If you’ve been waiting for marriage for years, doing “the right things,” praying, staying pure, trusting God — and yet nothing seems to be moving — this might be hard to hear, but it’s said with care:
Waiting without preparation quietly delays marriage more than you realize.
Not because God is slow.
Not because you’re cursed.
But because waiting was never meant to be passive. Here are some thoughts I want you to consider about waiting that can delay marriage even further.
1. Are you waiting on God or wasting time!
At some point, “I’m waiting on God” can turn into hiding behind God. You may not even notice it happening. It sounds spiritual:
“God’s timing is best.” “I’m just trusting Him.” “When it’s meant to happen, it will.”etc.
And yes — God’s timing matters.
But biblical waiting was always active.
People in Scripture didn’t wait by freezing their growth. They waited while becoming wiser, stronger, more disciplined, more self-aware. They waited while actively pursuing God, working on their assignments and being productive where they were planted.
Waiting that doesn’t involve growth isn’t faith. It’s postponement dressed in faith language.
If you want to know whether you’re truly waiting on God’s timing, instead of wasting time, ask yourself : Even now am I productively engaged in His revealed purpose for my life?
2. Purity is not waiting.
This is where many sincere Christian singles get stuck.
You learned how to say no to sex. But no one really taught you how to:
– Communicate needs without fear.
– Handle conflict without shutting down
– Discern character beyond chemistry
– Heal emotional wounds instead of spiritualizing them
So you did and are still doing what you know. You are staying pure. And that matters. But sexual restraint alone does not equal marital readiness.
You can love God deeply and still be emotionally unprepared for marriage. Please read that again and let it sink in.
Marriages today are not failing because of the presence or absence of the spiritual component, they are largely failing because of the absence of the emotional component. This is why the divorce rate in the church is almost equal to that in the world.
3. Not Every Delay/Waiting Is Spiritual
This is important to say gently and honestly:
Some delays are not spiritual battles. They’re developmental gaps.
Many single people who are praying for marriage are also:
– Avoiding accountability
-Resisting feedback
-Ignoring repeated relational patterns
-Hoping marriage will fix loneliness, discipline, or insecurity.
– wanting emotional safety without being emotional available themselves (locked up in your heart because of past hurts, check yourself).
Marriage doesn’t fix those things. It reveals them. And this is why couples struggle. You’d hear stories even among Christian couples where spouses are not accountable for their actions, cannot manage their emotions, allow insecurities and unfounded fears to lead to controlling and manipulative behaviors.etc.
If marriage healed brokenness by default, divorce wouldn’t be as common as it is today. But the first step to fixing your issues is being aware of them? Are you even aware of them?
4. Convenient Christianity Weakens Marital Readiness
This may feel uncomfortable, but it’s loving to say:
If your faith is inconsistent now, marriage won’t stabilize it.
Marriage does not create discipline, integrity, or consistency. It amplifies what’s already there and what’s not.
And how can you even claim to be waiting on God’s timing when you aren’t even consistently seeking Him?
Private faith matters more than public confession when it comes to building a godly marriage.
Consistency matters more than intention.
You cannot claim to want a godly spouse who is on fire for God if your flames are dwindling.
Prepared people recognize prepared partners. Unprepared people often call preparation “too much.”
What Waiting Was Always Meant to Be
Waiting was never meant to be a holding pattern. It was meant to be a season of becoming.
Becoming:
– Emotionally aware
– Spiritually consistent
– Financially responsible
– Relationally skilled – clear about what you’re ready for — and what you’re not.
A Gentle Wake-Up Call.
If you’re single in your late 20s/30s, you’re not behind, you’re not being punished, and your years were not wasted.
But they do need to be examined. God doesn’t owe you marriage because you waited.
Marriage isn’t a reward for merely waiting. It’s a responsibility given to the prepared.
What to Do Next.
If you’re not sure where you actually stand — spiritually, emotionally, relationally — clarity is the first step.
That’s why I created the Marriage Readiness Scorecard.
It helps you assess, honestly and privately, where you’re strong and where growth is still needed — without shame or pressure.
And if you already sense that God is calling you into deeper preparation, the Marriage Readiness Reset is designed to help you close the gaps waiting alone can’t fix — emotionally, spiritually, and practically.
Not to rush you into marriage.
But to prepare you for it.
One Final Question
If a prepared partner shows up in your life, the kind of partner you desire …
Would he/she consider you equally prepared?
That answer matters more than the timeline.
