On Selecting A Spouse

I hope that you don’t mind, but a recent conversation that I was involved in has motivated me to write on something totally different than my usual discourse.  So, for this article, I am taking off the mantle of the theologian and putting on the garb of the “Love Doctor.” Silly as it sounds, the two are not mutually exclusive.  Good theology should affect our view of love and our attitudes about the opposite sex. 

The conversation arose over how a godly young adult could find a potential spouse.   Unfortunately, far too many of our young people buy into the notion that love begins with a physical or emotional attraction and develops from there. Often, before a Christian single adult knows the spiritual maturity of another person, there is already an emotional attachment that is neither biblical nor healthy.

I asked if this person had ever thought of using E-Harmony.com in considering a spouse.  Of course, that question was met with both surprise and skepticism.  After all, this didn’t seem very spiritual.  I’m not sure, myself, how serious I was.  However, my point was and is that the selection of a potential mate needs to be based first and foremost by our values and not our hormones.  E-Harmony uses scores of screening questions to try and put people together who have common interests and values.  By having a screening process, we take out the emotional aspects until we have settled the crucial foundation for a relationship—a person’s commitment to Christ. 

In the Old Testament, God had His own version of E-Harmony when He told the Hebrews that they were not to marry foreign women. It was a divine screening process. His desire was to have a people who could jointly worship and serve Him. He also desired to have the children raised to know Him and His word.  I don’t think that this desire has changed.

A second truth for us to consider is that love isn’t something that happens to us.  Love is a choice that we make just as God made the choice to love us even though we were sinners.  If we base “love” on how we feel about a person, that love would be as up and down as our emotions.  If we base “love” on the physical attraction we have for a person, then we’ll end up like Samson in the Old Testament who sacrificed his walk with God for a beautiful woman who was bent on destroying him.  In finding a suitable spouse, a Christian must first use a value-based approach. 

The notion of “falling in love” with someone is certainly not biblical. It is culturally a western notion that lacks the concept of making the decision to commit to someone. As believers, we must first determine whether the people we want to consider for a life-long relationship share our values.  It is from this small group that each of us finds God’s choice for our life’s partner.  Is there any guarantee that if we hold out for God’s choice we will find a spouse?  No.  But, I will guarantee you that life’s experience has taught me that to be single is far better than to be married to the wrong person. 

I’ve heard it said that if one marries a person who is attractive on the outside but is ugly on the inside, that person becomes uglier every day you are together. However, if you marry someone who is beautiful (i.e., godly) on the inside, no matter how he or she looks on the outside, that person becomes more beautiful each and every day that you are together.  Like God, we need to look on the heart and not on the outside.

Pastor Doug Dennee