Premarital Paralysis

“In the economy of the Almighty, to receive love from heaven, you must first learn to live a life of faith in the One who gives it.” Gary Elliot - God of the Romantique | Brilliant Author of Matches Made in Heaven.

I’ve been reviewing a lot of Christian Dating resources in the last seven months. The majority of them are working hard to help unmarried people to draw dating boundaries, identify red flags or compatibility, and even offer conversation scripts to help them break off what they’ve determined is not working. It grieves me to see that the most important topic missing from these conversations is: faith.

The Christian Dating industry continues to offer its top ten “do’s and don’ts” and yet unmarried people are no more confident in finding “the right one” than they were 20 years ago. In fact, a recent study* by the Institute for Family Studies and the Wheatley Institute sited; "...the number one reason cited by singles for not getting married was what they perceived to be the difficulty in "finding the right person to marry.... not the fear of getting married, but the fear of making the wrong decision in choosing a lifelong mate…”* I call this premarital paralysis.

The fear of making the wrong decision is good until it is paralyzing. Whom you marry is the second most important covenant you will enter into next to your salvation covenant with Christ. Marriage is not to be entered into lightly; it is to be entered into by faith. The meet-and-marry counsel filling our social feeds and airways for Christians is missing the greatest point of pleasure for God and His loved ones by not coaching singles to live a lifestyle of faith in regard to their romantic desires.

There is something about human nature that would rather take to a list of “do’s and don’ts” over the intimate exchange waiting in following His voice. Back in Exodus 20:19, Israel told Moses, “Let not God speak to us…”. They wanted Moses to enter into the smoke, get the boundaries, tell us what they are, and we will abide. In other words, we want to count on ourselves to do the right things. When that didn’t work they asked for Judges to make rulings. When that didn’t work they asked for Kings to rule over them. God wanted relationship in the garden, relationship in the wilderness, but His people wanted “do’s and don’ts”.

Relying on the checklist of “do’s and don’ts” makes us anemic in our relationship with God. Numerous points of defined compatibility do not produce the divine revelation we need to be confident we are marrying God’s best. Is the idea of “us” thrilling His heart? We don’t know because we are not asking Him.

We are saved by faith and expected to continue living our new life by faith (Gal 2:20); living by every word that proceeds from God’s voice was instructed by Jesus and points back to Duet 8:3. Thanks for the social science guidance but it’s not enough. This generation of premarital paralysis needs revelation! That one word from God that changes everything they thought they feared and everything they thought they wanted. That one word that makes them know for better and for worse until death parts them this is the one God has gifted.

The way to marriage is simple but the growth in faith is costly. Is it by design that scripture provides instruction on how to be a good friend and spouse and yet gives no instruction on how to move from one status to the other? Do we need dating instructions when He already proved Himself with Adam, Issac, and Boaz He will be the arranger, the revealer? Is it possible that the silence between friendship and marriage, like entering the smoke at Sinai, is on purpose for the unmarried to lean into the voice of their Beloved and grow in love and intimacy with the One Who loved them first as preparation for the one who will love them next?

Everyone says to expect your first year of marriage to be hard. It is if you have not first learned to live your single life by faith. Gary and I married late in life and by the expectations of some around us, we’d be too set in our ways to have an easy transition. We disappointed them. The honor, submission, and sacrifice we learned in loving God first alone was the best premarital training we could have had to best blend our well-lived lives.

Living in faith by every word that proceeded from God’s mouth regarding how we spent our singleness ordered our steps right into one another when God decided He was ready. As God made His revelation of one another unique to each of us alone we experienced no premarital paralysis because the faith that comes from His words to us was the substance of things hoped for and evidence of things not seen. That substance is full confidence in God to say yes to one another til death parts us while not knowing how we are going to end. Our marriage is anchored in His revelation not the checked boxes of a safe choice. Checked boxes may help narrow your path to something good but revelation will secure you into something divine.

We pray this March the eyes of your understanding would be widened to the All-Sufficient One Who orders your steps, transforms your likeness, and builds you up in the most intimate love and faith you can know this side of marriage by simply following His voice through His written word and His spoken words to you.

*Study Finds Single Americans Want To Get Married But Don’t Like their Prospects BY: TIM GOEGLEIN DECEMBER 02, 2021