Good (early) morning!
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Quick question. When talking about future spouses on here, I have come across some conflicting ideas. Some say that God doesn't have a person selected for you to marry in His plan, and others do.
I'm with the idea that he does - after all, if God is preparing me right now for marriage to my future husband, wouldn't He be preparing a guy out there for being my future husband?
The idea that God doesn't have a specific person in mind almost makes it sound like He doesn't care about it, and that He's giving you a vocation to marriage, throwing you out into the world and telling you "Good luck!"
Not meant to be an opinion bashing thread, just a charitable forum where you can voice your opinion. :D
God Bless!
Chloe M.
You don’t even know what a can of worms you’re so carelessly opening.
Anyway, there are indeed conflicting views and the founder of this site took some time to address the soulmate/(nonexistent) prince charming theory.
There is no evidence that the, “she was set apart for you before the world existed,” applies to anybody else than to whom it was said. God first of all gave us our natural gifts and even some supernatural ones, we’re supposed to make a good use of them. Also, we’re free.
The owner of some other website, although it’s difficult to establish the credentials of that person, holds a different view:
raphael.net/scripture/marriage.htm. That’s the popular soulmate view. Plan for santification supposedly necessarily including one specific person to marry as a consequence of being called to marriage. IMHO the necessity doesn’t follow.
On the other hand we can’t use the argument of a disinterested God. That would be a deistic view. God actually is involved in our lives despite giving us freedom. And He cares. If He cares for every sparrow that falls from the sky and if every hair on our heads is counted, then the argument that God supposedly doesn’t really care whomever we marry doesn’t work. Although I’d be inclined to think that God would first of all care if it helps our salvation, secondly whether we’re happy on this earth, less so about matchmaking.
We can probably suppose that God does help us with opportunities, though, I think. Again, we’re not alone here.
What is bad theology is thinking that we can sit in our armchairs and feel entitled and God will sent us a bespoke girl or guy.
A good principle is to pray like all depends on God and try like all depends on you. Easier said than done. I don’t have it mastered, myself, either (or anywhere close to).
Another angle that personally gets me thinking is, “seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all those things shall be added unto you.” So I guess people who go out of their way to serve God and fellow man don’t really need to be chasing specifically.
Otherwise we can’t really complain. Plus, a difficulty in finding someone to share life with is perhaps a mark of our times, a factual circumstance to deal with, just like other generations had e.g. shorter life expectancy. And indeed they had poverty restricting them from marriage or forcing them to put it off until they were like 35 years of age, especially men.
Unfortunately, while God may know who is best for us and intends us to marry that person, we often choose to make our own bad decisions, ignoring all the subtle hints and signs that a person may not be right for us, or letting our romantic feelings get in the way of sound judgment.
Feelings aren’t unimportant. They’re guides and they reflect your personality and some qualities of your spirit. They’re not there simply to deceive you. So, going against one’s feelings in a marriage of convenience isn’t really a great idea, just like it isn’t a great to idea to jump head first because of blind feelings.
He knows everything that has happened, is happening or will happen. As well as anything that could have happened. There’s just no such thing He doesn’t know.
There are several examples from the Old Testament that suggest that you’re right on this one. Isaac and Rebecca, Ruth and Boaz - but my personal favourite is Tobias and Sarah from the Book of Tobit, in which the Angel Raphael more or less explicitly states that she is “the one” for Tobias.
Similarly, when He did not intend Jeremiah to be married, He told him so in no uncertain terms. I’m curious to see what others say on this, but the Bible is very good authority.
My impression is that Tobias wanted only to prolong the family, bring about a new generation to serve God, he wasn’t after companionship, let alone attraction. So it wasn’t really what we’re after. Most of us probably care a lot about companionship and attraction tends to be a significant issue.
I think it is more up to us who choose, look at the amount of not only Good Catholic’s but good people in general who are single and may never get married simply because they cannot find a husband/wife
Some of whom can’t because they haven’t tried hard enough, not always due to sheer laziness but sometimes some psychic circumstances. If it’s a consequence of one’s personality, then it’s hard to argue with.
Besides, I guess just like some people die in accidents before they can sin more, some others would have had a more sinful life or a worse (e.g. less peaceful) life if they actually had found someone to marry. Especially if they were to have married invalidly or struggled e.g. with openness to offspring. Or wouldn’t have been able to focus attention enough to guard a child from harm or focus their efforts enough to keep a wife or husband. We never know what would have happened otherwise.
God will definitely help us find out if we are on the right path, if we listen.
As centurionguard nicely explains, God, while endowing us with authentic free will, is not in any way diminished, nor is He in any way under the constraint of time.