Will God make you marry someone you are not attracted to?
Have you ever wondered if God would make you marry someone you are not attracted to? I know it can be hard thinking about this. It can feel scary and exciting to envision a future with an unknown personality.
It's not unusual to wonder if God's will will match our desires.
All kinds of questions about attraction and compatibility slip in, taunting us about an unknown future.
I grew up with misconceptions about God years ago due to the stories I was feeding on, coupled with my misconception of God's word.
I was fearful of God and everything he entailed: His choices for his followers didn't fit the frame and life I'd planned for myself.
Safe to say, it didn't look pretty sticking with God or going deeper into Him.
Due to my misunderstanding of God's word, I misinterpreted him. I didn't understand God was intelligent, wise, beautiful, and everything else my soul was made for.
If you then, BEING EVIL, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!
Matthew 7:11
I felt if God gave me something that didn't fit my frame of a 'husband' or the world's judgment of what a good and attractive man looks like, I must have been cheated by God or I just settled for less.
This was based on the fact that part of me loved the world and I was ignorant about God's life and His design for marriage.
Ignorance makes us afraid of God's choices. Because we aren't perfected in love yet, it's easy to fear God's will for us.
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
1John4:18
When we are able to love the Lord God with all our heart and soul and mind, we will be able to trust his plans for us, even when it doesn't fit the life we've planned or envisioned for ourselves.
Beauty is Subjective. So is attraction
Whenever you feel threatened by the thought that you may be led to marry someone you're not attracted to, you must remember beauty is subjective. Attraction is subjective. Knowing this, God will definitely match you with someone you’re attracted to.
Although there are people that the world celebrates as highly attractive or appealing to the eyes, God created us differently. So what may be appealing to you may be a turn-off for someone else.
When it comes to God's choices, I don't believe God creates ugly people. We just have to adjust our perception of people.
While I admit some people are good-looking than the general population, marriage is beyond beauty. It’s like moving into a house only to discover it’s infested with worms and falling apart.
I've met people who are pretty on the surface but with little or no interest in chasing God. The little time I spent time with them, the attraction disappeared instantly.
On the other hand, I have met people who might not have ticked the world's standard of beauty but they had so much spiritual wealth inside.
Attraction goes beyond the face. It’s the whole package.
No matter how beautiful a man or woman is, I wouldn't want to marry a spiritually illiterate person. I wouldn’t also want someone I can’t have an intellectually stimulating conversation with. And spiritual competency outshines physical beauty in this world and even in eternity
Open your heart and give it time
DELIGHT yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
Psalm 37:4
The more we delight in God, he begins to transform our hearts into like that of Christ. And our desires reflect the Spirit's desires and not the flesh. Over time, I've discovered that if only we open our hearts to receive God's choice, he purifies us from our idols to see better. With time, you’ll find yourself attracted to their hair, eyes, smile, or even looks. God has a sense of humor and you’ll be surprised by how much he wants to give you your heart’s desires.
But we must be willing to give him a chance in the first place.
Personally, there are people that I felt we would do well together as best friends but life had other plans. But the friends God have brought my way were the least set of people I would have envisioned befriending personally. Yet these people were the ones that showed up for me in ways I didn’t imagine.
Trust God. He provides the best.
Perhaps you grew up crushing on Shakira, Beyonce or a couple of other celebrities the world celebrates. For the ladies, it could be someone who looks like Denzel Washington, Morris Chestnut, Idris Elba or an image of what you deem perfect. And so you’ve subconsciously tailored the image of the person you want to marry according to your past crushes while filtering out those who don’t fit that frame.
That’s idolatry.
As we grow spiritually, emotionally, and physically, we must see beyond the media’s definition of beauty and attraction. We must be willing to look beyond beauty and seek what really matters.
Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised
Learning to Love God is learning to love His will
When God brings his will, it displaces the lust and love for the world in our hearts.
We grew up in a world that is anti-godly. So it's only natural for us to have an anti-god structure/frame of the spouse we want.
From the romance books to Hollywood love stories I binged on, I created images of the kind of man I wanted. And I've found many women falling into this same delusion.
The world is a teacher. So is Christ.
Before we got born again, we'd learned a way of life that was against God's design for men
Some of us defend the world because we’re not willing to let go
For all that is in the world: the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world
1John2:16
Even after we got born again, we had some peculiar habits that intimacy with Jesus heals. It’s the reason why we must begin to allow God to unravel us from the baggage that prevents us from embracing God's will.
Attraction and Love grow with time
For some people, the spark comes immediately while for others, the spark grows the moment you open up your heart. How can we love his will if we don't try? How can we be upset about it if we are not willing to even give love a chance?
If we are willing to open ourselves to God's love, he will teach our hearts to love and embrace His will. This eliminates the fear of marrying someone you are not attracted to.
God is looking out for you. He knows you from the inside out and he already has someone prepared that will make us go
‘Wow! God, you really know me.’
I know we want that spark and butterflies. Perhaps you want a guy that can sweep you off your feet, but sometimes, true love doesn’t come with butterflies. It comes with a knowing. It comes with a certainty.
Just so you know, the absence of butterflies doesn’t invalidate true love.
God will never give his children anything or anyone. We need to overcome the thought that God will make us marry someone we are not attracted to. He knows what we need more than we do. If God is saying yes but you still have doubts, it means he has faith in you. He believes you can make it work. So please get to know this person and know what they are like.
Be willing to go deeper and become friends.
God is lovely and has a sense of humor. He begins to reveal details about this person that pulls us closer and attracts us to them. Our spouses may not come in the exact packages we expect, but those gifts are always the best. Because they come up with surprises we didn't see coming.
And maybe no one is in sight yet and you're uncertain about the future, trust the goodness of God. Wait on the Lord. He is good and only knows good. He will never give you something less than good.
It may not fit the world's definition of good, but who cares about the world?
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him
1John2:15
I hope you're encouraged that God will not make you marry someone you're not attracted to. All we need is a change of heart, for his gifts are good.
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