There is a blog post popping up all over the social media world. It is causing quite a stir. I have responded to individuals, but today, well… most of my two cents worth just might come out.
The post: “My husband is not my soul mate”
My first reaction… the dear girl has only been married a year! One year! She writes these words and she is completely clueless.
My second reaction… her opinion is given with zero Biblical backing. It is simply her opinion as a young woman who has been in this marriage thing for ONLY ONE YEAR.
What I know is that this young girl, if she holds to her confession firm until the end, will read this post 15 years from now and shudder at her ignorance. Within this time frame she will experience something she had no clue about… soul mating. I am not writing here to condemn the young girl, she just doesn’t know yet was is to come. She just has more growing to do in her grace and knowledge of God and marriage. I assure you marriage will indeed help her with that… that is, if she keeps her covenant as she says she will.
Unfortunately, I see in her post an under-lying attempt by the enemy of our souls to demean marriage even more than our culture already has. Marriage was the first blood covenant recorded in the Scriptures for a reason. Marriage is used as an illustration of the church and Christ. Let us not forget that.
Let us not forget that our God is indeed a sovereign God and He weaves our lives… relationships and all. There is a reason you know the people you know. There is a reason you are where you are…
and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation
Acts 17:26
As for her father, He may be a Biblical scholar, but maybe, just maybe, he said what he said to get his daughter’s eyes off the things of the flesh and onto the things of Christ. Maybe he was trying to get her to see that if she thought a husband was the answer to all her prayers she was going to be in a butt load of trouble and deep ditch of disappointment.
A husband is just a man. He is not our God, ladies. He will have faults. He will have sin. He will have struggles. He will at times be unkind, unloving, unapproachable. He will say and do things that will hurt. He is flesh, just like you. He needs Jesus, just like you. He needs love, forgiveness, mercy, grace, and redemption… just like you.
Maybe her father just wanted her to know:
A Christian woman does not put her hope in her husband, or in getting a husband. She does not put her hope in her looks or her intelligence or her creativity. She puts her hope in the promises of God. She is described in Proverbs 31:25: “Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come.”
She laughs at everything the future could bring because she hopes in God.
She looks away from the troubles and miseries and obstacles of life that seem to make the future bleak, and she focuses her attention on the sovereign power and love of God who rules in heaven and does on earth whatever he pleases (Ps. 115:3).
She knows her Bible, and she knows her theology of the sovereignty of God, and she knows his promise that he will be with her and will help her and strengthen her no matter what. This is the deep, unshakable root of Christian womanhood.
~ John Piper
As for, “does God have a specific person for you?” The Bible clearly states that by all means He very well could! Let the Word of God speak for Himself:
Eve and Adam: Eve was made from Adam’s rib… they are the picture, foundation, root, the mold for every marriage after… Eve was specifically formed for Adam… she was chosen
Sarah and Abraham: Isaac was to come from Sarah. Abraham could screw around with Hagar if he wanted, and reap the consequences, but Sarah was the one through whom the promised son would come… she was chosen
Rebekah and Isaac: My goodness read the story… it’s breathtaking! Genesis 24 its all there… she was chosen
Ruth and Boaz: The family just happened to travel to Moab, the son just happened to marry Ruth, the son just happened to die, Ruth just happened to end up in Boaz’s field, she just happened to bear the grandfather of David? No, I don’t think so… she was chosen
Mary and Joseph: Have you ever noticed that Mary had a-husband-to-be before she conceived the Son of God by the power of the Holy Spirit. Do you really think God just thought any man could raise His Son? No… this marriage was ordained by God… Joseph was chosen for Mary and Mary… she was chosen
The Bride and Christ: Oh my, why of course… she was chosen
“You did not choose Me but I chose you”
John 15:16
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who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father,
by the sanctifying work of the Spirit,
to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood
1 Peter 1:1-2
Now as for the soul mate… Oh yes, dear new bride… he is indeed your soul mate! This is why sex outside of marriage is so detrimental to your inner being. You make soul ties:
“and the two became one flesh”
Genesis 2:24
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“Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute
is one body with her?”
1 Corinthians 6:16
Your soul is made by God to be tied to only two others, Himself and your spouse…
A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart.
Ecclesiastes 4:11-13
When we choose to pull strings off that cord and connect them to those who are not our spouse… then, when we do enter into marriage our cord is weakened. It is not the strong cord God intended it to be and it takes time and effort and pain and repentance and forgiveness and redemption to get those strings back in order to strengthen that cord. Yet, it CAN be strengthened and become that “cord of three strands” with your spouse and God.
That my dear is part of the soul mating.
What this young girl has not yet realized is all the ways that she and this man will come to know one another. The ways she will realize that he can tell and see things about her that only God should be able to see. What she does not yet know, is that God will mate this man to her soul in such a way that she will not be able to see herself even able to breath apart from him. She will have a revelation of a picture of her entire self being ripped apart if ever the thought of calling it quits enters her mind. Her soul will remind her that she is not herself apart from him.
Right now , a year in, she can walk through the house and say this is his and that is mine, but one day she will not even be able to recall what belonged to whose grandmother, because even their pasts have somehow managed to become intertwined.
Now please know that God's Word does not promise us a spouse, there are those who are called to a life of singleness, as Paul was...
Yet I wish that all men were even as I myself am.
1 Corinthians 7:7
but when a spouse is called and chosen... they do indeed become your soul mate.
Even more on God’s sovereignty in marriage…
My children were known by God before they were formed in my womb (Jeremiah 1:5). My children can only be who they are by the unique combination of my and my husbands DNA. Therefore, for my daughters to be here on this earth as my Shelby and Rebekah, my God had to direct my steps to my Patrick. The awesome thing is, He did this when I didn’t even know Him.
The bottom line my dear ones is that either God is sovereign or He is not.
God is even sovereign over sin. He uses all things to bring about His purpose because He is God. My husband had a child before he was married to me. God used a relationship that was not holy to bring about a beautiful blonde haired girl who was formed and fearfully and wonderfully made for a purpose by her Creator God, not unlike the way He used Judah and Tamar (Genesis 38). Was her mother my husbands soul mate… no she wasn’t. He was always intended to be mine. However, this beautiful blonde haired young woman is indeed here for a reason. She is in my life for a reason, but her life needed to be formed from these two for her to be her. God, in His sovereignty, purposed it and worked it out.
Anyway… there’s some of my two cents.