Angry with God Because You’re Still Single? I’ve Been There Too

“Lord, I didn’t come to you because I wanted you to give me a husband,” I had to tell God and myself a few times. “I was a sinner in need of a Savior.” This, usually to calm my anxious (read angry) heart when the challenges of still being single hurt.

I know exactly the frustration of wanting to be married but not meeting someone suitable. And how easy it is to turn that frustration into anger at God for my unwanted singleness.

For many singles like me, when we turned our lives over to Jesus, we did not picture prolonged singleness as part of the new life and future we were stepping into. Even if we didn’t think of marriage at that moment. We were taught that God loved us and had a wonderful plan for our lives. With scripture backing, we assumed that that wonderful plan must include a solid Christian man, godly children, and a beautiful life at an early age.

Then we hit our mid-twenties, late twenties, then thirties, still single.😔 Where is that good God they told me about? Where is the God who writes love stories? Does he care about my desire for marriage? Does he even love me?

I have seen Christian single sisters do things you could never believe they were capable of because of prolonged singleness. It seems there’s a faith crisis awaiting a single at a particular age. And if I’ve learned contentment, I only acknowledge the grace of God. Because the pressure is real, not only from within, but more from without. Friends, family, even distant, random people think they have a moral right to comment on your continued unmarried state.

It takes the grace of God for a single to maintain their cool. I had to repent from some mindsets in order to enjoy God despite an unfulfilled desire of being married.

I’m sharing what helped me with the hopes that it will help you in this single season to still love God (even more), whether your singleness turns out to be temporary or lifelong.

Disappointed Expectations

At the root of a single’s anger at God are serious heart issues that must be dealt with if you want contentment while keeping your desire for marriage alive.

Sadly, many singles pick up these heart issues from the church or other believers. I was taught that the next most important life-changing step after conversion was marriage. If something was that important, it must be at the top of God’s urgent priorities for me, right? So if I was already born again, what was keeping God from handing me the Christian man of my dreams!?

Unfortunately for many singles, God does not design our lives to go the smooth way we expect. It’s not guaranteed that after you get born again, boom, you’d become a wife and mother in a few months or a few years. Sometimes, it takes time (in slow motion) to meet the one for you.

And this doesn’t always mean you’re doing something wrong. It doesn’t always mean you have such high standards there’s no man to meet them.

I’m emphasizing ‘always’ for a reason. Our actions (and inactions) can hinder us from meeting someone suitable or from nurturing good relationships into marriage.

In fact, I recommend you read Veronique Butterfield’s story, how she finally stopped passively waiting on God to drop a man on her laps and started seriously searching. She met her future husband in 4 months and married within 18 months. Maybe you should steal her strategy!

On this blog, I’m talking to the dear single sister that has done what she can do (within godly boundaries) to get married, but her singleness continues. I am talking to the heart that has turned or is at the point of turning its unfulfilled desire for marriage into anger at God.

The reason for your anger at God is that you had expectations and assumptions that God did not promise.

I’ve been there. No judgment.

Let’s look at some of them.

Assumption: God rewards faithful service with a spouse

You’d hardly hear this said aloud, but many Christian singles think this way. And we’re encouraged to think this way. ‘If you want marriage, pour out yourself into serving God. Then God will bring reward you with a husband. The reason you’re not yet married is that you’re not intimate with God. You must have secret sin you need to confess. The moment you get real serious about living for and serving God, he will deliver your husband at your doorsteps.’

This sounds real good, until you see some unserious Christians and non-Christians getting married as though to get a husband is no big deal. You’re evangelizing, paying tithes, active in the church, sexually abstinent, but someone who has zero desire for God gets married before you. How come, Lord?

The result? Anger at God for your singleness.

Scripture does not promise us, ‘Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and your spouse will be granted to you’. Or ‘Come unto me all ye who are single and I will give you husbands and wives’. Jesus says if we seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, God will meet our basic needs of food and clothing without us fretting like the rest of the world that don’t know God (Matthew 6:25-33).

Of course, God cares about our desire for marriage and he writes beautiful love stories (Genesis 24). But singles have no scriptural backing for feeling disappointed and angry with God when their single season seems to go on forever.

