Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage by Mark Gungor

Author:Mark Gungor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-01-10T16:00:00+00:00

Mixing Myth and Faith

The view that there is a predestined one-and-only out there for each of us has permeated even the Christian view of courtship and marriage. We have spiritualized it. We teach, “God has made one special person just for you.”

Really?

If that is not the epitome of self-centered, narcissistic thinking, I do not know what is. God did not create another human being just to satisfy your needs or to make you feel complete.

Yet many believers pray for God to lead them to the “right one,” instead of negotiating through the decision-making process of selecting a mate in a down-to-earth, biblical approach.

Those of us in Evangelical circles have even taken this to a whole new level by encouraging parents to start praying for that “one special person” that God has chosen for our child while he or she is still young. Rather than praying for our children to embrace righteousness, justice, wisdom, sacrifice, goodness, et cetera—all things that would make them wonderful mates to whomever they chose to commit their lives to—we are praying for that “special one” God has already chosen for our child. Zeus be praised, I guess.

Surprising to many, there is absolutely no biblical evidence to substantiate such behavior. The Bible never tells us to find the one God has chosen. It teaches us how to live well with the person we have chosen. And there is a distance of infinitude between those two thoughts. The first assumes that life, love, romance, and marriage are part of God’s divine plan and, therefore, depend more on God than on us. The second, and more biblical, line of thought tells us that successful life, love, romance, and marriage are the result of a couple living by God’s principles—principles that never fail. But this version, which places true love and marriage on the footing of human choice and responsibility, just isn’t nearly as romantic or seductive.

Many people of faith bristle when I take this position and ask me, “But what about when Isaac prayed that God would bring the right woman to him at the well?”

First of all, Isaac never prayed such a prayer; it was Abraham’s servant who did. Abraham had sent his servant back to his homeland to find a relative for his son, Isaac, to marry. True, the servant did pray at the well that God would help him find the right girl, but he wasn’t looking for some divine soul mate, he was looking for a relative of Abraham. In fact, when you read the story in Genesis, the servant does not begin to praise God until he learns that the girl is, in fact, one of Abraham’s relatives. 2

Now, if you are comfortable with one of your dad’s employees searching for a cousin for you to marry, I guess it would be appropriate for you to pray that God will lead him to the “right one.” But beyond that, the Bible is clear that marriage is your decision—not the result of a divine edict.

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