I agree, God did in certain situations, but not every situation every time. It's like yes, God specifically meant for there to be manna in the desert, but He doesn't lead us to a specific cheeseburger today lol. A wise man once told me that it is like GPS- no matter what turn you take, God redirects you from that point on. Whether we choose to marry or not is up to us. Of course we should pray about such decisions, and be wise about them.
Heres the problem- the right ones are pretty much non-existent or already married. So if you prayed to God about two potentials, and neither one would be a good choice, you cant choose. That's what happened with the apostles- they recognized Judas needed to be replaced, so they made a plan to choose one. Problem was, Paul wasn't in the group to choose from, and even if he were, he wouldn't pass their credentials. Can you imagine that interview? "Well I haven't been with you guys from the beginning, I was bent on killing Christians, ..."
Its a sad thing, but unless you are convinced they are "the one", you should not marry. I'd rather be alone and free than to be with "Mr Wrong for me".
You know the comment that the right ones are already married, I agree with you only up to a certain point.
It is true that many people that would make good spouses are married. But with tens of millions of single people in this country (actually the number is about 125 million single people in the country at this time), and probably at least a half million or lots more in most states, I think you are making a generalization that is not accurate.
Think about all the unmarried or divorced or widowed people. And what about all the people who were divorced before they may have come to salvation.
And all the people who are divorced that learned from their experiences and are now prime marriage material. And of course people whose spouses died are in another category altogether.
About half of married couples have been divorced. That is a rate of about 1 million people getting divorced every year. That's a lot of divorced people. In a ten year period of time, assuming that half of them get remarried again, that is still about 5 million divorced single people floating around.
I can't see how anyone can say that at least around a quarter of them are not great potential mates.
That's still about 1.2 million people (obviously 600,000 from each gender) that would probably make great mates.
Throw in from the never married category the 100 million people or so, assume about 25% of them are quality marriage material, and you have yet another 12.5 million people from each gender who would probably make great spouses.
So about 13 million single people from each gender.
Break that down even further, into age groups. like 20 to 30, 31 to 40, 41 to 50, and 51 to 60, and you can safely say that even in the last two older aged groups there are probably about a million people from each gender in the 41 to 50 group and a half a million people from each gender in the 51 to 60 age group that are great potential mates.
And to finally break that down geographically there are 304 cities in America with a population of 100,000 people or more.
That means if you live in some of the smaller size cities of which there are from 100,000 to 300,000 people, of which number about 245 cities, then you have about an average of about 2000 qualified potential mates from each gender for the last two ages groups (41 to 50 and 51 to 60) in each city.
If you live in the 55 most populous cities in the USA, with populations of 400,000 or more, then your average jumps to about 15,000 members from each gender for the last two age groups.
If you live in NYC, LA, Chicago, Houston, Phil. Phoenix, San Diego, San Antonio, Dallas, or San Jose, then the amount of qualified singles in the last two age groups jumps to around 30,000 people from each gender.
Okay, so I like statistics.
I know there is a lot more to it then that.
God can hook you up with the right person on a deserted Island.
I just like looking at the numbers.