My Husband is not my Soul Mate...but He is Who God has Planned for Him to Be

Recently, there has been an article that has been catching a lot of attention on the internet.  It is entitled "My Husband is Not My Soul Mate."  It is a good article!  I would highly recommend reading it - especially if you plan to continue reading this post...otherwise it may not make much sense.

I agree with a lot of the points in the article:

- God's plan for our lives is not for us to be married.  That is not the be all, end all.  His plan for our lives is to grow in a relationship with Him.  Marriage may very well be part of that plan!  Which is exciting!  But our purpose in life is not to be a wife or husband, but a faithful child of God.

- I don't really care for the term soul mate either.  For me, it is just a trendy term used to replace the term husband or wife.

- Marriage and love does involve choices.  We have to choose to be present in and work hard for our relationships.  In a marriage,  you have to choose to grow toward Christ with one another.  All relationships involve choices.  You choose to be a friend to your friends.  You choose to obey your parents.  You choose to live a life pleasing and glorifying to God.

However, I know God to be an extremely intentional God.  The article rejects the idea that God has a person meant for you.  A person planned for you.  Rather, there may be several people throughout life that we can choose to make "our person."  Yet this is the God who knits us together in our mother's womb.  This is the God who knew our names before we were born.  The plan for our lives was in order long before we took our first breath.

If we desire to be married, I believe that God hears that desire and will weave it into His plan for our life.  Marriage is a reflection of the relationship that God wants with us, and I believe that if we desire it, He also wants us to have that experience and to seek Him through it.

I do believe that God knows that person who we will each marry.  That is a part of the plan that He has worked out.  He knows when our lives will come into contact, based on His own timing.

Just as we choose to say yes to a proposal, and to say I Do on our wedding day, God also asks us to choose a life with Him.  And the purposeful and intentional God that you have the choice to say yes to is planning a course for that man or woman that you will share the rest of your life with, just as he is planning a course for you.  Of course, our earthly relationships are far from perfect.  The goal is that they are a reflection of our relationship with our creator, but we are humans and we often fall short.

We will have to choose daily to love our spouses.  It is not that there is no choice at all in who you will marry.  You can say yes, and you can say no.  However, the God who knows your heart, the God who knows the heart of all His children, is looking out for you.  He wants to lead you to Joy.  He will purposefully bring friendships and other relationships into your life.

The first year I worked at camp, all of the girl counselors took an evening to go and do devotions in the girls dorms with our girl campers and their leaders.  One of the adult leaders imparted some wisdom that I will never forget.  She told us all to pray for the man that we are going to marry, because God is still working on him just like He is working in all of our hearts.  He is preparing to write our stories together, just like He writes us into His own story.

 So here is my bottom line: I believe that God know's the person you will spend the rest of your life with.  He or she was created and shaped by the same God that shaped you.  You may not know their name, what they look like, what they like to eat or what their favorite TV show is, but God does.  He will bring your lives together in His perfect timing.

~SP