True Love Waits?

 Posted by Thammie Sy

We’ve heard it all:

“Be the person God wants you to be first, then you will find the person God has meant for you.”

 “Stop trying to look for ‘the one’, and start being the one.”

“Learn to be fully satisfied in Him—stop thinking about who to marry— then, when God sees how satisfied you are in Him, He will just surprise you with His ‘perfect choice’ for you.”

We’ve heard many different versions of quotable quotes like these. I’m sure there’s more that I’ve left out. And I’m pretty sure most of them were phrased in a better way— much more poetic than how I quoted them— but you know exactly what I’m talking about.

If you have been around in the church circle for quite some time like I have, you have heard at least one of these statements, at least once in your young adult life. I’m quite certain I myself shared these statements in the hope of encouraging fellow young women to wait for “the one”, to keep themselves pure, and to prepare themselves for the much-awaited, often deemed-ultimate, and the frequently-coveted “gift” called marriage.

I do have some questions I would like to raise, though.

If it is true that I am to be the person God wants me to be, THEN I will find the person God has meant for me, how come there are so many out there who ARE without a doubt devoted to being transformed by God, who are yielded and submitted to His will, and whose hearts are set on becoming the person God wants them to be— and have been so for the past many years— and yet still haven’t “found” the partner we can assume God has meant for them?

If it is true that God will bring me His “perfect choice” for me once He sees how fully satisfied  I am in Him, does it mean that I can assume that God probably thinks that I am not that satisfied in Him yet, and so that’s why He hasn’t surprised me with His perfect choice until now?

I am not at all saying that we have been led to believe a lie all along. I think there is some amount of wisdom in these statements. They really do make sense, and they really do encourage us to keep our eyes on God and to stay pure as we wait on Him to give us our heart’s desires. I’ve seen it work somehow… for a certain amount of time, at least.

Here goes the usual story:

One year of waiting:  “I need to focus my eyes on God. Yes, I will be satisfied in Him first….Then He will surprise me with His perfect choice for me….”

Three years of waiting: “I will prepare myself to be the wife that God wants me to be…..Then He will surprise me with His perfect choice for me….”

Five years of waiting: “I need to check my heart. Lord, check my heart. Am I not yet satisfied in you? I want to be fully satisfied in you. Give me a heart that is completely satisfied in you….Then I know you will surprise me with your perfect choice for me….”

Six years of waiting: “Lord, I will continue to be ‘the one’. And I will continue to wait on you….Then you will surprise me with your perfect choice for me….”

Eight… nine…ten years of waiting: “Lord, do you really have a perfect choice for me?? Am I not yet ready?? Am I still not satisfied in you? What else are you trying to teach me so I can be the person you want me to be??”

I don’t know how long this can go on. But I have a general idea of how this can go.

More often than not, this kind of thinking can work and can sustain those who are in waiting only to a certain extent. Why? Because just like any of our attempts at trying to “live a good life” or making it “right” with God, one day—sooner or later— something’s got to give. Sooner or later, we’ll find ourselves sick and tired of trying. Sooner or later, we will find ourselves sick and tired of waiting.

We get sick and tired of waiting because God never asked us to wait for “the one perfect choice”, who complies with all that we’ve written down in our checklists and who can fulfill our deepest desires in the first place. He already gave us the perfect One who has fulfilled every checklist ever written and who Himself has said, “It is finished.”— all has been paid for, all has been fulfilled.

You see, when God said “Delight in me and I will give you the desires of your heart.”, I don’t think He was really referring to our lifetime partners. I think He meant that If we delight ourselves in Him, He will show us that Jesus is the source of all that we need, and that Jesus is the one who can give us the desires of our hearts. More than that, I think He meant to show us that Jesus IS the very desire of our hearts.

Jesus is not just a key for us to finally be able to unlock all of life’s blessings so we can finally grab hold of the life that we think we want. God wants to show us that Jesus is that life.

Here’s a proposal:

Instead of saying, “Learn to be fully satisfied in Him, THEN He will just surprise you with His ‘perfect choice”’for you.”, why not remind each other to “taste and see that the Lord is good”. Then there will even be no need to tell people to learn to be satisfied in Him.

Instead of imploring people to be the person God wants them to be, so that eventually they can find whoever they want to be with, why not encourage one another to be the men/women God wants us to be— whether single or married, because God has already made us who He wants us to be— His sons and daughters.

And finally, Even though marriage is a gift from God, why don’t we stop glorifying the idea of marriage as if it was the ultimate gift? Because even though marriage is really, really good, it can never be perfect. It can never be ultimate.

Christ, however, IS the ultimate gift.

And glorifying Him— whether in being single or in being married— that is the ultimate goal.