Assumption: Marriage is an end

‘I’ll serve God faithfully as a single, he will give me a husband, then I’ll live happily ever after.’

Therefore, serving God becomes the means to that end. And the lack of marriage becomes the dead of our joy in God. Life seems not worth living anymore. It feels aimless. ‘If only I can get a husband, then I’ll be happy with life and with God.’

When an unhappy single says, like one told me, ‘I regret following God’, it means they saw marriage as an end. That’s not to minimize the pain or the challenges of unwanted singleness. Those challenges are real. But statements like that reveal a heart that did not truly love God, a heart that loved God for what it hoped God will give.

Jesus says that in the new earth, we’ll neither marry nor be given in marriage (Matthew 22:30). To walk away from God because you can’t find a husband is to lack an eternal perspective for your life. It is say that you don’t treasure God above all else.

Unwanted singleness may be challenging, but those challenges can co-exist with a total devotion to God. You don’t have to choose between God or marriage. Marriage will end here; relationship with God will continue throughout eternity.

Assumption: God is solely responsible for when I get married

Criticizing this assumption stirs up backlash from some single sisters. And I get it because I was once there. Until I realized that what we do or don’t do can determine when and who we get married to. Even if we think we’re ‘spiritual’ by following some man-made rules (just people’s opinions and preferences, not scriptures) about dating and courtship. Our timing for marriage is not up to the sovereign act of God while we passively do nothing about our desire to be married.

True, in God’s design, some singles will marry later than they desired. Some will not even marry at all. But for those who desire marriage, you’re not doomed to only ‘waiting’ on God. You can trust God while actively searching to find or be findable by a godly man.

When you believe that it’s ALL up to God when you get married, it is natural to become bitter at him when your singleness prolongs.

I won’t dwell much here. Veronique Butterfield does a better job educating the Christian single women on her blog. Please if you want to get married AND God has not clearly told you to wait, I recommend you read her blog and follow her advice. Your future husband may just be out there waiting for you to cross his path!

God is too precious to walk away from because of prolonged singleness

Compared to the treasure that God is, marriage or the lack of it is not worth losing your faith for. Not worth it at all. There’s more to enjoying God than just having him settle you in marriage.

Did you know that you can so enjoy God as a single that it seems marriage will be a distraction?

More on that on this post about maximizing your singleness.

Intimacy with God is the antidote to an unhappy single’s anger at God

Walking closely with God, knowing and experiencing more of him, will naturally help you cope with the challenges of unwanted singleness while doing all you can to get married.

• Difficulty finding a suitable partner? God can give you wisdom and personal strategies on what to do. Just make sure you’re not putting him in a box someone prescribed for you.
• Sexual pressure? God will help you withstand the temptation to fornicate.
• Pressure from family? The joy from God’s presence will make you less sensitive to it.
• Pressure to have a child out of wedlock (since they say your chances of marriage have grown slimmer)? Having an eternal perspective and a desire to honor God will help you stand on God’s side.
• Temptation to get bitter against those getting married? Knowing God’s heart and plan for you will put things in their proper balance.

I do not see any challenge of unwanted singleness that God cannot help you handle if you want to honor him. This is not saying you’ll float through the challenges in a bubble of joy. It means the desire to honor God will be so far greater than the desire to satisfy your flesh or impress people that you’ll find it more satisfying to obey God.

Keeping Searching for a Godly Man and Don’t Quit on God

It’s hard when you want to be married but singleness refuses to leave you. You can face the challenges without letting impatience push you to turn against God. Do all you can in godliness to find or meet a godly man. And always remember that God is on your side; he wants you to meet a man who also loves him.

But What If You Never Meet Such a Man?

Christian single women outnumber Christian single men. What if you can’t find someone suitable for you?

God still loves you. Yes, he still does. And he can make your single life purposeful (if you’re not already living a purposeful, God-centered life).

God does not have to prove his love for you by bringing or manufacturing a man for you. Because he already proved his love for you. On the cross!

• 8 But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God – Romans 5:8-10, ESV.

Whether you finally meet a suitable man or stay single forever, it is possible to love and enjoy God despite the challenges of unwanted singleness.