By Sharon Mueni,
In many single women circles, I have heard most of them describe the kind of husband one would like to marry. Even though most of us don’t exhaustively describe the qualities we want, the truth is in our hearts of hearts we do have them. Well, I also do but honestly, sometimes I don’t even know
what I want. Am in that stage where the qualities have changed over time where perhaps only a few things matter.
You know, it’s so easy for us to make a list that is well structured and sadly we can end up seeking perfection. Let’s get one thing clear. Even if you get to marry the man or woman of your dreams, guess what? they are fallen just as you are. They’re on their journey to glorification as they daily get sanctified by the Holy Spirit through the Word of God, that is if they are born again. In other words,
you are going to marry a sinner who is sustained by the grace of God.
Marshall Segal, in his book-Not yet Married, writes, ‘In our pursuit, the search for a spouse isn’t a pursuit of perfection but a mutually flawed pursuit of Jesus. It is a faith-filled attempt to become like Him and to make Him known with another”. It doesn’t mean you just settle for anyone just because they claim to be born again don’t miss that. We ought not to seek perfection because we ourselves are not.
As I have said, in my hearts of hearts I also have my desire for the kind of man I want to do life with, God willing. I earnestly pray that the desire for companionship will not become an idol in your life and mine because it can be. Someone said, the heart is an idol factory and they were right. As much as I want to be loved as Christ loves the church, to be washed with the Word, be led well in the Lord and the list can go and on. We all want our spouse to be a gift to us, don’t we? But I usually ask myself will I be a gift to him as much as I want him to be a gift to me.
This is my take; it doesn’t have to be yours. Instead of concentrating so much on what I want in him I purpose to fully be immersed in Christ, drink deeply from the Scriptures and trust God to mold me into the kind of spouse my future husband will need. In this period as a single person, I don’t want to live as though companionship is all I live for but to joyfully live for the sake of Christ. Singleness is a gift and I pray that God will give us the ability to enjoy it.
So, my future love, I will wait for you until when the Author of love, God will make our paths to cross and bring our hearts together in His own appointed time. I will wait for you as the Lord prepares you and me for His glory. I will wait for you until the Lord makes it clear we are ready. I will wait for you and I pray that I will not fall into false companionship and cheap intimacy, instead I’ll let purity in the Lord be my goal. I will wait for you as the Lord makes each of us complete individuals in Him. Forbid
it that any of us will love the other more than God when He makes it happen because that is idolatry. As I wait for you, may I learn to love as Christ loves, show grace and mercy as I have received which I didn’t even deserve.
There are lots of things I would like to write but above all, this outweighs them all. As I wait, may the Lord grow me into a noble, radical, virtuous and God-fearing woman as it is displayed in Scripture .Hey love, I will not be perfect and I don’t expect you to be because that will only happen when Christ comes back. I only pray that I will be your suitable helper as God made Eve for Adam. May He preserve you for me and me for you but above all preserve us for Himself.
Well, I know you may be reading this thinking is there one specific person who was created just for you? Let me answer this. My future husband doesn’t have my name written on his forehead or his on mine lol. As we grow up, am quite sure we have been attracted to different people of the opposite sex. My take is that God gives us a choice to choose who we marry but I believe in His Sovereignty, He guides us to the person whom together we get to display the relationship between Christ and the church. I believe that’s the essence of marriage but then I won’t say more because I have never been married to know what it means to love someone unconditionally as Christ loves the church, in the context of marriage.
God knows exactly when we need a spouse and what we need in them so I would just say, trust God. Joshua Harris, in his book-Boy meets Girl, which I found to be amazing he writes, “Your greatest need is not a spouse. Your greatest need is to be delivered from the wrath of God –and that has already been accomplished for you through the death and resurrection of Christ. So why doubt that God will provide a much, much lesser need? Trust His Sovereignty, trust His Wisdom, trust His Love. His plan for your life can’t be thwarted. He is in control. If marriage is His will for you, He knows exactly what you need in a spouse and in His unfathomable wisdom, He knows when you will be ready. His timing will be perfect”.
I love the way the Bible describes the timing of God.
Ecclesiastes 3:11
He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that
he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
The bigger picture of this article is that I will wait for the King of Kings, our Lord Jesus Christ. The waiting of a spouse is vital, companionship is beautiful I mean God ordained it but it’s temporary. The desire of my heart is to wait upon what is eternal I dearly pray so. I think of how it will be to see the Lord finally, my heart and mind can’t even contain it, its way beyond me. Isaiah, he gives us a glimpse of it when he had a vision of the Lord.
Isaiah 6: 1-7
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with
tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”
Not even the sinless beings look to God directly; my finite mind can’t fathom how Glorious it will be when Christ comes back. I pray to joyfully wait upon this with adoration. We can also look at what John says in his vision.
Revelation 1:17-18
When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.
These are just but examples of the visions to get just a glimpse of it. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 13:12.
For now, we see in a mirror dimly but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
In the song, I can only imagine –Mercy me, I love this portion.
Surrounded by your glory
What will my heart feel
Will I dance for you Jesus
Or in awe of You be still
Will I stand in Your presence
To my knees will I fall
Will I sing hallelujah
Will I be able to speak at all
I can only imagine.
Indeed I can only imagine. As I wait, I pray that these words of the Psalmist will be true of your life and my life as we wait upon the Lord.
Psalms 73: 25-26
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Yes, Lord, I will wait for You. Help me to wait diligently. Are you waiting on the Lord? I pray that we will not be consumed to chase after the things of this world and let them obscure our vision of God and we forget on this planet we are pilgrims just passing by, our home is in Heaven to those who are born again. If you are not I pray that God will work on your heart because on His second coming, Christ will come back as a judge to judge the world.
Philippians 3:20-21
But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
So help us, Lord.