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FixerUpperMarriage.org/soulmate
The search for your soul mate is promoted everywhere. Dating websites promise to find them with compatibility tests. Even the premise of many fairy tales is to find your one true love. Young people daydream about finding the perfect one for them. So the soul mate idea becomes a fantasy. And your expectations for your potential spouse skyrocket to the moon.
The pressure mounts to find that one person out of 6,840,507,000 in the world. So you develop a wishlist for a potential soul mate. In your mind, a fantasy of the perfect marriage partner evolves. This fantasy becomes the object of your search. Then comes the romantic notion that destiny will lead you to the one. The stars will align and the universe will put you together.
How to Find Your Soulmate
- Stop Looking for Your Soulmate
- Look for Someone You Can Build a Lifetime Relationship With
- Find Your Soulmate in the Spouse You Already have.
1. Stop Looking for Your Soulmate
The problem is in the fantasy part of a soul mate. There is no one that fits the fantasy that you have developed in your mind. Every person is flawed including you. The soulmate ideal that you have conjured in your imagination is not real.
Do the Math
If there is only 1 perfect person for you. You have a 1 in 10,000 chance of finding them, that’s a .010 percent chance. Still, according to a 2011 Marist Poll nearly 3 out 4 people believe they will find their soulmate. So you come up with the perfect person, and destiny puts you together. If the numbers mean anything, it’s not going to happen for you.
According to National Geographic, there is 1 in 3,000 chance you will be struck by lightning during your lifetime. So, if I am doing the math right, you are more likely to be struck by lightning 3 times in your life than to find your fantasy soulmate.
Stay Away from Trick or Treat Dating
It is the Halloween tradition for kids to wear costumes and go door to door through a neighborhood. They knock on a door and say “trick or treat” and when it is answered, the adult inside gives them candy. This is actually kinda scary, and it doesn’t seem safe to ask a complete stranger for candy!
But this is how dating or courting is handled today. You put on a costume, go to a stranger, who is wearing a costume, and ask them to give you your favorite candy. You don’t show them the real you, and they don’t show you the real them. All you really want is some of that fantasy candy you have been dreaming about! So you find it, and they give it to you.
So you meet a person who checks off some of your soulmate requirements. And your mind races to a fantasy future with that person. You compare that person to your fantasy. And with the costume and candy it’s hard to see all the parts about that person that don’t match your fantasy.
Eventually, the infatuation wears off. The costumes come off and the candy gets stale. And you find out that your soulmate wasn’t your soulmate after all! You tried to force that person into the image that you had of your perfect mate. Come to find out, they just didn’t fit it. It’s called confirmation bias. It’s when wishful thinking causes you to only see the positive qualities of your soul mate and not the negative ones. It’s like conducting a science experiment when you have already drawn a conclusion.
Real Love Doesn’t Work Like a Fairy Tale
I think a lot of people have gotten the idea that the marriage ceremony is the goal of love. It’s like the Disney movie when Prince Charming finds Snow White. They finally get married and the words “happily ever after” pop up on the screen just before the end credits for the production!
The truth is that marriage was created by God for a lifetime of love. So you have to look past the fantasy part of love and develop a real relationship.
I have personally known people who have gotten trapped by the soulmate myth. They find someone who they are convinced is the one for them. But things didn’t work out and now since they missed the ONE, their life is off track. When you look at love as a destiny instead of being led by the Lord, you cause yourself all sorts of unnecessary headache and confusion. If they were the ONE for you and you missed it, what sort of bad timeline or you on now? Or what if they did not think they were the ONE for you but you are convinced they are?
Some people promote the idea of the permissive will of God. What it means is, that God has one perfect will for you and if you miss it, you end up on this alternate, not so perfect plan for your life. I disagree wholeheartedly. You allow God to lead you each day step by step and you live and walk in His Will daily. The will of God is not a destination but a choice that you make to live in each day. You may choose to get out of his will, but you find your way back by simply following Him again. Your choices may make it harder to get back, but He is there waiting for you!
Marriage for Christian is the same way. You choose whether or not to allow God to lead you in the area of love and marriage. If you choose not to, then you have to live with the consequences of that decision. If you choose to allow Him to lead you, he will guide you to the person he wants you to spend your life with. The bottom line- marriage is a choice not a destiny!
The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way.
