The Question You Can't Ask in Church
It's the question that haunts the quiet hours, long after the potluck dishes are put away and the happy couples have driven home. You're staring at the ceiling, the silence of your own home pressing in, and the question bubbles up from a place so deep you're almost afraid of it: 'God, why am I still alone?' It feels like a betrayal to even ask it, a sign of weak faith, as if you're telling the Creator of the universe that His plan for you is flawed, that His goodness has somehow missed your address. You've prayed the prayers, you've served in the ministries, you've tried to be the person you're supposed to be, yet the ache remains, a hollow space at the table of your life. It's a lonely, confusing middle, and you've started to wonder if this middle is actually the end.
In an upper room, thick with the smell of roasted lamb and unspoken tension, Jesus is also in a middle. He's hours from the cross, and He knows it. He also knows the heart of every man in that room, right down to the betrayal brewing in Judas's soul. And what does He do? He takes off his outer garments, wraps a towel around his waist, and begins to wash their dusty, calloused feet. He gets to Peter, who is scandalized by the whole affair, and then He looks at them all and asks a question that echoes down to us: 'Know ye what I have done to you?' Of course they don't. They can't possibly comprehend the cosmic significance of the King of Glory kneeling like a common slave, because they can only see the confusing middle, not the redemptive end He is walking toward.
This is where the scripture breathes life into our deepest, most painful questions. Jesus follows up His baffling act of service with a statement that reframes everything: 'If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.' He's not just giving them a new religious duty; He's showing them a new way to live, especially in the confusing middle spaces where nothing makes sense. He's saying that the path to understanding isn't found in getting the answers you want, but in giving the love you have. God's purpose for your life, for your singleness, isn't something you figure out and then live out; it's something you live out and, in the process, begin to understand in reverse.
For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.— John 13:15, KJV
From Anointing a Body to Announcing a King
Our human default is to turn everything into a formula, a checklist for divine blessing. We think if we just get the inputs right—if we're godly enough, patient enough, attractive enough, or serve enough—then God is somehow obligated to provide the output we desire, whether that's a spouse, a promotion, or healing. We treat faith like a transaction. This is the spirit of Peter, who at first refuses the foot washing because it violates his deeply held rules about how a Messiah should behave and how a follower should honor him. That system of religious performance, of earning and deserving, always breaks under the weight of real life and the staggering mystery of God's sovereign will. It leaves you exhausted and bitter when the formula doesn't work and the answer you've been banking on doesn't arrive on your schedule.
But see, the Gospel isn't a transaction; it's a declaration. It's the announcement that the work is already finished. Jesus didn't wash their feet to make them clean enough for God; He washed their feet because they were already His, declaring a spiritual reality they could barely grasp. Your acceptance, your worth, your completeness is not waiting on the other side of an aisle. It was settled at the cross. The pressure is off. You don't have to perform to earn God's affection or manipulate His will. You are free to simply respond to the love you've already been given, a love that is not diminished one bit by your relationship status. You are whole, right now, in Him.
Look at the women in Mark's gospel. They walk toward the tomb in the dim, pre-dawn light, their arms full of spices. Their mission is one of finality. They are going to perform one last act of service for a dead man, to anoint a body, to properly seal an ending. They are living in the crushing reality of what they believe is the end of the story. But their journey to the tomb, their act of service born from love and grief, positions them to be the first to hear the news that changes everything. They came to anoint a body, but they left ready to announce a King. They thought they were in the epilogue, but God placed them in the first sentence of a new creation.
And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.— Mark 16:2, KJV
Washing Feet in the Waiting Room
So what does it mean to wash feet when you feel like you're stuck in life's waiting room? It means you stop staring at the door, waiting for your name to be called, and you start looking at the people sitting next to you. It means making a meal for the new parents in your small group who haven't slept in a week. It means using your Saturday not to swipe through dating apps but to help an elderly neighbor with their yard work. It means investing your emotional energy in mentoring a younger believer who is wrestling with their own faith, pouring into them the wisdom you've gained through your own lonely nights. It's not glamorous. It's the towel and the basin. It's the quiet, unseen, often unthanked work of loving people right where they are, because that's exactly what Jesus did for you.
I'm urging you, my friend, to lay down the burden of trying to solve the equation of your life. Stop strategizing. Stop striving. Stop seeing your singleness as a problem to be fixed and start seeing it as a position for a unique purpose. Rest. Rest in the finished work of Christ that declares you whole and beloved. Rest in the sovereignty of a God who knows you, who chose you, and who is weaving a story far grander than the one you would write for yourself. Your happiness is not contingent on a future event; it's available right now. As Jesus said, 'If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.' The joy isn't in the knowing, but in the doing of these small, faithful acts of love.
Walking in this grace day by day means your prayer life begins to change. The desperate 'God, give me' starts to transform into a surrendered 'God, use me.' You begin to see your freedom and your flexible schedule not as a curse of loneliness, but as a gift for the kingdom. You have the capacity to show up, to be present, to engage in the messes of other people's lives in a way that many cannot. This season is not a holding pattern. It is a divine assignment. Like the women who set out for the tomb, your faithful, forward motion—even when your heart is heavy—is the very path on which you will encounter the resurrected Christ in ways you never expected.
If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.— John 13:17, KJV
He Knows Whom He Has Chosen
Let's get this down to the bedrock. The unshakeable foundation is not a promise that you'll get married, but a promise that you are known and chosen by God. Jesus, looking at the very men who would abandon him, one of whom would actively betray him, stated with absolute certainty, 'I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen.' His choice of them was not based on their future performance but on His sovereign grace. He chooses you with that same unwavering resolve. Your value and your calling are not up for debate; they are settled realities in the heart of God. He has a purpose for you that is so secure, it was planned before you ever felt the first pang of loneliness.
The great danger in a long season of waiting is allowing the enemy to turn your unmet desire into an idol, and then into a source of deep-rooted bitterness against God. It is a subtle poison that convinces you that God is holding out on you, that His goodness doesn't apply to your specific situation. This is a return to the chains of performance, where you start believing your singleness is a punishment for some hidden sin or inadequacy. It is a lie. It is the very lie the serpent told in the garden: that God cannot be trusted, that He is not truly for you. You must guard your heart against this, reminding yourself daily that the God who did not spare His own Son will surely give you all things you truly need, in His time and in His way.
I know whom I have chosen: but that the scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me.— John 13:18, KJV
Don't mistake the middle for the end. The disciples in the upper room couldn't see past the cross. The women at the tomb couldn't see past the stone. And maybe you can't see past this season of your life. But the God we serve is a God of resurrection. He specializes in turning endings into beginnings. Your story is not over. He is doing something profound in the quiet, in the waiting, in the washing of feet. Trust Him. Keep walking toward the tomb, keep serving with the spices you have, and be ready to be surprised by the empty grave. Be ready to hear your name called by the risen King, who has a mission for you that is far more glorious than you ever dared to imagine.