Which of these felt uncomfortable or you find yourself disagreeing with? Let’s talk in the comments.
Rooting for you always,
Mrs Omoghene.
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These two key points should be a.o g top tens consideration foe all singles
1. People in Scripture didn’t wait by freezing their growth. They waited while becoming wiser, stronger, more disciplined, more self-aware.
2. Marriage does not create discipline, integrity, or consistency. It amplifies what’s already there and what’s not. If e didn’t dey before marriage e no fit dey in marriage.
E no fit dey at all. Except you work on it. Thank you for taking time to respond. I appreciate it.
Good stuff.
As Christians, for sure, we can often resort to platitudes when life doesn’t make sense or our dreams aren’t working out. Sometimes, as Christians, we can have the idea that God is a Puppetmaster who’s running every aspect of our love lives. I have my doubts about this, though. The Bible doesn’t say anything about “soulmates” or “The One.” It even says that, if you’re single, you can marry whoever you want, as long as they’re a Christian (see 1 Corinthians 7:39)
I would definitely be proactive about this if you’re still single at, say, 25 or older. I don’t think these things “just happen.” I mean, what if you’re a Christian and you’re pursuing goals like a job search, or weight loss? We don’t just sit back and “wait on God” in those scenarios, do we? But when it comes to romance we can often over-spiritualize it. And, for sure, we do have to prepare. Single you will be the married you, unless you decide to make changes.
From reading 1 Corinthians 7, it seems like we have the freedom to choose either marriage or singleness. But, of course, we have to bring God into it.
Apparently, for the first few thousand years of human history, it was “God’s plan” for young people to be joined in arranged marriages in their late teens. Then God changed his mind to around 18 or so, with close involvement and vetting from each other’s parents. Then He changed it to be more inclusive of other races and social classes. Then, in the modern age, God decided to change it for many people to the late twenties and early thirties, with little involvement from parents, at least initially. What is going on?
Another strange point about the belief that God ordains people to be single or married: According to many Christians God will introduce you to “The One” at “the right time.” To make things even more confusing, we send a mixed message of how if you do everything right (like don’t have sex) as a single, God will reward you with a happy marriage with the “soulmate” He prepared just for you. So you don’t “earn” it, but you do “earn” it, but it’s all in His timing….or something.
And then we wonder why so many Christian singles are confused, hurt, bitter, unmarried, or struggle with marriage. The Bible doesn’t teach us anything about “soulmates” or “The One.” It’s not even hinted at.
Besides, dating is a fairly recent phenomenon. People didn’t “date” in biblical times. Marriages were arranged by families in some way or other for a very long time in human history. I doubt people fretted as much about “soulmates” and “The One” and “trusting in God” and waiting on “God’s timing” back then. These days, in the modern dating world, we do. But are those biblical ideas?
I’ve also read that there’s generally more Christian women in the world than there are men. If that’s broadly true, it means not every Christian woman will find someone to marry. Is that part of “God’s plan” as well?
Another interesting point has to do with the classic “free will vs. God’s sovereignty” problem. A lot of Christians assume that they’re married (or single) because God wants it that way, which, depending on what they want, can make them wither very happy and grateful, or very upset, angry, and confused.
However, as humans, we aren’t puppets. We can make decisions, and we live in bad, sinful world that affects our lives and sometimes limits our choices. Many Christians assume that, if they marry, it happened because it was “God’s will” and because God wanted to bless them. That answer is easy. If you want to marry and end up not marrying, obviously you’ll struggle with more, and harder, questions. But, apparently, you remain unmarried because God didn’t want you to marry. But that leaves out all sorts of factors.
It also absolves us of responsibility. People are single for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes it’s just bad luck. Sometimes it’s for bad reasons, like lack of maturity, poor financial stewardship, things like that, bad social skills, inability to deal with the opposite sex, etc. Sometimes we just don’t have any candidates around us whoa re marriage material, even if they’re Christians.
These days, lots of people wait longer to get married. Is that a plan that God devised? God “used to” do that when you were 16-22 years old, but now He, in His infinite wisdom, has decided to test us further by letting us all wait an extra ten years or so. Right.
As Christians we often have the shaky idea that anything and everything happening in our lives is God’s will. Sure. What if I’m currently homeless, or unemployed, or being abused? Are those things happening because God wants these things for my life? I get that we to honor God’s sovereignty and all that. It seems like the proper, “spiritual” thing to do. But we can’t understand this, at the end of the day. Unless good things happen, of course, like marrying on our timeline. Those things are obviously God’s will, right? Sure. It’s certainly easier to “thank God” for them.
