I remember something that
@Butterflyyy said about this over 2 years ago. It's still stuck in my head. I was even able to find her post from May 13, 2024...
I think she has a point. I think if we put our full trust in the Lord and His guidance, He will definitely guide out footsteps. As scriptures says: we might plan the way, but He directs our steps.
And like Butterflyyy said, if He even knows the number of hairs on our head, then why not something this important?
I understand that lots of people believe that. And i don't really have a problem with people believing it, really.
I mean, yes, in a sense, God cares about
who we marry. We shouldn't marry unbelievers, after all. But, I think he gives us the freedom to choose whether or not to marry, and the freedom to choose
who to marry. As far as I know, the Bible doesn't say anything about God arranging marriages for us. See 1 Corinthians 7:39, for instance. In Matthew 19, where Jesus teaches on celibacy, he mentions that some people
choose to stay single. And we don’t see in Scripture that it would be disobedient not to marry any one particular individual. God never promised to tell us the exact person we should marry. On your wedding day, you're making a choice.
Lots of people, of course,
do pray that God answers their prayer for a godly spouse. Does God directly intervene to answer those prayers? Maybe. I don't know.
Lots of Christian couples are also convinced that God "brought them together." In my experience, these are usually couples who met each other by coincidence (when they "stopped looking" as the cliché goes), got married at 21, and are now enjoying a happy and healthy marriage. Easy for them to say.
In Matthew 19:6 Jesus mentions God joining people together, but it seems to me that he's talking about the institution of marriage, not specific couples. God joins married couple together at the altar because they ask Him to there.
Besides, isn't it more romantic for someone to choose you, rather than having them be maneuvered into doing so by God the Puppetmaster?
And if it were God’s will for us to marry one particular person, then refusing would be disobedience. We would have to marry that person in order to obey God, basically. We'd be accepting the person because we were required to, because we had no other option. Wouldn't that eliminate the opportunity to love freely and genuinely? But God
wants us to love freely and genuinely, I'm sure. That’s why God gives us freedom to choose
if we marry
and who we marry. That freedom gives us space in which to love, I think.
Even in the Bible, there's only one instance of God telling someone (Hosea) to marry a specific person, and that wasn't even for his own sake. And in Proverbs 31, young men are urged to be guided by a woman’s faith and character in making their choice. There's no mention here of second-guessing some divine destiny.
Some if this is also related to the idea of "matching." This is a popular idea in modern America, and in modern dating culture. Lots of people think a successful marriage is made by finding the right "match" and that a failing marriage means the match was "bad." But, I think this is a backward way of thinking. Even the best of matches will experience conflict eventually, and even the best of matches can be ruined if such conflict isn’t handled well.
Even Christians fall into the trap of thinking too much of "matching." Even worse, we bring God into it.
Some Christians want God to pick their spouse because they think He, with His infinite knowledge, knows who the absolute "best match" is. It’s like we want God to be our supernatural matching algorithm.
And, often, we want God to choose our spouse for us because that seems safer or easier than choosing to love someone without knowing how difficult or painful it'll be.
I don't want to put God in box. Sure,
maybe God pulls some people's puppet strings and tells some people to marry so-and-so. But, the way I see it, the clearest scriptural teaching on this subject makes marriage our choice. Both as to
whether we get married and to
whom we marry. The Bible doesn't address how to find the “perfect spouse,” nor does it get as specific as we might like on the matter of finding the right marriage partner. The one thing it
does explicitly tell us is to make sure that we don't marry an unbeliever,
But, again, I don't have a problem with people believing this sort of thing. And by no means do I want to start a big argument about it (sorry if this is coming off that way on my part)
We've had enough arguments in this forum, lately, I think.
And
@seoulsearch has had a bit too much popcorn lately.
That beard is poppin'!! 
