Know God’s will choosing your life partner (part I)
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Some time ago I had a discussion with a young Christian man who wanted to marry, but he asked an advice concerning knowledge of God’s will choosing his life partner. I have once heard how a wise country man said to someone who wanted to marry: “Think well at the choice you are making! Marriage is not an apple that you bite and if you don’t like, you throw it away and take another one. Marriage is a covenant for your whole life”. Choosing the person you will marry is a very serious and responsible thing, because it is a decision that can not be changed or annulled , and this can make you either happy or unhappy for your whole life. I want to present some fundamental principles from the Word of God that will help every young man or woman to make a wise choice regarding the person he/she will marry. The passage is found in the 24th chapter of Genesis and it relates us about the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah. Here are these principles:
1. God’s will for you is to marry a person from His people
The Word of God says:
Now Abraham was old, advanced in age; and the LORD had blessed Abraham in every way. Abraham said to his servant, the oldest of his household, who had charge of all that he owned, “Please place your hand under my thigh, and I will make you swear by the LORD, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I live, but you will go to my country and to my relatives, and take a wife for my son Isaac.” (Genesis 24:1–4)(NASB)
Canaanites were worshiping other idols, they were pagans and this affected their lives and behavior badly. God is totally against marriages between those who worship Him and those who don’t know Him, because these marriages will bring evil and will estrange the believer from the relation with God. Accepting such marriage means to turn back on God, to betray Him, to become His enemy. You should never accept this kind of marriage in your mind and stay away from every relation that can lead you one day to this evil thought. Such a marriage will not be blessed and the experience of those who passed over this clear commandment of God, proves the reality of the consequences. You can be happily married with a husband or a wife who is from God’s people and who worships Him truly.
2. God’s will for you is to marry a person who will not deviate you from the received call
The biblical text continues:
The servant said to him, “Suppose the woman is not willing to follow me to this land; should I take your son back to the land from where you came?” Then Abraham said to him, “Beware that you do not take my son back there! The LORD, the God of heaven, who took me from my father’s house and from the land of my birth, and who spoke to me and who swore to me, saying, ‘To your descendants I will give this land,’ He will send His angel before you, and you will take a wife for my son from there. But if the woman is not willing to follow you, then you will be free from this my oath; only do not take my son back there.” (Genesis 24:5–8)(NASB)
God promised this land to Abraham and his descendants through a holy covenant. Isaac’s call from God was to inherit this land of Canaan. If he accepted to follow his wife, he wouldn’t have remained in the call received from God. This shows us once again how important it is that both the guy, and the girl that get marry to be faithful to God and to have the same purpose in life, to co-work together to accomplish this purpose. When God firstly spoke about woman’s creation, He said that He made her be “a suitable helper” for her husband. A woman can not be a suitable helper of a man with whom she doesn’t share the same call, desires and life visions.
3. God’s will for you is to put priority on the character of the person you want to become your life partner
The servant who was charged to find a wife for Isaac, understood how important the character of that person was and that’s why, he asked God that in his prayer to Him. Here is what the Bible relates us:
Then the servant took ten camels from the camels of his master, and set out with a variety of good things of his master’s in his hand; and he arose and went to Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor. He made the camels kneel down outside the city by the well of water at evening time, the time when women go out to draw water. He said, “O LORD, the God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today, and show lovingkindness to my master Abraham. Behold, I am standing by the spring, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water; now may it be that the girl to whom I say, ‘Please let down your jar so that I may drink,’ and who answers, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels also’–may she be the one whom You have appointed for Your servant Isaac; and by this I will know that You have shown lovingkindness to my master.” (Genesis 24:10–14)(NASB)
At first sight, it seems that the servant asked God something mysterious, but it is not only this. He wanted to identify the girl with the most beautiful character from the town. Our character is seen through the way we act in the simplest situations. The way she behaved with a foreigner could point out to beautiful treats of character. A lazy, indifferent, and arrogant girl would never do what the servant wanted to see. He was capable to draw water for himself for him and for his camels, but he wanted to use this opportunity to identify the girl with the most noble character from that town. Are you the girl or the guy with the most noble character? What treats of your character make yourself conspicuous in your relations with people, with foreigners, with poor people, with old people, or with opposite sex persons? It is good to put the same questions about the person you think to propose marriage to or accept his proposal.
We will continue to follow the principles a child of God will lead himself in choosing the life partner in the next messages. Visit this portal again and invite your friends to follow this subject.
Translated by Felicia Djugostran
