I see your point here, yes. I think I've thought this myself for a long time. God should have someone for me, he should lead her to me etc. whilst I'm playing my part too obviously (by going out, socialising, going to church groups where I will be meeting women and I've been on Christian dating sites). The results have been good, by that I mean I have been on tons of dates over the years, I've had 4/5 serious relationships, but you see nothing has worked out and I think that's what gets to me. And I'm not blaming God for that I guess, maybe I'm just sulking a bit perhaps about still not having met this right woman by this age.
There are two ways of looking at finding a spouse. One is almost like a 'soul mate' idea that God has someone specific for you. Something like that idea that God made a woman just for you like He did for Adam. (That idea doesn't work well with remarried widowers, but I that's another topic.) There is also the story of Rebecca where the servant was led to a specific woman who was to be Isaac's bride. So the idea is you have to choose this very specific woman and you can't marry anyone else.
The other idea is based on I Corinthians where it says 'if you marry you have not sinned.' I think we need to take that into context. You could sin by marrying if you married your sister or a divorced woman you weren't supposed to marry. But it isn't a sin to marry a fellow believer who is biblically available if you do it the right way. So this perspective is you can just go pick another available Christian woman out and get married, and that's fine. The question is how you go about selecting her.
So what are the criteria. Usually that means she has to like you back and say yes to your proposal. (Maybe not in Afghanistan, but that's the way it works here.) You should also see what she's like and see if she'd be a good wife. Our culture emphasizes having feelings of being 'in love' as a criteria. I think most people in the US go way too overboard with this. I ended up watching Pride and Prejudice this week, a movie about the old novel. Back then, there were two philosophies, marry for practical reasons or marry for being in love. It seems like the latter won out in Anglo culture. The first criteria could be rather materialistic for some characters in the movie, marrying the girls off to rich families. But there was also the short, unattractive minister whose sponsor insisted he find a wife who was kind of indifferent as to who it would be, and the 27-year-old who married him because she had no other prospects. I don't think either of those last two characters were sinning by getting married, or would be if they were real people, but the husband is still commanded to love his wife, and Proverbs tells him to desire her, too.
Isaac's marriage was arranged, and he loved his wife. I think it was Joshua or Caleb who gave a daughter off in marriage to a man who took a city. Lead the charge against a city and you end up married to this young woman. Pharoah gave Joseph a couple of wives. Lots of marriages were arranged. Personally, I think marriages like that where the couples did not know each other well probably worked out because culturally there was no choice but for a wife to submit to her husband, which dealt with some of the power struggle issues, and because other marital roles were clearly defined by society.
If you really want to get married fast and it is a really big issue for you, maybe you could opt for some kind of arranged marriage. I don't know if Indians let foreigners into their system of arranged marriage. For them, parents check out the other family's values and get a lot of information and try to determine if their kids are a good match, and nowadays adult children will also have a say as to if they are compatible. You could find Indian spouses online, get your family involved, and try to rush toward a marriage. Koreans rush toward marriage, too. The 30+ girls could be rather desperate, too. Filippinos and Indonesians sometimes want to get married fast. I have read that in the Philippines, if someone isn't married in their late 20's or early 30's, people think something is wrong with them. In a lot of those cultures, the idea of dating forever and never marrying isn't acceptable like it is in the US. In the US, you could date a girl seriously for a long time, and she may not want to marry. In some of those other cultures, if they date, they are very marriage-minded.
So unmarried women may be eager to marry. Some of those cultures can be very anti-divorce. That's an advantage of finding a wife in some of these other countries rather than the US. In the US, many people grow up thinking divorce is okay if you fall out of love, so they go into marriage with an escape hatch in their minds, which they might use if they don't get their way or if infatuation wears off. The legal system also gives women an incentive to divorce since she is likely to end up with the kids and the court may force the man to support her with child support. There is no legal divorce in the Philippines. It seems like Korean women can be the type to rule the roost, so you have to think about it. You can also end up with someone who is kind of crazy, controlling, abusive, etc. if you marry someone too quickly. So make sure you really consider all the issues related to personality and values to see if the two of you would be a good fit.
I saw a video about virgin daughters on YouTube, a British documentary that interviewed American families that took daughters to these type of events. Some of them were patriarchal, where the girls didn't date. A man who was interested approached the father of the girl and the dad would allow them to get to know each other. It was probably kind of Victorian the way they did it. Maybe you could get into a subculture of patriarchal families, quiverfull families, or virgin pride families who do courtship. If the girl hasn't dated anyone, she might be all thrilled to have a man interested in her. Any kind of courtship is focused on marriage, not indecisive dating games. I here some of these families have the problem of girls getting older and older and not marrying. Some of the women are really trained to be wives and that would probably be a better place to find another virgin, and not just a technical virgin.
For me personally, I wanted to know that I married the woman God had for me, and I believe the Lord brought us together. There were many reasons to believe that. I didn't want to just go pick out a wife. I wanted to make sure our calls were compatible, for example. I didn't want to say, "If you have married you have not sinned" and just pick a random good-looking Christian female. I also wanted the Lord to protect me from my blind spots. After I met her, I loved her, so I was concerned about me being a good husband for her, too.
Well I would like to think that he does have marriage in mind for me but of course there is no guarantee. He doesn't promise us anything like that. So maybe part of what this entire dilemma is the fear of ending up alone. I know I'm not alone in this fear.]
It isn't
that hard for most people to get married if you find someone else who is desparate.
It could be hard to find a godly wife. If you changed either your criteria or your method for finding a wife, could you get married easier? What if you were trying to marry women with a different method for finding a husband other than conventional dating?
Some good pointers here thanks and I totally have devoted myself to prayer on this issue for years, as I said it's been something on my heart for a long time. Yet the last relationship, which I honestly thought was it and the girl that God had planned for me to be with, ended up probably being the most difficult relationship I've experienced.
So you see what I'm saying in all of this is that my Christian faith and my experience of following God's "way" and obeying him has not been easy but left me feeling unhappy and unsatisfied. That's my Christian experience.
Find your delight in the Lord. If you want something so bad it detracts from your relationship with the Lord, you need to re-examine your heart.
