Finding your marriage partner

[RooiWillie]

Hi guys

I'm walking quite an intense line with the Lord on this subject at the moment, and He's using it to really sort me out in a BIG way. It's awesome and I'm so thankful to the Lord for it!

Having read through some of the threads in this forum, it's clear that a lot of you have questions around this topic, so I thought I'd post the notes I made of a sermon of one of our pastors. It's quite long (the sermon was over 2 hours long!!) but it's powerful stuff and very, very challenging. The Lord is taking me through this EXACT process, so I can attest to it's truth. I pray that it's of some use to some of you.

God bless!!

PART 1:

• Hebrews 13:5"Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."
• Genesis 24
• We won’t buy anything without a manual, but we try and get life right without a manual.
• The right place to start is with Proverbs 19:14 – a prudent wife is from the Lord. [Amplified Bible says “a wise, understanding and prudent wife is from the Lord” – prudent = acting with or showing care and thought for the future – also read Proverbs 18:22 – He who finds a [true] wife finds a good thing and obtains favour from the Lord. Characteristics of a Godly woman: Proverbs 31: 10-31.]
• It’s not something that we can match make – it has to come from God.
• God himself is the one who has an interest and a commitment to find us the right life partner.
• The right leading can be summarised by if you haven’t come to the place of faith where you believe that God has the right partner for you. The challenge is not doing the right thing but just believing in the heart that God has the right partner for you.
• Psalm 37:23-29 – steps of a righteous man is directed by the Lord
• God really wants this to happen.
• Verse 24 – though fall, will not be cast out.
• If you have a heart for following God and obeying Him (if God is excited about the road you’re walking on, where your focus of your heart is) you’re going to get it right, regardless if you get the technical part right.
• When we’ve made peace with the fact that God wants complete control over this area in our lives, God will start to intuitively lead us. We don’t need to try and get led – it will happen.
• We can expect God’s divine initiative. God sets up the situation providentially.
• If we just take all the energy that we spend on scheming and trying to make things fit, and make that available to God so that He can do what He wants to do, we will change the world a couple of times over.
• The principle is divine initiative (God spent 40 years teaching the nation of Israel this). The cloud moved, the nation moved, the direction of their movement was determined by the direction of the cloud.
• It’s all about developing an eye and willingness to flow in divine initiative. If God doesn’t do it, don’t. If God doesn’t move, don’t. And if He doesn’t, don’t bug Him about it either.
• God only leads the people who’ve come to the place of faith – handing control over to God. Saying I’m not going unless You’re going.
• When you fall, don’t panic just keep your heart on God – Rom. 8:28
• When God looks at you, He’s not just excited about you, He’s excited about you and your kids and your grandkids.
• If you want God’s leading, the fixation with sex needs to be given back to God. God made sex to be beautiful, otherwise He would not have bothered making it. But sex is only wonderful because offspring is so wonderful. Don’t ever think sex stands apart from God’s purpose.
• What are the signs we need to follow? (Genesis 24)
• Jesus has gone before me to prepare the way. So we can ask to see where and how the way has been prepared.
• It’s courtesy for the girls at wells to offer visitors water.
• But the slave had 10 camels – each of which drinks 125 liters of water after crossing the dessert, so when he asks the Lord for this sign, he’s asking a serious sign. The girl has to not only offer him water but she must also offer to water his camels, which is big, because it will take her the rest of the day to haul up enough water to feed the camels. [speaks of her heart and character]
• The first sign you should look for is whether the person is a giver or a taker. Test the person. Avoid the self focussed and the self possessed. There’s a conversational test – ask them about themselves and then you listen intently, but waiting for them to ask you about yourself. And then you see whether they can give the same way you just did. Because you’re looking for a Rebecca, someone who will give a 1000 litres when you ask for 1.
• Don’t look for spooky signs, look for character signs.
• Takers have no capacity to give love. They will suck you dry and spit you out. There is no hell on earth worse than being married to a taker.
• Avoid the dependency trap. We’d go looking for the damsel in distress type who would be standing there, worried about breaking a fingernail.
• The bond you share should not be onesided and not from pity, sympathy, empathy or compassion, or a mixture – none of these should be part of the equation at all. Not for marriage.
• Somebody that needs somebody in their lives, shouldn’t be thinking about marriage. You cannot go into marriage because of need love. Test this by asking them “why do you love me?” – if they come up with ten reasons, run.
• Because their love is need love – it’s dangerous. Why? Because if you outgrow the becauses, then you’re expendable.
• You want love period, not love because. Sommer liefde. Ek verstaan dit nie, I just love you. I don’t need you and you’re beautiful so you certainly don’t need me.
• Need love is great for friendship but it’s bad news for marriage.
• The other sign you look for is excellence – “to throw beyond”, i.e. to walk the extra mile. Rebecca is scary – she’s not going to just draw 2 litres from the well, she’s going to draw a 1000 litres and smile.
• The groom is for excellence, so he needs an excellent wife – don’t go looking for marriage when you don’t have this thing sorted out.
• God values you more than you value yourself sometimes.
• So when God sends His angel before you to prepare the way, He’s looking for excellence. So you must be yourself excellence.
• Don’t go to God with the attitude of I don’t deserve better – God doesn’t understand that kind of thinking and He cannot relate to it. If you go to God with this kind of attitude, He’s going to say “Son, let’s talk about your salvation, you need to get saved first, because you’re missing something here. I wouldn’t have died for you if I didn’t think you’re worth it.”
• Verse 50-53 – gave precious things. When she feeds the camels, she doesn’t know that there are precious things in the bags of those camels. There are also things in it for her family.
• Look for the signs of whether the people (around her) really care for her or not – and the family as well.
• Seek a blessing, but don’t ever go until you’ve chosen to be a blessing.
• Don’t conduct a relationship in separation from the family ties. Buy into the family.
• You need to go to the father and ask his blessing for the relationship.
• You must be willing to open your heart to the family – to come with a heart of blessing to the family. Go to the parents separately as well and bless them, just visit with them.
• On the way to marriage, you hold that relationship as open and as accessible to the family as you can because once you get married you have to shut that door. Then it’s private.
• Hang around with the family as much as you can. If there is something that your partner is struggling with your family then help them sort it out because in the end you want the family to look at the relationship and say “This is of God. What can we say? It’s God.”
• You can’t be a blessing if you don’t believe you’re a blessing.
• God won’t waste time on me if I’m not worth something to Him. I must believe in the love of God.
• You just bless.
• Verse 26-27 – last sign: does that person and your knowledge of that person and your possible relationship with that person inspire worship, or distract from it?
• If whoever you’re focussing on, if you cannot share that joy in the presence of God, then it’s a sign, don’t. If your relationship with God takes off, that’s a sign. If your longing for God and your love for God increases, that’s a sign. But if there is any speedwobbles spiritually, then don’t. And don’t tell yourself it’ll get better, because it won’t.
• THE RELATIONSHIP HAS TO INSPIRE WORSHIP.
• Ghastly as being alone is, life can get a lot worse. Getting it wrong, is worse than being alone. You don’t want to go there.

