment” all the time. In Philippians 4:12, when Paul reminds us to be content in whatever state we’re in, he’s referring to our ultimate contentment in God. There’s no requirement to force ourselves to be happy about every situation. Having and expressing the desire doesn’t make you weak. Admitting and expressing frustration and loneliness doesn’t make you weak.

A lot of times, singles will feel lonely in their situation. That’s fine. We can’t help that. But we can also feel guilty for being lonely because as Christians we have things to be thankful for and we’re often presented with the message that all the good Christians must be “content.” We’re also sometimes told that we have to be “content” before God will bless us with romantic love. This is a popular idea in modern church culture, but we’re not required to be completely satisfied with life, whether we’re married or single. We live in a bad world, where bad things happen and life doesn’t always go our way. We don’t have to repress our emotions or pretend that these situations make us happy. Nor do we have to pretend that these desires are unimportant to us. It’s OK to feel and express sadness and loneliness. We’re not going to disappoint God for feeling emotions that we can’t control anyway.

Ideas like this imply that your “season” of singleness will end once we learn to properly exercise contentment. Apparently all the married couples somehow mastered this, and reached some pinnacle of contentment that God approved of and rewarded accordingly. As if we can use a formula and reverse psychology to convince God to give us the thing we want. Sometimes married couples will tell you that their story went like this, that God “blessed” them with a spouse once they stopped “idolizing” marriage, or once they “stopped looking.” Or once they “learned to be content.” Cool story. As if that’s some sort of universal rule. The Bible doesn’t mention this weird idea anywhere.

If you want love/marriage/sex badly, well, you can’t make yourself “stop” wanting those things. What a silly idea. You’re not being “worldly” or sinful just by expressing desires for things like these. If Christians were able to repress or ignore these desires, why would any Christian ever marry?

If we were able to make ourselves “content” with being single, or able to let God make us “content” with being single, then why would any Christian ever bother getting married?