“It’s been miserable, Gary,” the woman confessed.
“We’ve only been married for three years but it has been the worst three years of my life. My husband has just been awful. And what frustrates me so much is that God confirmed that I was supposed to marry him, 10 times over.”
You could have served the bitterness in her voice to a thousand people.
In another conversation, another woman—married not just years but decades, to a man who proved to be pathological—slipped in the same sigh and words:
“But God told me to marry him.”
To these and many others who said, “God told me to marry him/her,” I want to cry out:
“No, He didn’t.”
What Scripture Actually Says
How can I say that?
My response is simple: How can you say the opposite?
There is nothing in Scripture that suggests there is just one person we’re “supposed” to marry.
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Proverbs 31 urges young men to be guided by a woman’s faith and character in making their choice—there is no mention of second-guessing some divine destiny.
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In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul tells women (especially widows) to consider singleness, but assures them the choice of whether to marry is up to them. He specifically says women can marry “whomever they wish,” as long as their potential husband is “in the Lord” (v. 39).
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Jesus echoes this in Matthew 19:12, noting that some “choose” to be celibate—with emphasis on the word choose.
If Scripture says marriage is your call—whether or not to marry, and whom to marry—why should subjective feelings override the truth of God’s Word?
Quite frankly, there is nothing in Scripture that ever tells us it is our sworn duty to marry one particular person. Marriage falls under God’s permissive will—something He allows us to choose.
Could God Ever Tell a Couple to Marry?
Is it possible God has told a couple to marry?
Look, I won’t put God in a box. I can’t say, “He can do this but never that.”
But here’s what we do know: the clearest teaching of Scripture makes marriage our choice. Presuming that some mystical confirmation overrides biblical teaching is risky and often foolish.