 

[RooiWillie]

AND PART 2:

• Proverbs 18:22 – the right person brings devine favour into your life.
• How do you know it’s the right one? When supernaturally good things begin to happen. It’s like God wants to surprise you around every corner.
• God will show signs saying “YES! YES! I am in this!”
• But we need to be honest about whether divine favour is manifesting here.
• If you’re fighting to make things work, then it’s probably not from God. Because the bottomline is that God wants to make this thing happen. And He so wants to delight in your steps (Ps 37)
• Where God guides, He provides. Where God leads, he feeds. (PS 23) So if He’s not providing, then there’s a good chance that He’s not guiding. And if He’s not feeding, He’s probably not leading and you’re off on your own thing.
• Favour is unmerrited grace – God becomes seriously biased on your behalf.
• Prov 4:23 – guard your heart for out of it springs the issues of life. The right mind. This whole thing can drive you crazy.
• Guidence: if there is one area where you don’t trust the leading of God, then it is this area.
• Jer 17:9-14 – the heart is deceitful above all things; God searches the heart and examines the mind.
• There is something about your heart, your inside, where you think about these things and you feel these things and you register that need and that desperation – there’s something about that side of you that comes into such sharp focus and what actually comes into focus is your humanity, your fallenness as a human being and about just giving control completely over to God, relinquishing that control to God and God uses this in our lives for spiritual growth more than He can use any other area in our lives.
• This is a time that God will use. Just watch your heart. Because God will come test you for the purity of your love and if you haven’t sorted out the control issue, then no matter how much you love the Lord, you’re an idolator.
• God wants to see whether you will worship Him even though all your hormones and your whole constitution just wants to follow this need.
• God is saying the meek shall inherit – He wont give you that person until you learn to rule, until you learn to guard your emotions. [meek = quiet, gentle and submissive.]
• Once you’ve done that, He wants to take you one step further – meekness is the control of your deepest emotions.
• Many people don’t understand, why doesn’t God just bless? Because there is a rule here – you cannot inherit until you’ve come to a place of meekness. You must learn to control your inner man.
• Once the relationship comes and you don’t have that under control then you’ve got greater problems with God, because then all the favour leaves and all the blessings leave and all you do is freak God out because He’s a jealous God.
• Because if the relationship does not inspire worship then suddenly God has competition in your life and He’s not happy about that.
• Only once you’re meek [quiet, gentle, and submissive], can you learn to govern what you’ve been given. Otherwise you give out of your emotions.
• Once we’ve grown spiritually then we develop a need to give out of our spirit. And that’s why worship is so important. If we don’t learn to flow spiritually, God will not release you because He won’t take the risk because somewhere along the line you’re going to get destroyed and somebody else is going to get destroyed and God won’t stand for that.
• There are too many believers who experience an angry God and things go horribly wrong in their lives when all they want to be is happy. But you don’t know how to guard your heart – how to open the release valve in the relationship with your loved one and how to open the appropriate valve for God and how to worship Him.
• Sometimes we overwhelm people with love that only God can handle. Because God downloads love into our hearts and we’re meant to give it back to Him – people cannot handle that. We cannot give the fullness of our love to people – it’s meant for God.
• Worshipping God brings blessing into your life.
• You won’t get your relationship right until you get your worship right. You need to get your life into divine order.
• There are too many people who’s marriage end up in divorce because they love too much, because they love wrong.
• Never pray for revelation when it comes to getting your mind right about guidance. Don’t pray for revelation, because the Holy Spirit will not give you revelations as to who your lifepartner is – pray for guidance. That’s what Eliaser did (the slave in Genesis 24).
• Ask “God, guide me. Guide me to the right person.”
• But the Holy Spirit won’t show you who the right person is, that’s why you have to learn to identify the signs (as per above).
• You pray for guidance and then you trust that the Holy Spirit will guide your steps, because you relinqueshed control.
• The Holy Spirit was never sent to reveal stuff to us, but He’s the reminder, in other words He confirms what is.
• If the other person does not know your name or who you are, then it’s not of God. There has to be an acquintance, then there must be a mutual attraction, and then the Holy Spirit will come and confirm it.
• Why doesn’t God give revelation? For a very simple reason: when it comes to love and relationships, God created it.
• How does it work: God begins to stir an attraction in two people for each other. Attraction does not equal love – e.g. lots of people are attracted to movie stars. As you get to know each other, however, you will grow to love each other. What we call “in love” is just attraction and that fades – in some cases faster than others. But don’t panic when that happens, because that innitial attraction has to give way for the real thing and that is love – the love of the person you are attracted to.
