Ladies and Gentlemen, I�d like to share with you an amazing concept about marriage and the process of choosing your marriage partner. It�s amazing to me that � of marriages are ending in divorce, for whatever reason, and we could debate it all day long and still come up frustrated. The reality is that marriage is under attack and someone has to search out an answer. Here is the reality; many people don�t allow God to pick out their mates, and we have a major epidemic of improper dating and courting. It�s amazing to me how careless some are when it comes to the selection of their mate. Friends, who you marry does matter and it�s the second greatest decision of your entire life. There isn�t a decision that is more important to you except your decision to serve God. Life has enough challenges and pressures that you don�t want to add to by marrying the person you were never meant to marry. I�ve heard it said, and I agree 110%, that it�s much better to stay single than to marry the wrong person. I�d really like to let loose and express my views about dating, courtship, marriage, and divorce. However, I�ll stay with the focus of this blog today and that is for you to take a deep breath and let God choose your mate for you. I realize that the extremely practical people will say, �Come on Matt, you can�t expect God to do it all for you.� In fact, I used to be the one that said, �Yeah, but the Bible says, �He that finds a wife, finds a good thing.� You have to find who you are supposed to marry and spend your life with. While that may be true and accurate, we can�t ignore the fact that God put Adam to sleep and created his wife for him. What was Adam doing at that time in his life? Adam was busy doing what God wanted him to do with his life.
What can we learn from Adam and Eve? Well, God does care about your loneliness and has somebody for you. However, you have to learn to be content where you are and rely on God�s perfect timing. What did Adam do to get Eve? Nothing at all; God put him to sleep, he woke up, and his soul mate was lying right next to him. While that isn�t going to happen exactly like that for us, God will make sure that your path crosses with the person you are suppose to marry.
God knows what He is doing and will prepare your mate for you. You can�t allow yourself to have such low self esteem that causes you to believe that you will never find anybody. There is somebody for everyone. God has a purpose and plan for your life. God wants you to be happy and have a blissfully, abundant, joyful, sensational, exhilarating, passionate, and blessed marriage. God wants you to enjoy your spouse and have the love of a lifetime. God wants you to have a relationship with the opposite sex and enjoy the beauty of a man and woman coming together.
We need some serious help if we believe that homosexuality and lesbianism is normal. God never intended for men to fall in love with other men or ladies to fall in love with other ladies. It�s simply not the will of God, nor is it normal. God fully intended for a man to enjoy a lady and for a lady to enjoy her man. If you are struggling with crazy thoughts of falling in love with a lady and you are a lady, then you need to go on a 21 day fast until God renews your mind. The same will apply if you are man struggling with your sexual identity. Is it alright for me to get on the loud speaker today and say, �Men and women coming together is normal, healthy, and right.�? There are only a select few who are destined to be single; however, most people are designed to be in a marriage relationship. It was God who said, �It is not good for a man to be alone, I will create a helpmate for him.� God does have a helpmate for you and will bring them into your life when the time is right and you are ready.
Your responsibility is to enjoy your singlehood and prepare yourself to be the best husband or wife you can be. Your responsibility is not to find the right person, rather to go become the right person. You should be enjoying your singlehood and using that time to discover your purpose, passion, calling, and dreams. You should use your single time as a blessing to work hard, save money, and prepare yourself for an amazing future. You should focus on becoming the best person that you can be, working out, establishing healthy habits, and focusing on looking the very best you can look for your own self worth�s sake. I�m concerned about all these people who are not prepared as they go into a marriage. It�s going to only create problems for you in the future if you don�t wait on God and prepare yourself. Every single person should be reading books about relationships and marriage. As a pastor, my question that I ask every couple seeking marriage is, �Have you read the book His Needs, Her Needs?� If not, you are not even close to being ready for marriage. I am convinced that every single young man and single young lady should have read at least 12-15 books about marriage before they even think about saying, �I do.� The healthiest marriages only happen with people who are whole and prepared for what lies ahead.
