Most people will agree that dating is not like in the movies and especially not the same since the global pandemic. Ever since social media and dating apps became mainstream, finding people became much easier. However, it can make it harder to find meaningful connections. This can be especially more so with believers. While you may want to rush the process, this season when God makes you wait to meet a spouse doesn’t have to be discouraging or disappointing.
In fact, it can be a season full of personal growth. It can be a practice of patience and trust that God will provide in His timing. And when it finally happens, it will make finding that person even sweeter.
Should I Date Online As A Christian
One of the biggest struggles about dating is whether to date online as a Christian. Many people wonder if online dating is not trusting God. While online dating is certainly not mentioned in the Bible, the fundamental truth about trusting God is. Your values and your faith can still be intact whether you’re looking for people online or in person. God’s sovereignty is the same through any means of meeting people. But know that the most important thing is your relationship with the Lord.
Being close to God means He will direct your steps. God can use every situation to teach you and prune you. He can use the disappointments of dating to shape your vision of a spouse. In the same way, He can do that when you choose not to date online. God gave us the freedom to choose but that means we need to lean on Him even more for His best.
When God makes you wait for a spouse, know that he can remove potential people from your life. Instead of being discouraged by this, trust that they are not who He meant for you. We can only see things in front of us but God sees in all directions. He sees the past, the present, and the future. We are called to trust, not to lean on our own understanding. Trust that whether you choose to date online or to refrain from it, that He can still make your paths straight.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. - Proverbs 3:5 - 6
What To Do While God Makes You Wait For A Spouse
While you are waiting for God to provide a spouse, you may wonder what you can do right now. Or maybe whether you should be doing anything at all. A waiting season can be testing, whether it is for a spouse or for anything else you may be waiting for. Read here for what to do during a waiting season in any area of your life. So what can you do while God makes you wait for a spouse?
Take Time To Reflect
God can use any situation and relationship to teach you and mold you. Even if you had previous relationships that failed or you are still waiting for your first-ever relationship, use this season to reflect. What can you learn about yourself? Reflect on what you liked or disliked about your previous relationship. Observe other people’s marriage to learn what you admire and what you would do differently.
Think about qualities that you could improve on. Do you need to learn to communicate instead of bottling everything up? Is it that you need to be more patient? Or do you need to be more courageous about speaking out your feelings? Can you stand your ground from being taken advantage of? Maybe He needs to remove unrealistic imaginations of someone in your head that existed on a pedestal most of your adult life.
We tend to romanticize our ideal relationship to a point of worship. But in this world where sin exists, we were never meant to have a perfect relationship with imperfect people. We cannot wait on a spouse as if they will complete us. A relationship or a marriage cannot be the ultimate goal that will make us whole. Jesus’s body was broken so that we can be whole. Check your heart that you have not idolized the idea of marriage or finding a spouse.
Know The Person For You Is Worth Waiting For
A waiting season can be frustrating. You may wonder what is taking God so long? If God has put it in your heart to be married, know that is not because He wants to withhold one from you. God is not a liar nor a deceiver like humans are. If He told you that married life is what He has in store for you, know that the person He will provide is worth waiting for.
Read: Genesis 29, Genesis 47
In Genesis, we read the love story of Jacob and Rachel. Jacob toiled and waited for Rachel for 7 years. After all that time, it turned out that Jacob has to work and wait another additional 7 years for his beloved Rachel! Can you imagine if Jacob didn’t want to anymore? Her son Joseph would never be born to save all of Jacob’s lineage from dying of famine.
Live A Life Of Service
There is still a call to serve God and others whether you are single or are in a relationship. While you wait for a spouse, seek to serve God and people. How God can use you to serve while single may not be the same when you are married. Your availability of time and attention is different when you are single versus when you get married. See what gifts that you have that can be used only during this season of singleness.
Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen. - 1 Peter 4:10-11 (NIV)
Serving God and people opens your eyes to see needs beyond your own. It shifts the focus from what you are lacking to how you are filling the needs of others. Your mindset moves from one in need to a helper of those in need. Serving also shows you who else has a heart for God. Wouldn’t that be the type of person you would want in a friend or a potential spouse?
Delight In Your Time With The Lord
We know that God is not a liar nor a deceiver. We can take confidence in this. If God has told you that married life is for you, it will surely come to pass.
God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged. - Hebrews 6:18 (NIV)
So delight in this time alone with the Lord. Take in all of His goodness and fellowship with the Holy Spirit during this season. Learning to delight in our heavenly Father will fill our hearts that no man or woman can ever fill. It can be the most intimate time with our Lord and Savior and He is good to promise what happens when we delight in Him.
Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. - Psalms 37: 4 (ESV)
Let Us Pray
Heavenly Father, I want to turn my heart to You. I admit that I can be so impatient in waiting for a spouse. Sometimes I want to take control and meet that person already. I wonder why you are taking so long to bring (him or her) into my life? Redirect my thoughts to do what I’m supposed to be doing in this season. Help me to trust, knowing what you have never failed in any other areas of my life. Help me to delight myself in you. In Jesus’s name, I pray. Amen.