If you’re a Christian single person who doesn’t just want to get married but, instead, you want to make sure you end up marrying the person God has chosen for you, you know you need his guidance. However, often the real danger isn’t that God isn’t speaking; it’s that we unintentionally position ourselves in ways that make his guidance harder to recognize.
Therefore, here are four easy ways to miss the signs God is sending about the one, so you can make sure you don’t overlook the guidance the Lord is giving.
1. When You Believe God Doesn’t Care About Your Relationship Choices, You Can Easily Miss the Signs He Is Sending to Lead You to the Right Person
If you believe God doesn’t care about your relationship choices, you won’t look for his guidance. And if you’re not looking, you won’t notice the signs he is sending—even when they’re obvious. It’s like driving through a city while assuming there are no traffic signals. The lights are there, but your mindset prevents you from responding to them. This would be very dangerous and cause widespread destruction.
Likewise, you breeze through life thinking that God isn’t speaking to you about your relationship decisions; this, too, can cause a lot of destruction in your life. Psalm 32:8-9 states:
I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you.”
This passage shows a God who is not distant or disengaged, but deeply involved. He doesn’t merely give commands from afar; instead, he counsels with his eye upon you.
This passage also contrasts gentle instruction with harsh restraint. God says, “Be not like a horse or a mule . . . which must be curbed with bit and bridle.” In other words, the Lord prefers to guide you in gentle ways rather than blasting you with a slap in the face. If you are only looking for unmistakable signs in the sky rather than the still small voice of the Holy Spirit, you may miss his leading.
2. When You Have a “One and Done” Mentality When Looking for Signs About the One, You Can Easily Miss the Signs God Is Sending
When you think God sent you a sign about who to marry and then you believe that is his final word and there will never be any other signs to confirm what you think you know, you are very likely to miss what God is actually saying to you.
While God does send signs, he also prefers to have an ongoing relationship and conversation with us. He walks with us in the moment. He doesn’t just drop in like a fairy godmother, giving us magical wishes and then disappearing again. Thus, we should expect God to guide us day to day rather than in one big word a few times in life.
In John 10:27, Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” Jesus didn’t say, “My sheep heard my voice.” He said we are those who continue to “hear” his voice. The verb tense here implies continual hearing, not a one-time download. God’s guidance is relational and ongoing.
When it comes to meeting the right person to marry, the Lord will help you know this is the right person by walking with you through small, wise steps that will eventually give you a whole body of evidence that this is actually the right person he wants you to marry.
3. When You Pray for God to Give You a Specific Person Rather than Asking Him to Reveal the Right Person, You Can Easily Miss the Signs He Is Sending
Matthew 6:9-10, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
Even when you are praying about the right person, it is still better to ask God to reveal his will to you rather than pleading with God to give you exactly what you want. You should ask him for what you want, but more than that, you must have a posture of surrender.
This not only helps you hear God more accurately, but it will also help you trust what you hear. When you know you are only committed to this one thing you want God to give you, even if God does give it to you, you will always wonder if you are truly hearing God accurately or if you are just fooling yourself into hearing what you want to hear so badly.
Either way, a subtle way believers miss God’s signs is by praying too narrowly. Instead of asking God to reveal the right person, they ask him to give them a specific person. At first glance, this seems harmless—even faithful. But over time, it can subtly shift prayer from surrender to control.
Jesus teaches us to pray with a posture of submission: “Your will be done.” When our relational prayers begin with, “God, make this work,” rather than, “God, show me what you want,” we risk filtering God’s guidance through our emotional attachment.
Once you lock onto a specific person, it becomes very easy to reinterpret God’s signs to support what you already want. Red flags become “tests of faith.” Delays become “spiritual warfare.” Clear warnings get relabeled as “fear.”
This doesn’t mean it’s wrong to desire a particular person. But it is dangerous to elevate that desire above God’s wisdom. God’s signs are meant to lead you, not rubber-stamp your preferences.
Imagine going to a doctor and saying, “I don’t want a diagnosis. Instead, I want this exact prescription.” Even if the doctor knows that medication isn’t right for you, your insistence limits what help you’re willing to receive. In the same way, when you insist on a person rather than God’s will, you reduce your ability to hear him clearly.
4. When You Are Not Living a Vibrant Life, You Can Easily Miss the Signs He Is Sending Meant to Lead You to the Right Person
God speaks through his word and through our prayer times. However, God also speaks through the situations and experiences of life. If you are not out there living and interacting with real people, you will miss the signs that he wants to use that can lead you to the one.
Notice the emphasis on movement in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” When you’re not walking, you will miss the good plans the Lord has for you.
Think of discernment like catching the wind in a sail. A sailboat anchored in place can’t harness the wind effectively. But once it’s moving—even slowly—the wind becomes directional. In the same way, God often steers us while we are moving, not while we are waiting passively.
Here’s a three-part video series I did called 3 Ways God Will Reveal The One to You.