What I’m about to say is going to come off as unbiblical at first. So please read this whole article to get the full context of what I’m really saying. If you do, I believe you will better enjoy your Christian singleness and be better situated to find a Christian spouse. Alright, here it goes:
Stop trying to put God first as a way of finding your future spouse.
See? I told you that was going to sound bad. But please notice the last part of this sentence, “as a way of finding your future spouse.” Every Christian must always put God first. But I would argue that if you are “putting God first” as a means to something other than God, you are not actually putting God first.
Thus, when you put God first to find a spouse, you are actually putting your desire for a spouse before God. The aim of glorifying God can’t be to get something from God besides himself. Rather, God himself is the treasure we must seek when we truly want to glorify him.
Does that mean it’s wrong to want to be married, to pray for a spouse, or to seek God’s favor so you can meet the right person? No! Wanting to be married is good (Proverbs 18:22, 1 Corinthians 7:36)! It only becomes bad when we want it more than we want God.
To unpack this point further and help you position your heart to receive the blessing of marriage, here are 4 reasons you should stop trying to put God first to find a spouse.
1. God Cannot Be Mocked, So It’s Pointless to “Put God First to Find a Spouse”
As Christians, we believe God is in control. Therefore, when we want to be married, but we have not found a spouse yet, it’s easy to assume God is withholding this blessing because he is mad at us.
As a result of this thinking, we assume the solution to not having a spouse is to please God so he will give a spouse. This is why so many people think they should “glorify God to find a spouse.” It’s kind of like Santa Claus, “He’s making a list, and checking it twice, he’s gonna find out who’s naughty or nice.” This is not how God works.
Just because you don’t have what you want does not mean God is mad at you. Likewise, just because you have all the earthly blessings you do want does not mean God is pleased with you. Earthly blessings are not the thermometer of God’s pleasure in us. That type of thinking is rooted in “prosperity gospel” theology.
God’s ultimate gifts always come in the form of himself. When God is pleased with you, you will have a deeper relationship with God. When you are displeasing God, you will feel distance from him, which God allows so you are motivated to repent and come back to him.
So when we try to put God first as a way of attaining some other blessing, like a Christian spouse, God sees right through this.
Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.” (Galatians 6:7-8)
We reap what we sow. When we seek to please God, we reap a reward in God. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matthew 6:21). In other words, whatever your end goal is, that is what you are truly putting first.
Seeking God first to find a spouse is really seeking a spouse first.
2. “Putting God First to Find a Spouse” Is Biblically Backward
What I mean is this: You mustn’t seek to glorify God so he satisfies your desire for a spouse. Rather, you should seek to satisfy your desire for a spouse as a means of glorifying God. Rather than seeking to glorify God in service to your desire for marriage, you must use your desire for marriage in service to your desire to glorify God.
Glorifying God is not meant to be a path that brings you to a biblical marriage. Rather, a biblical marriage is one path that can be used to bring you to glorifying God.
Let’s not forget that marriage is God’s idea (Genesis 2:18). He’s the one who gave us the gift of marriage (Genesis 2:22-25). And even the desire for marriage is a gift from God (1 Corinthians 7:7). However, we must remember the purpose of every gift we receive from God. Biblically, God gifts us so we can bring more glory to him (1 Peter 4:10-11). And this principle remains true even when it comes to the gift of marriage.
I know Christians mean well when we say we need to put God first, then our marriage, then our kids, then our friends, then our jobs, etc. But a more biblical way to say this is that we must put God first in our marriage, put God first in our parenting, put God first in our friendships, put God first in our pursuit of a spouse, and so on.
God is not just the most important category. God should overwhelm all categories of life. God doesn’t want to be placed in one box, even if it’s our first and most important box. Putting God first in everything is the goal, not just above everything.
So in the context of finding a spouse, you must not seek to glorify God so he will give you a spouse. Rather, if God has given you the desire for a spouse, you must use this desire to bring more glory to him.
The true blessing of a Christian marriage is that it helps you glorify, serve, and love God better. If you’re asking God for a spouse and your motivation is not rooted in pleasing God, then you’re asking God for a curse, not a blessing. Anything that gets in the way of your relationship with God will harm you. God wants us to marry because a spouse is supposed to help our walk with him.
Of course, a healthy relationship with God will strengthen your human relationships. So it’s all intertwined. But you have to start with God. God wants to give you the best. So he often waits to bless us with a spouse until we are ready to use our marriage in service to him rather than using God to serve our future marriage.
Honestly, one of the scariest things is when God finally gives you a Christian spouse even though you want him or her for all the wrong reasons. God will use the pain of this marriage, rather than the joy of a healthy marriage, to draw you to himself and help you put him first.
3. When You Truly Love God, He Will Lead You to Love One of His Sons or Daughters
To glorify God, you must not only do the right things, but you must do them for the right reasons. While this sounds complicated, it’s really not. In Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus summarizes the goal of all the laws like this:
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Here we can see that loving God and loving another person are not opposed to each other. In fact, by putting these two commandments together, Jesus is making it clear that you can’t fulfill the first and greatest commandment without also seeking to fulfill the second greatest. In other words, if you really love God, you will also love those he loves (1 John 4:19-21).
But there is an order here! These two commands are ranked by importance. If you elevate the second commandment to love people over the first commandment to love God, you are disobeying the first commandment. But when you are truly obeying the first commandment, you will naturally seek to obey the second as well.
While Matthew 22:37-40 is certainly not about marriage, it certainly does have massive implications for marriage. One way to fulfill the law to love God is to love a specific person in marriage. When a man and woman are filled with love for God, they will also be filled with love for each other, which brings glory to God (Ephesians 5:25, Titus 2:4).
So don’t think you can either love God or love a person. Scripture is clear that we must love God through our love for people. To say it again, this is why we must not seek to put God first to find a spouse. Rather, when you seek to find a spouse, you must seek to find a spouse as a means of putting God first. When you love someone biblically, you are also loving God through your love for that person.
4. God Won’t Bless You with an Idol
The last reason we must never put God first to find a spouse is that this is a sign of idolatry. Whatever you put first in your heart is your god. When you are seeking to please God just so he will give you a spouse, this is a sign you have an idol.
God will never bless you with an idol. He will never actively give you something that would come between your love for him. You can choose an idol, but he will never give it to you.
Thus, if you want God to be the one who chooses your spouse, you must have pure motives, seeking to glorify him in all that you do, including in your relationship desires (1 Corinthians 10:31).
Related Article: How to Let God Choose Your Spouse