• The Holy Spirit confirms something natural, but does not reveal.
• God has designed what you’re going through to sort out this whole deal about His guidance and His leading. Don’t trust yourself. Don’t hear what you think you’re hearing, that’s why God puts friends around you and when these people come to you and say they don’t think this is of God, then go think about it, pray about it and ask your friends why they say so. And the Bible speaks of two witnesses so by the time the 3rd person comes along with the same message then you might as well pack your bags – if that word comes from people you know and trust. Rather trust the consensus than your own.
• If your family says yes, this is it, this is it, this is it, then it’s a sign.
• Don’t move if it’s not the right season. Isaac was 40 years old.
• Rebecca was extraordinary beautiful, but she was still single. But the right person came at the right time – there’s a season when things just start to happen.
• When do you know it’s the right season?
• Men, your season according to Proverbs 18:22 is when you are ready to hunt. [“He that finds…”]
• Women have a cappacity to love because of their maternal instinct that we as men can never match, and the devil knows this.
• Men are all potential varke by our fallen potential.
• You only love what you sacrifice for.
• When the relationship is from the Lord, the guy is going to have to battle for her heart. The man must come looking for the girl’s heart.
• We must love our wives sacrificially.
• The more a guy is willing to sacrifice for the girl, the more he loves her. The girl must make the guy wait. She must make him wait.
• Men, you know it’s your season when you’ve developed the guts for hunting. When you are willing to go out and find her. When you’ve had enough of sitting around, hearing nothing, seeing nothing – when nothing happens in your life.
• Before you go look for a woman, you need to go look for the man in you first. You must go and find your masculinity. You must get out of that closet of fear and of lack of self confidence and trepidation. Get your act together and become a man.
• Hunting works by season – there’s a season for finding, a season for going out, a season for finding your life partner if you’re a man.
• The man must be the protector, the shield, ladies must let him be that from the word go.
• God won’t release us into what He has ready for us if we’re not ready for it emotionally. It takes two whole people to make one whole marriage.
• Sort yourself out first. Know where you are going – to a place of wholeness and once you’re there God will bring you together and life will happen.
• God wants wholeness. You need to come and have your needs met by God.
• When it comes to marriage, you must not go there with the expectation of receaving anything, for you’ll find nothing there. You bring yourself with all your hangups into that marriage. It’s only when you bring value to the relationship that it blesses you.
• Do you know that they don’t build houses with groceries in the cupboards? You have to provide it. It’s the same with a marriage – if you don’t bring your own groceries to the house, you won’t have food to eat. So get your groceries before you get married.
• Don’t look for compatibility – that means similarity. We assume similarity makes for compatibility. And it doesn’t. Complimenting each other is what counts. So when you’re ready to celibrate differences and see blessing and potential in differences, it also means that you’ve come to your season.
• God is not mocked – if He wants to bless you, He’ll bless you, but then you need to walk in the council of the wise.
• If that person holds you back from moving on in God then it’s not God’s person.
• Wherever you find your wife has to be on the way forward, because we’re not moving back. If you’ve set your eyes on following God’s destiny, keep going. And if anybody tries to hold you back they are from the devil.
• Look for the right values, that’s how you know the right person. Your core values must coincide. Now they won’t always all of them coincide, one or two might be out, but they can’t all be out. Your identity is constituted by what you believe.
• If you’re not compatible in your values, then you’re not compatible.
• Some of us need to look away from the externals – the personality and the looks, because they are important for attraction, but they’re not important for love.
• Most NB: verse 64-65 – how do you know when it’s the right person?
• Rebecca took her veil and covered herself when she saw Isaac.
• The most important ingredient: mystery.
• Ephesians 5:31-32 – it’s a profound mystery.
• Drawing the veil represents a commitment to continue the mystery of the miracle.
• There is nothing wrong with seeing a naked body (within the confines of marriage) but there’s everything wrong with destroying the mystery.
• If you destroy the mystery: There’s a reason why God can’t give you the green light, because you’re a glutton, emotionally.
• We need to learn how to maintain the mystery. We need to learn how to put the breaks on and go slower instead of rushing into it – that’s why premarital sex is out. If you want to spend a lifetime together, slow down! Leave stuff about each other to discover – it’s sweeter when it gets discovered.
• We live in a pornographic culture – we’ve become emotionally, relationally pornographic. We don’t understand that there is more to life by slowing down and by covering.
• God is not making you wait, He’s waiting for you.

