Is there a perfect match?

Marianne J. Legato's book "Why Men Never Remember and Women Never Forget" shows that the most successful relationship take place between people who sensibly looked for a complement in their life partner, not a “perfect match”. But it seems like many young single men and women are looking for their perfect match.  I am sure those single men and women have their own lists about their marriage partners.  But I think what is important is not whether that lists is short or long but whether the lists are what I want or what I need.  In other words, the marriage partner lists they have are mostly what they want and not what they need.  One of the purposes of the marriage that God brings together men and women into one body is to be a companion of life that fills each other's needs.  However, many single men and women seem to be looking for a perfect match, rather than seeking in prayer a life partner who fills each other's needs.  I think it is because they don’t know what they are lacking or they refuse to recognize it.  Maybe they are denying what they are lacking and looking for their perfect match.  But what is clear is that this is illusion.

There is no perfect match.  The basis of my thought is Genesis 3:15-19.  The fact that Adam was work-oriented and the woman Eve was man-oriented was a God’s curse due to their sin.  They weren’t perfect at all.  So there is never a perfect match, but rather a companion who fulfills each other's needs.  So I think it is better for the single men and women to look for a marriage partner who fulfill their needs rather than looking for the perfect match.   In order to do so, what should we do?  We can think of three things.

                First, we need to know the difference between men and women.

Without knowing the difference between men and women, we will not even feel the necessity of meeting each other's needs.  I think men and women don’t know each other that much.  Since I was in ignorance about woman, I kept reading the books that thought me about woman.  Also, since I didn’t know about the difference between men and women, I kept reading the books that helped to understand those differences.  As I am still reading those books that help me to understand about woman and the differences between men and women, the books helps me to get to know who my wife is and what she needs from me.  So I began to develop my ability to deal with her needs more sensitively than before even though I am far away to go.  If I had tried to learn this earlier before I got married, I wonder how my relationship with my wife would have been like.  I think we could have living more satisfying couple life in the Lord as we know and fulfill each other’s needs better as a good companion.

Second, we have to prepare ourselves diligently.

It is only greed that we expect our marriage partner to be perfect without ourselves being ready.  It is a wise choice to prepare ourselves for our future spouses whom God has prepared.  Here, when we say ‘preparation’, the single men and women may tend to think a lot of economic preparation.  But I don’t think that is a priority.  I think the priority is spiritual preparation rather than the economic preparation.  For example, a single man must work hard to develop spiritual leadership to lead the future wife.  Also, he must pray and work to become a loving garden of water so that he can love his future wife with Jesus' love.  He should be prepared as a godly man who can guide his future wife with the Lord’s love.  A single woman must pray and look for this kind of godly man in Christ.  Then what should a single woman prepare?  In my opinion, she should prepare for her character, especially humility, and should have listening training.  The reason is for her to be submissive to her future husband [Here, the word "submission" literally means ‘listen under"].  When a single man and a single woman have dating, if they don’t know how to listen to each other, there will be a lot of problem in that relationship.  In psychologically speaking, a woman speaks twice as much as a man (although there seems to be some men who speak more than their wives), but the Bible commands the woman to humbly listen to her husband.

Third, we should experience the filling of God while emptying ourselves.

Here, emptying ourselves refers to the 'spiritual cleansing' of emptying our hearts by repentance to God while acknowledging our sins, our weaknesses and my shortcomings.  We have to spend a lot of time in this 'spiritual cleaning' so that we don’t even have spare time to see other people’s shortcomings, weaknesses and sins.  In doing so, we must experience God working and filling our hearts with His goodness.  For example, in the process of preparing ourselves, we must continually realize that our love is far too short from God's love.  In the midst of it, we must gradually fill our hearts with the love of God, the fruit of the Spirit, as our hearts being washed away in recognition and repentance of our sins.  Also, we must be filled with the voice of God and the will of God rather than the sound of our hearts and our will by recognizing and acknowledging our sins in front of God and by training ourselves to listen to His voice through the Word of God.

                There is no perfect match in this world.  Even if there is, there is no guarantee that the marriage will be successful and lead them to a happy family.  We should stop trying to find the perfect marriage partner.  Instead, we must prepare ourselves faithfully before God by learning the differences between men and women.  And we must enjoy the grace that God filling our empty hearts with His goodness.  In the meantime, we must meet our future spouse whom God has prepared for us and who needs us.  Then we should build a mutual relationship, thinking about how we can help each other’s needs.  When we do that, we will be able to get married, and after we get marry, we will grow together into a beautiful mature couple.