James Dobson suggests that a courting couple should communicate at least 1,000 hours before engagement, and I�ll have to whole heartedly agree with Mr. Dobson. It�s wise to take the time to really get to know someone before you get physical. Ouch, did I just say that? Is it really important to go as long as you can without getting physical? Absolutely, your first kiss should mean something, and the longer you can wait the more intimate your relationship will be. Too many relationships are only built off lust and physical connection. How many marriages have you seen where just by a look in the eye or a facial expression, the other spouse knew what the other was thinking or feeling? Why? It�s because there is an emotional and spiritual connection. Couples that only are connected physically will have major problems in the early years of their marriage. You should take the time to really get to know someone before you kiss them or get physical; your relationship will be so much healthier. While we may have all blown it here and gotten more physical than we should have, I�d like to encourage you to slam on the brakes, put your car in reverse, turn around, and get on the right road. God is merciful and does allow U turns. It�s important that you turn around, starting right now, and reserve your physical passion for marriage.
If you will relax and let God prepare you and your future spouse, then you will not have to worry about marrying the wrong person or the right person at the wrong time. You would be very wise to stop worrying about who you are going to marry and just start living life to the fullest right now. Let God heal you and make you the best husband or wife in the world. In a perfect world there would be no sexual abuse, mistakes, rejection, cheating, divorce, or sexual scars. However, the world that I live in and the people that live in this world have been scarred by sexual immorality, past or sadly a divorce. It�s vitally important that you become healed and whole from whatever scar or bad relationship you had in the past. People that are continually jumping from one relationship to another are simply not wise. It�s dangerous to enter another relationship if you are not healed from your past or previous broken relationships.
As you can tell, there is a lot to cover when you start talking about relationships and marriage. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. God is bigger than your past. While you may have scars and consequences of your past, it doesn�t have to dictate your future happiness. God is a good God and will give mercy to His people. You have a bright future and God is going to send your lifetime companion to you when the time is right. Just go to sleep and let God pick your mate out for you.
Great posting, and you obviously have a passion regarding this topic, and it shows in the effort put forth in the many points you touched on. I can honestly say you have blessed me with this post, and I can see God is speaking through you. May you touch the lives of many with your blessing...
thanks for this article, it is a really blessing to my life, i already knew what the article says, but we tend to forget and to remember sometimes is vital
From our perspective, we do have a choice. We do choose things. However, it cannot be substantiated that this same choice is one of libertarian free will.
Proverbs 16:33 - The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.
Lamentations 3:37-38 - Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?
I understand that there is never ending debate on the issue of God's sovereignty because some verses seem to give man a choice. But God never surrenders His will to ours. He ordains everything to happen. (He is not the immediate cause, but the ultimate cause)
The famous verse, Jeremiah 29:11 - "For I know the plans that I have for you.." God really does choose our mates, and for believers, it is a good plan.
Again, books could fill libraries on the argument, but here are a few verses that a pretty explicit on the subject.
I knew all this when I was a teenager. Then the pressures of the world, peer pressure being a large part of it (especially in the Army) got the better of me. I left the path of the Lord to follow the ways of the world. Now after 3 marriages and 7 children and a thoroughly broken heart, I'm finally back on the track that I should have followed all the time. And I wonder what does the Lord have in store for me? I'll never be a monk, but this time I'm constantly working to clean up my act and hunt down my weaknesses one by one. I sometimes get impatient and always get frustrated by the slowness of the process, but I can't give up. I just know that the right woman, Gods' choise for me, is out there somewhere, but that it's not only a matter of finding the right woman for me, but being the right man for her. We have a free will, but still we can surrender that will to God and ask for His guidance and will in this matter. Then it'll be more like Josef who was second to the Pharaho only, but was given his wife by him. He didn't pick his wife himself, but surely asked God help him find her, and God used Pharaho to give her to him. Maybe I'm a lost cause in the eyes of the world and probably in the eyes of most all Christians too, but I'm conviced that I'm not a lost cause in the eyes of the Lord. Even when I left Him, He didn't leave me and I'm still up and running, and trying to teach my children the ways of the Lord. So my friends, you save yourself a lot of pain if you stay on the straight and narrow and wait, trust me in this. My two youngest, two 7 and 11 y/o boys are a great joy and comfort to me, but seeing them only weekends and holidays is a great sorrow for me and them both. Trust in God to guide and help you in all things and never give in to the pressures of the secular society. It's an Empire of Dust. Bj�rn.
