How can you let God choose your spouse?
When I use the phrase “let God choose your spouse,” this should raise a lot of questions. When you look at Scripture from one angle, we could say something like, “You don’t need to let God do anything. God is going to do what he wants, whether you think you are letting him or not.” For example, Psalm 115:3 states, “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.” Isaiah 32:13 (NIV), “No one can deliver out of my hand. When I act, who can reverse it?”
And yet, when we look at Scripture from another angle, we can also say that God allows us to make good and bad choices that can cause us to miss or receive certain blessings God wants to give us. For example, Galatians 6:7, “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.” Lamentations 3:25, “The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.”
Therefore, as Christians, we must accept both truths. God is sovereign and has a plan for each of our lives that he will accomplish through his power (Philippians 1:6). And God allows us to make good and bad choices that really affect what we experience or don’t experience (Proverbs 11:25).
In this article, I will focus on this second fact seen in Scripture – that we can do things that help or hurt our lives. Therefore, here are 4 biblical ways to “let God” choose your spouse.
1. To Let God Choose Your Spouse, You Must Be Shaped Through Prayer
So often, when we think about prayer, we focus on the truth that prayer is our opportunity to lay our request before God so he can then bless us or not bless us with what he wants. And this is absolutely right. The Bible is very clear that we should ask God for the specific blessings we desire. In Matthew 7:7, Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”
While that is true, Scripture is also clear that prayer is not just about us asking God to do what we long for. Prayer is also meant to be a time where we learn what God wants us to do, too (James 1:5). In other words, prayer doesn’t ultimately change the will of God into what we want. Rather, prayer is really about God conforming us into his will (Romans 12:2).
Even when God answers the specific prayer requests we have with a yes, he ultimately does so not because it was our will but because it was his will (Matthew 7:11, 1 John 5:14). God answers our prayers with a yes when our prayers are in alignment with his will. If we ask for something God doesn’t will to happen, he doesn’t change his will just because we want him to.
Thus, while God does wait to answer our prayers until we ask him (Matthew 6:8), sometimes the real breakthrough occurs in prayer when we allow God to shape our desires so that we want what he wants for us.
When we apply this to the topic of letting God choose your spouse, we can say that it is essential to spend time in prayer about your future spouse so the Lord can shape your desires so you will want the right things. When you are shaped through prayer, you won’t have to force yourself to love the person he has planned for you. You will want to be with the person he has chosen for you because God will have shaped you two to fit together.
Psalm 143:10, “Teach me to do your will, for you are my God! Let your good Spirit lead me on level ground!”
2. To Let God Choose Your Spouse, You Must Not Force Your Will to Happen
There is an unbiblical teaching in many churches that God is more likely to answer people’s prayers based on factors such as how often they ask, how passionately they ask, or how publicly they declare it in faith. While there certainly are biblical grounds to highlight the need to ask God regularly in faith for what you want if you hope to receive it, it’s not biblical to say that we can force God to do what we want if we just push the right buttons in prayer (Matthew 6:7-8).
Really, when people do things like this, they are coming to God in a spirit of pride and fear. In pride, they claim they know best. In fear, they are worried God might not give them what is best. And so they shout and yell and repetitively come to God in a forceful way. This isn’t right, nor is it needed.
While God can handle the full range of our emotions, as the Psalms highlight, we must always remember that God is God and we are not. His aim and power are ultimately in service to his glory, not our personal desires (Psalm 23:3). And while he is glorified through blessing us, we must never allow our desire to be blessed to become the main focus of our lives (Psalm 89:15-18).
When we apply these biblical truths to the topic of letting God choose your spouse, we must conclude that God is looking for open and surrendered hands (Matthew 6:33). If we have a death grip on our plan for our lives and relationships, we will miss God’s better plan for our lives and relationships.
Psalm 115:1, 3, “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness! . . . Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.”
3. To Let God Choose Your Spouse, You Must Participate in Accomplishing His Will for You
When Christians hear about this idea of “letting God” do things for us rather than taking matters into our own hands, some go too far and conclude that God wants us to sit and do nothing.
As you can see from verses like Acts 18:20-21, Acts 19:21, and Acts 20:16, when Paul was making decisions about his travel plans, he followed his desires while also leaving room for God to overrule him. This is the simplest way to follow God’s will. We can live with confidence, knowing that we can make real choices and when needed, God will prevent us from doing things he doesn’t want us to do.
When it comes to finding a spouse, a Christian single woman might say, “Well, I want God to choose my spouse. So if that man doesn’t ever come and talk to me, it just must not be God’s will.” Or a Christian man might say, “Well, I want God to choose my spouse. So I can’t use online dating because that feels like taking matters into my own hands. I’ll just wait for the right woman to come into my life without me looking for her.”
While God might lead a man or woman in that way, it’s wrong to oversimplify the biblical truth that we must surrender to God and let him accomplish what he wants to happen.
When you think about it, oftentimes, in situations like these, what we are really doing is surrendering to other people’s will. For example, if a woman thinks she must wait for a man to come up to her in order to let God choose her spouse, she is basically allowing a man’s free will to be the voice of God to her. Sometimes a man will pursue a woman simply because he wants to and not because God wants him to.
Likewise, if a man thinks being proactive to find a woman is not letting God choose his spouse, he’s really deferring to a woman’s desire. Perhaps she sat next to you at church because she just likes that side of the sanctuary.
The point is, to let God choose your spouse, you will still need to actively participate in his plan for you. God is leading, but you must still follow where he is leading. Just as true disciples of Christ follow him where he goes, so too must you follow God where he leads when it comes to letting him choose your spouse.
4. To Let God Choose Your Spouse, You Must Be Honest About the Desires He Is Giving You
When God chooses your spouse, you won’t be forced to marry someone you don’t want to marry. According to Scripture, God only wants people to marry when they want to be married. If people don’t have a strong desire to be together as a husband and wife, 1 Corinthians 7:36-38 states that it is better for them to remain single.
Thus, one way you will know who God has chosen for you is by being very honest about your desires. Philippians 2:13 (NLT), “For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.”
If you want to be with someone, this doesn’t automatically mean God has chosen them to be your spouse. However, when God does choose someone as your spouse, you both will want to be married to each other.
Here’s a related article called This Verse Will Lead You to The One.