Maybe God does bring partners into our lives. I don’t really know. But this idea that He delivers the perfect soulmate at exactly the right time seems counterproductive sometimes, as well as shaky. It sounds great, and it’s comforting, but that’s about all it does.
In Matthew 19, Jesus talks about people who are celibate, and he mentions a few different types. People who CHOOSE to live that way, people who were made that way by God, and people who were made that way by “other men.” In other words, some people stay single, and it’s not because they chose it OR because God chose it. It’s just how life turned out.
Yes, God is good. But we live in a fallen world that is NOT good. And you might not be single because God wants it that way. It could just be bad luck.
Thank you so much for taking the time to type out all your thoughts on this. I definitely applaud you for that. I do agree that there is no “the one” for any one of us. God is sovereign, always has been but He has never forced any choice on man, definitely not the choice of a life partner.
Yes Christians do hide under “God’s will” to absolve themselves of the responsibility of working out their faith and life. God’s will for us is prosperity in all aspects of our lives but we are the ones to work it out by taking scriptural responsibility and that is the whole idea of this post and resources attached.
God is indeed good but we do live in a fallen world and we therefore must be intentional about taking responsibility for our lives.
Thank you again. I really do appreciate you sharing your thoughts on this.
Yeah, no problem! I used to believe that God had it all under control and that I could count on him to bring me a partner at “the right time” and all that.
But I mostly believed these things because other well-meaning people told them to me, and because it seemed like all my friends were meeting their partners by coincidence (when they “stopped looking,” as the Christianese cliché goes) They were also marrying at young ages. These people, of course, would then assure me that all I had to do was “wait” on trust “God’s timing, etc., etc. It worked out that way for them, so they, apparently, figured out The Formula. Easy for them to say.
Of course, the longer I stayed single, the more doubts I had about this sort of thing. We’re all products and, if we’re not careful, prisoners of our own experiences.
I think we sometimes have bad motives for leaving situations in “God’s hands.” For example, we’re scared to make the first move, we don’t like dealing with rejection, we don’t like dealing with our own insecurities or shortcomings, or we don’t like dealing with our fears. And, of course, as Christians we often just over-spiritualize everything. That’s how we get to places where we think things like “It’ll happen when God wills it.” Of course, none of this stuff is helpful if you’re still single at, say, 25 or older. I mean, if we’re on a job search, we don’t approach it that way, now, do we? Or goals like, say, weight loss.
Sometimes we have to act. But sometimes we believe that acting is a sign of weak faith. But isn’t it IN acting that our faith is proven?
I mean, God’s will is mostly done by God’s people. So we need to do it with God. But we still need to do it. Hahaha.
And, yeah, some people might not be single because of “God’s will.” It could just be worldly misfortunes, like Jesus alludes to in Matthew 19. Yes, God said it wasn’t good for man to be alone, and made a spouse for him. But then what happened? Mankind rebelled, sin entered the world, and everything has been screwed up ever since.
Even as Christians, we’re not spared worldly troubles. I’m sure one of these worldly troubles are some of our dashed hopes for marriage, whether it’s for a period of time or for your entire life.
Once again, the details 🔥. I felt your pain and disappointment in this and you are quite right. The fact that it worked one way for someone else doesn’t mean it’d work the same way for you. They were indeed well meaning and perhaps found their spouses when they stopped actively looking, but it didn’t happen that way for you.
And you’re spot on about us approaching a job search with faith and action. I genuinely believe this is how to approach every aspect of our lives, including dating.
This is part of the work I do with singles, sprinkled all over this blog in several posts, in my book “Your wait is over”, in masterclasses and courses, teaching intentional action for both Christian men and women. It is the tireless work I am committed to, God helping me, to do my part to solve this current marriage epidemic , even in the church.
Scripture did say “I’d show you my faith by my works…”James 2:18b. It also says “God is a God of knowledge by whom actions are weighed” 1Samuel 2:3b. “Any faith that makes God absolutely responsible for the outcome of your life is an irresponsible faith” Bishop David Oyedepo. You must take steps aligned with God’s word to see God’s will for your life come to pass.
Sin entered the world but thank God for Christ we can live in victory above sin and through God’s power and the revelation of His word to us, that we ACT on, we can live above the consequences of sin in the world today, marital or otherwise.
Thank you so much again for this discourse. I hope you’d stick around for other enlightening and heartfelt musings. Genuinely appreciate it.