Psalm 37:23
2. Look for Someone You Can Build a Lifetime Relationship With
The Bible gives a description of the perfect marriage relationship in Ephesians 5:21-33. It’s not only about the covenant, but the relationship inside that covenant. Just like the covenant between Jesus and the believing sinner is not just about that, but the relationship between Christ and the Church. Love and marriage is about building a relationship together. When I first accepted Jesus into my life (when I was 17) I discovered a relationship with Him. The Bible calls this fellowship in the first epistle of John. Over time my relationship with Him has grown even as it has been a little rocky at times (which was my fault). But I have built that fellowship over the years with Him.
You build a soulmate connection, not stumble into it
Love is like playing with Legos. You take out the pieces from the kit and you work together to build something awesome! With each piece of life, you work together to build on the next piece. You may even have to stop and read the step by step instructions. In this case, the Bible is your instructions! If you work together and follow the instructions, what you are building starts to look like the picture on the box. This is what real love is. It’s God, you, and your lover working together to build a relationship that will last a lifetime. And in the process, you make a love that looks just like the one the “on the box”, the Gospel love story!
Over time you become soulmates! That is how love is supposed to work. I remember the first time I met my wife. But it was a while before we started falling in love. You see, that first meeting was a block and we added to it piece by piece. Eventually, those love pieces built a marriage. Then we had kids and built a family. If we just keep building together, we will stay in love and make our imperfect relationship look like the pattern of God’s love.
That’s right, it’s not destiny. It’s you working and building a relationship with each other. It’s you becoming each other’s soulmate.
Find and Become a Soulmate in the Making
According to scientific research led by author John Gottman, founder-director of the Relationship Research Institute in Seattle, couples who focus on building something together that has meaning are the most likely to stay together. But you really don’t need a scientific study to show you that the Bible principle of developing your relationship with your spouse is the best way to stay together. As you work (most of the time it’s not really like work) to build your relationship you become soulmates. And more so, the more you build on that relationship. The more you work at it, the better your marriage will be.
It’s just like your relationship with the Lord, the more you work at being close to Him, the more you identify with Him. And the more like Jesus you become. The more you work at being close to your spouse the more like soulmates you become. For a love to last a lifetime you MUST keep building your relationship.
You Don’t Stay Together Because of Compatibility
This is the modern myth that kinda follows the soulmate myth around. It takes many forms, but usually means something like this, if you are compatible enough, you will stay together longer. Even though I do understand the premise, there are multiple problems with this theory.
- You change over time. There is one constant with life and time, it changes you. I am not the person I was when I married my wife. Nor is she the same person. But you go through those changes together. It is love, commitment, and faith that keep you together not chance or compatibility.
- Men and women are different. Those differences are what draw us to each other. Many times people find someone with a completely different personality because you see something in that person that you don’t have. What matters is that you work together to build your love. You don’t choose to marry someone because you are compatible. And you don’t choose to leave your spouse because you are no longer compatible!
3. Find a Soulmate in the Spouse You Already Have
Several years ago, the governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford, made national headlines when he disappeared for a week. I was admittedly a fan at the time but was both relieved and confused that he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. It’s a long hiking trail that runs through South Carolina and takes weeks to finish. It turns out he took a detour to Argentina to visit his mistress. I will never forget what he said when the truth as discovered, “We are soul mates”. He was married to a beautiful lady with four boys at home at the time. But he was convinced that he had found his destiny in Argentina. I stopped following him after that but I am sure his story ended in disgrace.
Learn to Live in the Present
It’s absolutely crazy that you can completely miss the potential of what is right in front of you for some fantasy that is not even possible. But people do it all the time. They leave the person that they made a covenant with God to become soulmates for someone who is not. I guess it just seems easier to throw the relationship away that needs work for the one that seems ready made.
Live in the present. Stop wondering away from what you have and learn to focus on loving your spouse. When your mind races to a fantasy future, you leave the present. If you can just work together, you will experience an amazing love. When you are together, put down your phones, turn off the TV and just live in the moment. BE PRESENT.
It’s Not Destiny, It’s Walking a Life of Faith Together
You and your spouse becoming lovers for life is what it means to have real love. It’s what this world is searching for. You can have it in your marriage. And in the process, you can show the world the love story of the Gospel.
Summary
How You Can Find Your Soulmate
- Stop Looking for Your Soulmate
- Look for Someone You Can Build a Lifetime Relationship With
- Find a Soulmate in the Spouse You Already Have.