Why God Won’t Force Your Love Story
I hear so often to people who are skeptical of Matchmakers, who aren’t sure about online dating, and they say things like I am just waiting on God to bring them to me, or all in God’s timing. Without any action on their part at all.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe in a God of miracles, I believe in a God who can write your love story (he wrote mine), but I also believe in a God who doesn’t force things on you, and has never forced his love on you but he simply gives you the door to choose if you will walk through it. Let’s look at Matthew 7:7
which says “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
If you look at this verse he doesn’t simply say he will just put things in front of us, but that he requires us to take an action first. You need to ask before it’s given, seek before it’s found and knock before the door is opened. What does this passage tell us? That God will direct us, but that we need to take action first.
Proverbs 16:9 says “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps.” So we need to take the step to plan the course, but then the Lord directs. This doesn’t mean mapping out the next 5 years on paper and being so meticulous in the details that God couldn’t move you if He tried. It means make plans absolutely and then surrender them to the Lord knowing that He knows what is best for you.
Are you so focused on this person magically appearing that you forget to actually take the steps for it to happen? Let me tell you that you may be waiting for quite some time because God Won’t Force Your Love Story.
Do you agree, disagree?
Comment Below.
Written By Michelle Apples
Check out The Christian Singles Hub website for information on Christian matchmaking, Christian speed dating, upcoming Christian retreats, events, trips and so much more at https://thechristiansingleshub.com/
Does God direct us? Maybe. Personally, I don’t know how much God involves Himself in these things. Often, as Christians, when it comes to love, we think being passive is The Good Christian Thing To Do. We can be afraid that taking action and taking things into our own hands is a bad thing, because it “proves” that we “lack faith” or something.
These ideas coming from well-meaning and well-intentioned people and places. When do we usually hear people talking about “soulmates” or “God’s timing” and other such Christianese clichés? In my experience, it’s when single Christians are expressing discouragement, uncertainty, frustration etc. about their unmet romantic desires, or about their unknown future when it comes to their romantic dreams. These clichés then come in handy. They seem like a simple, easy way to comfort them, without us having to give any practical advice or ask any hard questions. Understandable.
The idea of a “soulmate,” however, comes from Greek philosophy and mythology. The Bible nowhere mentions or even hints at such a concept. Jesus and Paul both talked about marriage and celibacy, but they never mentioned “soulmates.” If they existed, you’d think one of them might have mentioned it.
God doesn’t make Christians any promises about marriage. And, personally, I’m not sure what “God’s will” has to do with it.
When Paul talks about this (1 Corinthians 7), he writes that, if you’re single and struggle to control sexual desires, you should try to get married. In this case, the Bible encourages marriage. It does not, however, promise that it’ll work out for you if you do decide to pursue it. Paul does say that not everyone has the gift of singleness. But I’m sure that there’s many who lack this gift who, despite everything, still don’t find mates.
Also, in 1 Corinthians 7:39, Paul writes that a widow is free “to be married to whom she wishes.” Doesn’t sound like Paul believed in “soulmates,” then. We generally accept that Paul wrote these epistles under divine inspiration. If it’s really “God’s plan” for you to marry one particular “soulmate,” well, it looks like God forgot to reveal that to Paul, apparently.
Marriages used to be the norm. Arranged marriages were pretty common in biblical times, and for a very long time in human history. With the advent of dating, well, there’s just so much more uncertainty, and so much more questioning of “God’s will” in it. I suspect the idea of “The One” originated in modern times, with the advent of the modern dating scene. I doubt people thought about this in ancient times, when people didn’t necessarily marry for “love.”
If God “writes your love story,” why has marriage changed so much? It used to be normal to marry in your late teens. Then your twenties. Then your thirties, And so on. Why? Is “God’s plan” changing? Does He want to “test” us and “refine” us further these days?
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.
Who knows? Maybe God isn’t all that concerned with it. Maybe He just leaves the choice up to us, chance, and worldly circumstances. For sure, sometimes we have to take action to make these things happen. No need to feel bad about that.