1 John 4:18
Fear is a focus on an unwanted outcome in the future. Fear occurs because you are worried about experiencing a pain you don’t want to experience or not experiencing a pleasure you do want to experience.
It’s no surprise, therefore, that so many people struggle with the fear of being alone, “What if just never meet someone who loves me? If I do meet someone, will they abandon me?”
Here are 3 signs God is saying, “It’s time to confront your fear of being alone.”
1. If Your Fear of Being Alone Is Actually Contributing to You Being Alone, God Wants You to Confront This
Ironically, one of the main contributors to keeping people single who wish they could be married is an unhealthy pressure they are putting on themselves to get married. Sometimes the harder you try to force love to occur, the less likely it is to occur for you.
For example, if you are a man who is afraid of being alone, you may pursue a woman too quickly because you are so eager to be in a relationship. If you slowed down and gave her more time to get to know you, you would actually have much better results.
If you are a woman who is afraid of being alone, you might push a man away from you because you get so nervous around the person that you like. If you accepted the possibility of this relationship opportunity not working out, it would actually be more likely for it to work out because you would be putting less pressure on it.
If you want to be married, God probably wants you married. We often forget that God is the one who made marriage (Genesis 2:18) and gives people the desire to be married (1 Corinthians 7:7).
The key is to be fulfilled in God first and foremost so you can then enjoy his gifts, like marriage, in a biblically balanced way (1 Timothy 6:17).
2. If Your Fear of Being Alone Is Tempting You to Stay with Someone You Don’t Love or Date People You Know Are Not Good for You, God Wants You to Confront This
Depression happens when you focus on the past. Pain happens in the moment. But fear is always future based. Thus, fear usually leads to nearsighted decision making. To address our worries about the future, we often make unwise choices in the present.
For example, when you are afraid of being alone forever, you might choose to stay in a relationship that you know is not good for you. Additionally, you might find yourself in a cycle of dating unhealthy person after unhealthy person because you are willing to date anyone so long as you are not alone.
Therefore, if you find yourself asking, “Why can’t I let this person go even though I know they are hurting me?” or “Why do I keep attracting the same kinds of people over and over again?” it could be because your fear of being alone is causing you to lose focus of the big picture, tempting you to choose quick fixes in the present because of your fears about the distant future.
One way to overcome this is by filling your mind with the biblical truth about God’s sovereign plan (Jeremiah 29:11). Don’t take matters into your own hands (Proverbs 3:5-6). Rather, fully surrender to God in faith as you remember that he has the power to produce what he wants (Matthew 6:33-34).
3. If Your Fear of Being Alone Is Rooted in Doubt About God’s Goodness and Love for You, He Wants You to Confront This
Sometimes we truly believe that God loves us, but we then get confused when we do not get exactly what we wanted. We reason to ourselves, “If God loves me, if God is all powerful, then why hasn’t God given me the relationship that I desire so much?”
Statements like this are rooted in a false premise. Essentially we are saying, “God’s love equals doing what I want.” This is not, however, what Scripture says about God’s love. 1 John 4:9-10 states:
“This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
When your relationship with God is restored through the gospel of Jesus Christ, when you enjoy the Lord through his grace, then you will experience how deeply God loves you.
He probably does have a spouse for you. You are probably not going to be alone forever. But either way, the true solution to your fear of being alone is to know how much you are loved by your Heavenly Father (1 John 4:18, Romans 8:28).