 

[Irascible]

Nice!

Though it may not be too popular a post. The impatient will find a lot of hard pills to swallow in there. Too many of them look for a mate to make them whole. The message is clear: You must first become whole in Christ and only then will God lead you to the right mate.

 

[RooiWillie]

Nice!

Though it may not be too popular a post. The impatient will find a lot of hard pills to swallow in there. Too many of them look for a mate to make them whole. The message is clear: You must first become whole in Christ and only then will God lead you to the right mate.

I know, it's quite a challenging message, but one that I think is spot on. God wants to be, and should be, #1 in our lives. If we don't become whole in Christ first, He's going to have competition in our lives and that's not on.

But in the end, allowing God to lead you to the right partner just makes sense on so many levels and I'm convinced it will be worth the wait. I'll give you an update when she arrives

 

[joesnow]

great stuff there, thank you for posting i've copied into a document for future ref.
bless you matey!

 

[RooiWillie]

great stuff there, thank you for posting i've copied into a document for future ref.
bless you matey!

Cool man, glad it blessed you!

 

[findinghope06]

i really really liked that!! thanks for sharing it!

 

[Peter_in_Christ]

RooiWillie: thanks for taking the time to write them out and sharing them with us

Peter

 

[mina]

That was good, I enjoyed reading that.

 

[GQ Chris]

Great on all points...

 

[WalkOn]

That was awesome and so very true!

 

[GQ Chris]

I don't think that there is just "one person" for everyone, there could very likely be several that could work but we are to choose wisely so as not to become a divorce statistic.

 

[Spicy McHaggis]

clifs?