Becoming the right person so you can meet the right person
Since you are a believer, you are looking not just for any suitable person of the opposite sex to marry but specifically for the person of God’s choosing. You are dreaming of finding the ideal mate from God’s perspective. In other words, you want God’s best for you when it comes to marriage.
You First
When you are the right person, you’ll meet the right person.
In other words, what we’re suggesting is that, instead of focusing on finding your soul mate, you focus on being God’s best for the person God has in mind for you.
Now for a couple of important clarifications.
First, by saying that you should strive to be the right person, we are not judging you in any way. We’re not saying that you are not married because you are not good enough or not godly enough.
And that brings us to the second clarification. God remains sovereign. It is possible that a mate is not in his will for you. Or at least not in his will for you right now. You should not try to be the person God wants you to be just so that he will give you what you want. Becoming Christlike is its own endeavor.
Living Toward God
What does it mean to be the right person? If we’re saying that being ready to meet the right person depends on being the right person, what does that really consist of? Here’s our answer: Being the right person means living out God’s purpose for your life.
Whether we’re married or single, our purpose should not be to satisfy our own wishes but to do God’s will. We’re to love God more and more each day, know him better and better each day and follow him closer and closer each day. Living out God’s purpose for us is a lifelong goal that takes work day by day, month by month and year by year.
This is exactly how Jesus operated. He said, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). That’s hardly “be your own man.” He said, “I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me” (John 6:38). That’s not “live life your way.” Jesus lived out God’s purpose for his life. He made his will align perfectly with the Father’s will.
This is the essence of living out God’s purpose for our life. We cultivate our relationship with him. We follow his standards and teachings. We come to want what he wants. We seek for him to be honored in all things and we try to fulfill his specific purpose for our lives. And in doing all this, we’re at the right place to receive God’s best for us at just the right time.
The Basis of Hope
With a new perspective, everything changes though nothing is different. Isn’t that true? In different ways, the two of us learned to give up our narrow perspectives and adopt God’s perspective instead. As single people, we still wanted to be married, but we figured out that first we needed to get ourselves in line with what God wanted for our lives as a whole. Then the marriage he wanted for us—God’s best—would fit in with that.
We think this is a message many single people need to hear. You want God’s best in a mate? Great! Don’t try to find a mate on your own. God will reveal him or her to you when you’re ready.
God knows you completely. He knows the person he has in mind for you. He knows what’s coming up in the future. He knows what’s best for you spiritually. And he’s not blinded by the urgency you may feel. He’s not thinking about short-term happiness but about what’s best for you in the long run. He’ll give you just the right mate if you are following him.
Chances are, someone else is out there looking for you. Now is your chance to become God’s best for him or her. Spend time seeking God so you can begin to know the purpose he has for your life.
The above article is an abridged version of Chapter 3 of the book, Soul Mate by God (Download the free ebook in PDF). Visit SoulMatebyGod.com for more resources.