What If I Don’t Like What God Has in Store for Me?

It might be scary to think of your future being in someone else's hands.

If you’ve ever seen Fiddler on the Roof you’ll remember the matchmaker song that comes early in the story, wherein the three eldest of Tevye’s daughters sing about their romantic hopes.

Two of them daydream about the perfect man they hope the matchmaker will find for them, while Tzeitel the eldest (who has already fallen in love without help from the matchmaker) sarcastically reminds them of the potential pitfalls of relying on a disinterested third party to choose their husbands for them.

Are you afraid to let God play matchmaker?

What if He picks someone you don't like?

I rather suspect that, despite ourselves, many of us are rather afraid that letting God be our matchmaker might play out in much the same way: that one day we’ll come home to find that He has decreed our perfect match to be a grouchy middle-aged butcher, or whatever the equivalent might be.

The fact is that, as soon as we accept that we ought to follow God’s will in all things, we immediately find ourselves faced with the terrible question, “But what if I don’t like His will?” When it comes to relationships the question becomes even more alarming. For we know that He often asks hard things of His children; what if He does so in this most important of cases?

This is a rather strange fear when you think about it. After all, very rarely does God simply present someone before our eyes and say in so many words, “This is the person you are to marry; thus sayeth the Lord.”

These days it’s almost as rare for our parents to do this either. The circumstances in which we will be obliged or expected to marry anyone we don’t particularly want to are, in the current day and age, extremely limited.

Rarely does God decree things from on high.

More often, you want something that God doesn't want for you.

The real question is not “What if I don’t like what God has in store for me?” but rather, “What if I do like what God doesn’t want for me?”

That, in practical terms, is far more likely to come up. You meet a girl, she’s beautiful, intelligent, and amiable, but, one way or another, you understand that this is not God’s will. You have prayed over it, but you can’t help the nagging doubt, the troubling awareness of key flaws, and the little red flags—faint at the moment—that herald trouble down the road.

It is then, indeed, that the fear “but what if I don’t like what God does have in store for me more than this?” becomes real. You have something you know is good. It is not perfect, indeed you fear it may prove a hardship down the road, but can you be sure that you’ll find anything better?

Well, no. You can’t be certain. But you ought to trust God anyway.

What does it mean to really trust and follow God's will?

Trust means abandoning certainty. Faith means trusting in what is not seen. To obey God’s will means to sacrifice what is known for what is not known when we see that it is what He is calling us to. Eve knew the apple was good; she only had God’s word for what would happen if she took it and what would happen if she did not.

That is the first part of the answer: when we know God’s will, our duty is simply to follow it, even if we cannot see how it will all work out.

The second part is this: trust that you will like what God has in store for you. You won’t be able to feel certain of that right away, especially with the knowledge of what you are letting go of fresh in your mind, but eventually you will.

Remember that God has given us our desires.

He of course considers what we want!

The reason we can know that is this: our personalities, including our likes and dislikes, come from God, and He does not create to no purpose. Our own desires are evidence—not conclusive, but strong—of what God wants from us.

If He wants us to marry someone, we will discern this in part by the fact that we want to. There are, of course, other factors, but the desire and the love—that is, the fact that we like to be with the person—are indispensable. In short, if you don’t like the person or don’t want to marry them then, barring special circumstances, that is proof that God doesn’t have them in store for you.

It may help to recall that, in the few occasions in Scripture where God does explicitly select a spouse for someone, as with Tobias, it is usually someone he would have wanted to marry anyway. As Our Lord reminded His hearers, God knows how to give good things to those who ask of Him: we needn’t fear He will give us a scorpion if we ask for a loaf, or the human equivalent (try telling your next date that she’s the human equivalent of a loaf of bread: it should be interesting).

God is far kinder, and knows us far better than we realize. For this reason, we need not be afraid to place all our trust in Him while searching for a spouse. After all, He made us, and He made the person He has chosen for us. Do we think He doesn't know what He is doing?