In other words, this is God’s world, not yours.

In fact, I have a quick personal theory on this: I am now convinced many unmarried people seeking matrimony are more vulnerable to the prosperity gospel, especially in how they assess and pick their potential spouse.

You see, we would rather delay admitting it, but not even your potential spouse can be what only Christ is for you. The sooner I grappled with this, the more ready I was to marry.

A related question recently hit me from a direction I never expected. From the back of a car we were travelling in, a young man asked, “But Eddie, how much chemistry do you need in determining a marriage partner?”

We all married Passengers giggled and bantered back, but we knew what the young men and their consequent questions meant: they needed clarity. How much risk would you have to eliminate in pursuit of the so-called right person?

A lot was said, but one thing stood clear: the Bible gives us a lot of direct wisdom, yet determining who to marry also leaves us with a lot of risk. After all, aren’t we supposed to walk by faith and not by sight?

For example, it tells us you should not be unequally yoked, but it doesn’t predict that your potential spouse (and I mean the current Bible-quoting, fire-spitting damsel or hunk you see) will one day, just like yourself, go through seasons of spiritual dryness even after marriage. Time and space do not permit me to speak of miscarriages, infertility, chronic illness diagnoses, death, breach, among others, for better, for worse.

Seasons that will cause both of you to either despair or trust God, believing that indeed, he who started a good work in your mate must be able to complete it, with or without your spousal assistance. Point being, even the current spiritual passion you see has limits.

Think chemistry: seeing lilies in each other’s eyes on every twilight-restaurant date is okay, but marriage, like Bonhoeffer said, from now on, is sustained not by your love but by your “commitment” to each other.

Marriage sustains love, not the other way around. Butterflies have to be nurtured daily (some go as far as arguing that flowers keep butterflies going); well, they have a point too. I can’t believe the number of times I’ve had to act out of love rather than wait to “feel” in love in my 11-year-old union, by grace alone.

Think financial stability; some kind of projection and willingness/commitment to work is a good thing to look out for in a guy. Provision is a man’s responsibility. But obsessing over the number of land titles and bank balances in a world where a pandemic or a jobless season can sweep all aside is folly. Jesus saw the gaining of the whole world in opposition to soul health.

Sometime when I had just married, I enjoyed workplace health insurance and monthly per diems from my NGO job, and my wife could afford to homeschool for about 2 years. Today, she’s full-time, and I am a work-from-home communications consultant. There is a story in between that we would never have seen from afar, before marriage.

Yes, Proverbs teaches that reasonable financial expectations are a lifestyle of the wise. But financial stability, just like our spiritual journey, is often a “journey” rather than a “destination.” If you raise the bar too high, you might just find yourself talking back to God with the words, “The world and the fullness thereof is mine, not yours.” And he might just let you try to have your way.

Think good looks and vibes: from a guy’s perspective, anyone who’s been married more than a year will tell you you grow familiar; bodies change. After each baby may also mean “new mood after each baby.” You need to foresee that.

Anyway, the advice I gave my guy in that car ride was, yes, act wisely, but “wisely” doesn’t mean procrastination; don’t try to eliminate all risk before you marry if you tick off what you must tick off. Namely, do not be unequally yoked; everything else becomes secondary and risky.

And the whole point of walking by faith is walking at risk, at the risk of discomfort, sometimes sanctifying suffering as experienced in job losses and body changes as God conforms both of you to his image. Which is the whole point.

Seasons change; the business cards you see now may soon be gone, and the looks too, but an excellent wife, who can find? Even the measureless and unrealistic financial stability thinking on her end, too, may be an idol God wants to uproot through marriage.

Point being, marriage is a glorious institution set up by God to image his unwavering relationship with the church. Tim Keller called it a “MACK truck running through your life.” I can only imagine what would have happened to our salvation if God had hesitated to send his son, based on the rudeness of the chief priests or the character of Pilate, let alone our sin in general.

You cannot eliminate all risk in a world you did not create; God’s sanctifying purposes, not your desires, are the goal. He’s pleased by faith, not personalised worldly criteria, to transform his people by all means possible, including marriage or lack thereof. In God’s world, the risk elimination method has limits.

If you are called to marry or get married (i.e., if you’ve never googled the word “celibacy”), at some point, you’ll need to jump in and walk by faith, just like you do in all other areas of your Christian life, no?