Here are 5 trials God uses to help prepare you to see the person he wants you to marry one day.
1. To Help You See Your Future Spouse, God Will Use the Trial of Discontentment
Any strong desire requires a process that teaches us how to want that blessing in a healthy way. As Christians, we must remember that God is our ultimate need. At the same time, God also created us to desire other good things, including marriage. However, even good desires can become mixed with idolatry, fear, or unhealthy motives that God wants to refine.
The desire for a spouse is from God (1 Corinthians 7:7). But in our sinfulness, we can begin wanting marriage for the wrong reasons, which can distort our judgment (James 4:3). Because of this, God often teaches us how to be content in Christ while still feeling the pain of an unmet desire.
Scripture shows that it is possible to be content in Christ without pretending to enjoy difficult circumstances. Philippians 4:4 says, “Rejoice in the Lord always.” It does not say we must rejoice in hardship itself, but that we can rejoice in Christ within hardship. In the same way, someone can honestly grieve singleness while still finding joy and stability in Jesus.
Or, for example, if someone has cancer, God does not want them to rejoice with their cancer. Rather, he wants them to still be able to rejoice in Jesus while also being discontent with having cancer. They can seek healing, longing for a cure, and hoping they become cancer-free. This doesn’t mean they are discontent in Christ. They can be unhappy with cancer while still being happy in Jesus (Philippians 4:11-13).
God may use this season of discontentment to prepare you for a healthy relationship. When you are not rooted in Christ, desperation can make unhealthy relationships look appealing. But when you know you could still thrive even if you remained in unwanted singleness, you become free to recognize relationship opportunities more clearly and wisely.
At that point, if you meet someone you genuinely desire to marry, it may be a sign that you are seeing that person through a healthy and mature perspective rather than through fear, loneliness, or desperation.
2. To Help You See Your Future Spouse, God Will Use the Trial of Repeated Mismatches
Before you meet the right person, you might feel like you won’t ever find someone you’re compatible with. But this can actually help you see the right person once God brings them into your life. By knowing what it feels like when you don’t match well with others, you are also learning what it will feel like when you do match well with others.
Sometimes surface-level compatibility tricks us. It’s possible to be valuing the wrong things in a spouse. Sometimes God has to show us what really matters by giving us those things we thought we needed from someone. When you go through real life with someone, it often requires many different characteristics than you thought would be needed when you were just imagining what a relationship would be like (Hebrews 5:14).
3. To Help You See Your Future Spouse, God Will Use Trials that Shape Your Character
Sometimes, the reason you can’t see the person you will marry is that you are not yet the person you will be when you marry.
In other words, while God will be working on your future spouse’s character, he will also be transforming and developing your character to prepare you for marriage as well. When you are a different person than you are right now, you will see different things in others, which might be the key to seeing your future spouse one day.
While our Christian character is ultimately about bringing more glory to God, it’s also true that God will prepare us for blessings he wants to give us, like marriage, by first giving us the character to rightly manage these blessings.
James 1:2-4, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
4. To Help You See Your Future Spouse, God Will Use Trials that Move You Into the Right Location
A classic biblical example of this can be seen in the life of Ruth. It was trials that led Ruth and Naomi to move away from Moab and back to Bethlehem. And it was only after Ruth moved that she met Boaz (Ruth 2:3).
I’m not saying you need to make a significant move in your living situation, though God might lead some of you to do so. However, God will often break you out of your old routine to meet someone new. As humans, though, we love our routine. And so, sometimes God will use a trial to force us to change our comfortable patterns.
For example, maybe something really hard happens at church, and it becomes clear God is moving you to a new church family. Or maybe you get fired, and you need to find a new job. Or maybe God just puts a new passion in your heart, and you need to let go of your past ministry involvements, so you have time to serve in a new ministry.
The point is, in these new environments, God may introduce you to someone new.
5. To Help You See Your Future Spouse, God Will Use the Trial of Disillusionment
When you’re wearing rose colored glasses, everything is skewed in an overly positive way. Likewise, when you’re wearing gloomy colored glasses, everything is tainted in a negative way. Thus, whether you are seeing things in an overly positive or negative way, God will always be seeking to help you see the truth.
Psalm 119:66-67, “Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I believe in your commandments. Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word.” When we are under a false illusion, we sometimes have to go through a trial that sobers us (1 Thessalonians 5:6-8; 1 Peter 5:8).
Maybe you believe someone with low character could still be a great spouse. God may allow this belief to burn you so you can get serious about your standards. Or maybe you are so afraid of getting hurt, you think someone can’t have any issues to be a good spouse. God may allow you to see that no one is perfect, even a really good Christian spouses.
Here’s a related article called 5 Things God Does Right Before You Meet Your Person.
