So, if a child of God has surrendered to His will, and God has placed the desire for marriage in the person's heart and promised He will make a helper suitable for him, why do some end up single?
Hi, sheborn2x.
I'll give you my own testimony which pretty much throws the proverbial monkey wrench into the car's engine or which, at first glance, seems to go against everything that most people consider to be "normal" in relation to marriage. I don't ask or expect anyone here to believe any part of what I'm about to say unless it truly aligns itself with the written and revealed word of God (my testimony alone means nothing). That said and meant, I suppose/expect that some/many here have never even considered some of the things that I'm about to say, even though they're everywhere in the Bible.
First of all, figuratively speaking (I still have all of my working parts, if you know what I mean), in my early years of being a Christian, I was basically a sworn "eunuch for the kingdom of heaven's sake" (Matt. 19:12) or I had willfully determined in my own heart that I would remain celibate/unmarried so that I could "attend upon the Lord without distraction" (I Cor. 7:32-35). I went MANY YEARS without even dating anyone, and I literally used to rebuke people if they even suggested to me that I should go out on a date with somebody.
In those days, I was consumed with evangelism, and I truly tried to reach the lost in any way imaginable. I was not only preaching on the streets of New York and New Jersey (and eventually Florida, too), but I was also teaching Bible studies, giving out tracts galore (I wrote my own tract and gave out thousands of it), making copies of audio tapes and video tapes and distributing them to people, giving out Bibles...sometimes literally walking through towns at night while depositing such things in everyone's mailboxes.
THAT was my will, and I was perfectly content with it.
Funny thing, though. While all of the things that I just described were transpiring FOR YEARS, it seemed more than apparent to me that God was CONSTANTLY teaching me about marriage at every turn. In fact, I recall saying something about that to one of the guys that I used to preach on the streets with at that time. I kind of reasoned it away while thinking that God was just teaching me such things because I might need to minister to somebody along those lines somewhere down the line.
Well, I met this black, Latina woman on the first day that I was teaching a particular Bible study in Pennsylvania (I lived in NJ at the time, but one of my friends that I used to preach on the streets with lived in PA, and I was teaching the Bible study in his apartment). She had travelled from Panama to the United States months before in order to attend her sister's wedding (her sister lived in the same apartment complex that my friend lived in), and she had extended her work visa and stayed. In fact, she informed us all at that very first Bible study that she had recently gotten engaged to a pastor at a church, so I had no interest in her whatsoever except in a teacher/student or brother/sister in the Lord sort of way.
Anyhow, she attended our Bible studies for a few months, and then the following happened...
One of the other guys that I used to preach on the streets with had recently moved to Florida, and he was going through some spiritual battles. He asked me if I could come and visit him for his birthday which was in early November, and it just so happened (yeah, right) that this Panamanian woman and her girlfriend needed to go to that same exact part of Florida at that same exact time because they were meeting up with a missionary couple in order to go on a short mission trip with them. Seeing how we were all headed to the same place, we (the three of us) boarded a bus together from the Port Authority Bus Terminal in NYC, and we embarked on our bus journey to Florida which, to my best recollection, lasted somewhere around 24 hours (we made one stop in Georgia along the way).
Only moments after boarding the bus, the Lord spoke to me, clear as day, and told me that this Panamanian woman was going to be my wife, and I didn't say a word about it to anybody. Mind you, I was a sworn eunuch for the Lord at that time. At the same time that he spoke to me, this Panamanian woman got up from her seat, grabbed a blanket, and headed to the long back seat of the bus which she proceeded to lie down on while covering herself completely (including her head) with the blanket. In fact, she stayed like that for the entirety of the trip except for our one stop. Her friend and I were wondering what was going on with her, and it wasn't until after we had arrived in Florida and certain other events had unfolded that we learned what that was all about. Apparently, only moments after boarding the bus, the Lord spoke to her and told her that I was going to be her husband. Remember, she was engaged to another man at the time.
To make a long story short, after much prayer and fasting, she and I got married approximately 3 months after the Lord initially spoke to both of us. At first, everything was great, and it became apparent to me very early on why the Lord had joined the two of us together. For one thing, and this was unknown to me at that time, she had literally been practicing to become a witch in her native country of Panama before she became a Christian. In fact, witchcraft ran in her family for many generations. I'm mentioning this because the Lord has used me in the ministry of deliverance, and I literally cast many demons out of not only her in Jesus' name, but out of her mother as well.
Furthermore, I learned about one month into our marriage that she had been repeatedly sexually molested by her own father between the ages of 5 and 6 years old. To my way of thinking, that's got to be one of the most traumatic and psychologically damaging things that could ever happen to a child, and, needless to say, she needed someone with tremendous compassion, patience, understanding, etc., to help her to not only cope with such things, but to also find deliverance and healing from the same. Apparently, I was the man that the Lord chose for that task, and I was perfectly content helping her in those areas while also meeting my normal responsibilities as a husband.
At the same time, God was supernaturally providing for both me and my now ex-wife, and we were ministering the gospel to others who were being saved, baptized, healed, delivered...you name it. With only a slight bit of exaggeration, it was literally as if we were living in the book of Acts.
That's the good news, now here comes the bad news...
To make a long story short, she ultimately turned against the Lord, renounced both Christ and Christianity (she's presently into every type of demonic "religious" activity imaginable while regularly taking Jesus' name in vain), cheated on me repeatedly, and then she divorced me (after unsuccessfully trying to destroy me for many years).
I said all of that in order to simply ask this:
At first glance, does this seem even remotely "normaL" where marriage is concerned?
I mean, would God, in his omniscience, ever truly join two people together while knowing full well in advance that one of them would play the whore as the marriage ultimately ended in divorce?
I can tell you this much...
No "pastor" (read: HIRELING) that I spoke to during my long ordeal thought so. In fact, they regularly sought to condemn me while telling me that I had been living outside of God's will all of that time.
Here's another funny thing, though...
That's not what God himself told me/showed me.
In fact, God showed me time and time and time and time again throughout my long ordeal that what I was experiencing perfectly mirrored what he himself experienced with the nation of Israel. I could easily cite you verse after verse after verse after verse of scripture to back up what I'm about to say, but God himself entered into a covenant with the nation of Israel which he repeatedly likened to a marriage covenant while knowing full well in advance (again, I can easily provide verses to back my assertion) that she (the nation of Israel) was going to go a-whoring. Not only this, but I can easily provide you with verses which state that God himself DIVORCED the very one that he himself had chosen to be his wife.
Ignore or reject everything that I stated about my own testimony if you'd like to. I'm perfectly fine with that. However, don't miss THE FACT that God chose to marry a whore...only to eventually divorce her.
With such in mind, how does THIS fit in with what most of the world or church considers to be "normal" in relation to marriage?
Just some things for everybody reading this to hopefully ponder in the light of God's word.
Thanks for reading.
