Is She the One?

Many of you singles want to walk in wisdom when considering marriage. I thank God for your attitude. It’s a great attitude to have. I’d like to share with you something I read, lest we get cold feet for marriage… Here is Elisabeth Eliot’s reply to a young man who kept falling in and out of love:

About this business of falling out of love. Everybody does it, you know. Sometimes before they get married, but always afterwards. Modern folks simply bug out of the marriage then, if they feel no obligation to keep vows – vows made foolishly, they believe.

There is something to be said for making an adult choice and sticking with it. “Being in love,” wrote C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, “is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling. Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all … In fact, the state of being in love usually does not last…. But of course ceasing to be ‘in love’ need not mean ceasing to love. Love… is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by the grace which both partners ask and receive from God…. They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be ‘in love’ with someone else. ‘Being in love’ first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep their promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.

So, Philpott, one of these days you need to take a cool, clear look at a good Christian woman. Assess her potentials as a good Christian wife. Is she the kind you’d want as a hostess at your table? Is she what you want for a mother for your children? Is she womanly? Godly? Sensible? Modest? Companionable? Do you think she’s “worth” your love? Are you worth hers? (If you think you are, you’re probably wrong. Each is to esteem the other better than himself.) Is it God’s time for you to get married? Then make up your mind and ask God’s help to love her as she ought to be loved!

You said, “One never knows which way the Lord will lead,” and that’s true. He just might be telling you to “be not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding…” (Psalm 32:9) and get with it.

Don’t get me wrong. I have no idea that Cheryl is The Woman. Don’t know a thing about her except that you said she’s gorgeous. That isn’t enough. But if you’re looking for some kind of feeling that will be consistent day in and day out, forget it. The kind of love that sustains a marriage is God given, but is also a daily choice. For the rest of your life. Never forget that.

You have to choose the woman, with all the brains and good sense you’ve got, plus all the other methods of knowing what God wants of you (you’ve read my little book, A Slow and Certain Light, about guidance, haven’t you?) and then make your move. You have my prayers. – Psalm 42 of Passion and Purity

Eliot’s response helps us consider whether we are walking in wisdom or not. I need to look for a wife who is respectful, gentle, loving and kind (considers others better than herself), and moral (someone who has repented of immorality and has changed her lifestyle).

(Single Christians must consider whom they will marry carefully. You may want to check out these sermons: Wife Seekers Beware, Part 1, Wife Seekers Beware, Part 2)