Is the Holy Spirit telling you that you are ready for a relationship? Is your strong desire for marriage tempting you to just hear what you want to hear rather than actually hearing the Lord’s “yes”? Or is God actually telling you that you are ready for a relationship?
You don’t have to flounder in confusion anymore. God wants you to have clarity in this area. He wants you to know for certain if you are ready for a relationship or if you still need more time to develop and heal. Time and time again, throughout the Scriptures, we are told to examine ourselves so we might know what God’s will is (Romans 12:2, Ephesians 5:15-17, 1 Corinthians 11:28-32, 2 Corinthians 13:5).
Therefore, here are 5 biblical ways to examine yourself to know if the Lord is saying, “You’re spiritually ready for a relationship.”
1. If You’re Repenting of Your Personal Sins, This Is a Good Sign You’re Spiritually Ready for a Relationship
The first step in being ready for a relationship is being right with God. And this is an ongoing process, not a one-time decision. While we must choose to believe in Jesus and repent of our sins so we can be saved once and for all in Christ, we must also keep repenting of any new sins that occur if we want to remain in right fellowship with Jesus. To Christians, Paul wrote:
“Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.” (1 Corinthians 11:27-28)
You don’t have to be a perfect person to be spiritually ready for a relationship. However, if you want to follow the Lord in your future marriage, make sure you first follow the Lord in your individual life. And to do that, we must have a rhythm of ongoing confession and repentance (1 John 1:8-10)
2. If You’re a Doer of the Word, This Is a Good Sign You’re Spiritually Ready for a Relationship
It’s so easy to trick ourselves into believing we are more mature than we actually are. Ironically, the more mature we are, the more we will realize how much growth we still have left to experience. Those who are truly humble know how prideful they actually are. With these truths in mind, how can we know if we are just tricking ourselves into believing we are ready for a relationship even though we really are not?
The key is to be a doer of God’s word. James 1:22, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” As James explains, we can easily deceive ourselves. Many of us know more about relationships than we are prepared to live out. Head knowledge isn’t enough.
1 Corinthians 8:1-3 (NIV), “We know that ‘We all possess knowledge.’ But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. But whoever loves God is known by God.”
Thus, if you are actually loving God and people as the word commands, this shows you are mature enough to be in a relationship.
3. If You’re Currently Honoring the Lord with Your Sexuality, This Is a Good Sign You’re Ready for a Relationship
You’re not disqualified from a godly relationship if you’ve committed sexual sins in your past. The key is to be actively repenting right now. Whenever you think you have mastered this area of your life and that you can’t fall here anymore, that’s exactly when you fall. You must always be on guard against sexual temptation.
Therefore, to be ready for a relationship, you don’t have to never be tempted. You don’t have to kill your sex drive. And you don’t have to pretend like you don’t want to have sex in marriage. In fact, biblically speaking, a strong sex drive is a sign you should pursue getting married one day (1 Corinthians 7:9).
However, if you are actively falling to sexual temptation at this point in your life, you should not be in a relationship. If you can’t control your body when you’re not emotionally attached to someone, there’s zero chance you will be able to control your body once you are emotionally attached. Again, you don’t have to be perfect. But you do need to be able to obey 1 Corinthians 6:18-20, which commands:
“Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”
4. If You’re Prepared to Commit to One Person in Marriage Once You Meet the Right Person, This Is a Good Sign You’re Ready for a Relationship
Our modern societal norms when it comes to relationships have warped our minds and tricked us into forsaking a biblical view of what God actually wants. I’m a firm believer that God does not want Christians randomly dating people they know they would never marry right now.
Why am I so confident of this? Because in the Bible, the only long-term romantic relationship that is promoted by God is marriage. Dating, courting, and whatever else you want to call it – none of it is actually promoted in Scripture. Now, I’m not saying these things are wrong. However, I think they can be used in the wrong or right way. To use dating or courting in the right way, I believe they must be used to pursue a biblical outcome. In other words, it’s good to date and court when you’re actually looking for a spouse. It’s bad to date or court if you know you don’t want to get married right now.
You don’t need to know you want to marry the person you are dating or courting. That’s the point of dating or courting – to figure out if you want to marry someone. But if you know you are not ready to get married, even if you were to meet the right person, you are not ready to be in a relationship.
Only seek to be in a relationship when you are ready to fulfill the biblical role of a husband or wife (Ephesians 5:21-33).
5. You’re Prepared to Be in a Relationship When You Can Honestly Say, “Lord, May Your Will Be Done”
If you aren’t surrendered to God, don’t get into a relationship. God wants your relationship with another person to help your relationship with him. But the only way for that to happen is for you to fully submit to the Lord, allowing no one to take his place in your heart. When God is first, you can then experience the joy of a relationship.
Therefore, if you can honestly pray, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:9-10), and apply this prayer to your relationship outcomes, then that is a great sign you are truly spiritually ready for a relationship.
