I'll share my thoughts regarding the
previous blog (Thanks for your responses!)
Me and Monica agreed to pray for a month (November of 2003) to see if God would speak to us regarding whether or not we were "meant for each other". We spent that time apart from each other until the Lord spoke to us.
It was the last day of November, and I still had not heard from the Lord at all. I remember laying in bed in San Francisco, praying to God, "Ok God, this is it. The last day, and I still haven't heard you speak regarding whether or not Monica is the one for me". I kept imagining God would be all dramatic and speak to me at the very last second.
I fell asleep.
I'm quite a deep sleeper... my roommates in college would wake up when my alarm went off, then they'd get up, and physically wake me up since I sleep like a bear. But oddly, that night I was woken up by a leak in the ceiling due to rain... IN ANOTHER ROOM! It was weird, I was wide awake and couldn't go back to sleep because the drip was so constant and so annoying. I remember being utterly frustrated as I laid their trying to fall back asleep.
Then God spoke to me. I had JUST read Proverbs 27:15:
"A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day".
The Lord spoketh! Not that Monica IS NOT THE ONE because she's like a constant dripping... she's anything but quarrelsome! But the Lord spoke to me by helping me realize from this Scripture that the Lord ISN'T going to speak to me regarding whether someone is the one for me or not. I have a freedom to choose.
Prov. 27:15 is a guideline regarding our spouse- it's better not to marry someone who is quarrelsome. It is not a command. The Bible is filled with guidelines for wisely choosing a spouse. For men, wives should be submissive, God-fearing, not quarrelsome, not ill-tempered, etc. For women, it's good if their husband is considerate, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, etc.
The only clear Biblical commands for knowing whether one is the one for us is:
1. He/She is a equally yoked
2. He/She is of the opposite gender.
Other than these two criteria, the Bible only provides guidelines, and allows us the freedom to choose whoever we would want to marry, as long as these two criteria are met. Once we marry, the responsibility is ours to be faithful to our spouse for the rest of our earthly life.
Biblically speaking, there is just no evidence of God having that perfect one for you. The argument is from silence. Of David's many wives, which one was the "right one"? Not that God condoned multiple wives, but even when David married on different occasions, God never condemned David, nor anyone else in the Bible, for marrying the wrong wife.
Logically, it just doesn't work. Considering the past, once someone married the wrong person (which the divorce statistics tell me that's likely the case, and probably happens all the time), EVERYONE ELSE marries the wrong person. For example, if I married the wrong person, I took someone's perfect person, and that someone will end up marrying another wrong person, who was supposed to be someone else's perfect person... and so on and so on. Everyone gets jacked.
There are things we can find in God's Word as things that God values in his people. If we value those same things and look for them in our spouse, then I think we'll be pleased. And during the times when we aren't very pleased, we need the mercy and grace of God to be faithful and committed to love the one we chose for life.
