Faith and Submission – Part 2

Faith and Submission Part 2

This is the second part to this post. The first part is available here

OK, and then you think – “hmm, honestly speaking it is unrealistic for any one individual to have all of these. Maybe what I need to do is find someone who is growable. That is, someone who has all the basics, and is striving for excellence in every way.”
This is the reason why I talk so much about finding a guy who is holy, and deep, and committed to Christ. This is not me trying to pretend to be super-spiritual. This is about me having zero faith that any other guy could handle marital issues in a way that we would still have the happy marriage of my dreams!

So now, here is the real difficulty. In my experience, such guys are not exactly littering the ground. In fact, you might go years before finding someone who even covers the basics. Am I being fussy? Remember that I don’t cultivate any faith about this. If someone is not all out for God now, I am not going to dream that he will suddenly become super holy and desperate for God just because he has now married me.
So…. when I find someone that I believe covers the basics, and is “growable” – wow! In fact, super wow! So if I find someone that appears to be like that, that in itself is a miracle. So when I find someone like that, I want to hang on to him, even if only by my prayers. In a way I trust my own judgement, that yes, this guy is sound etc. My attitude with potential spouses is always to check out the person that I feel that I could marry, then get praying desperately. Clearly it has not been a very successful strategy thus far!

OK, so what then happens if someone else comes and you feel that this instead could be the will of God for you – but you don’t necessarily see those “growable” attributes that you saw in the other guy? This is where fear comes in, big time, precisely because I am scared that this new guy is actually what God wants for me, but I don’t have the faith that he will definitely be a good husband, because I don’t see those characteristics in his life.
It is then that the subject of submission really starts eating at me – “What, God, you mean I have to submit to him?! Someone who doesn’t… and who doesn’t…?! No way!” When I argue about submission, it is more about the hypothetical scenario of marrying someone that I don’t really believe in, and then having to do whatever he says, for the rest of my life.

This is doubly difficult because in insisting on the guy I want, I am actually insisting on what I believe are genuine Christian characteristics – holiness, commitment, focus…. So we have then the situation where there is a guy that seems to be “all-that” spiritually, and yet God might be pointing me to someone who is clearly “less” spiritually.
And I’ve never really been strong on hearing from God anyway- how do I know that this is really God speaking, and not my mind torturing me into thinking that this *must* be from God, precisely because I don’t want to do it?

And then on top of that, I believe that when we get married, we have to own the decision for ourselves. Yes, God might direct us, but there comes a point where we say “this is my choice” – so we don’t just get married because God tells us to, but because God tells us to and we have decided to agree, so that from henceforth we will never blame God, but we can take responsibility for our own decision.

So for me then, I think that concerning a marital choice, my prayer must be “God, please make Your will my will”. If I cannot own the decision for myself, then it is simply not going to happen until I can own it, and say this is MY decision.

God, please understand that my faith is so small in this area, and give me an obviously excellent person, who will not require much faith on my part to believe in… please God?! Thank You! 😉
OK, now as a final thought – it is not that God has told me to marry anyone whom I am resisting – what I am resisting is opening my ears to find out. I am totally closed to the possibility that God could even ask me to marry any one of these particular people – and I know that that cannot build a strong case for the ones I would be open to.  It is like “God, please please please don’t ask me to marry ….. as I’m just not feeling it.  But God – how about him? He looks as if he could do the job very nicely!”  But then, I know that in a way this might count as rebellion against God, as I have turned my ears against what He might be saying – unless it is ever permissible that we can tell God whom we don’t want to marry!  😉

Bible Verses:
Psalm 37v5
Commit your way to the Lord,
Trust also in Him,
And He shall bring it to pass.

Proverbs 16v3
Commit your works to the Lord,
And your thoughts will be established.

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PHOTO CREDITS
Photo of KJV Bible Text from Pixabay
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