Lesson 21: God’s Wisdom for Family

 The third thing we need to remind ourselves of is that it is not by chance whom you married.

 Psalm 139:16 "Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in Your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them."

God is so Wise that He knows everything we have ever done before we even did it! If God knows everything we would ever do, then He knows whom we should say "I do" to. Therefore, there must be a wise reason for marrying the person we married. When we think it is by chance that we married whom we did, our priorities get all messed up and we think our main reason for getting married was just to have a person to enjoy. Then, as something happens with our spouse or spouse's family that we dislike, and since everything is just about my enjoyment, we get upset and start creating even more problems.

The first wise reason why God has you married to your spouse is for a mission field. Just to be clear, I am not saying that it is okay for a Christian to marry a non-Christian. The Bible clearly warns against this. Why? Such a marriage is like trying to mix oil and water, the two cannot mix. Sooner or later you are headed for trouble.

However, when two unsaved people can get married and later one of them does get saved, God wants the saved spouse to share the love of Jesus with your spouse so they can be saved too. If both spouses are saved, God wants both of them to share the love of Jesus with their unsaved families.


For example, both my wife and I have a lot of non-Christians in our families and so whenever we get together for holidays, they always ask me, the preacher boy, to pray at meals. I do not mind praying but what bothered me was that sometimes when I would finish praying, they would clap. They had no concept of prayer because to them it was just a religious thing…so I decided I would purposely weave in the gospel. "Oh God, thank You for this turkey and thank You for Jesus dying on the cross to shed His blood for our sins…” For some reason they do not clap like they used to. I am not giving up because they are my mission field. I see God’s wisdom behind it.

The second wise reason God has you married to your spouse is as a training ground. If we want to move from being a carnal Christian to a spiritual Christian then what better place to learn how to deal with the sin nature than with a spouse who also has a sin nature? Do you see the wisdom of God? He puts two sinners together so they can act as a mirror for each other and expose the problems that need to be worked on. You see, marriage tends to bring out not only the best in you but also the worst. Unless we can admit the worst, we will never get around to experiencing the best.

It is not by chance you married whom you did or even into the family you did. It is by the Creator of the universe and once you start seeing the wise reasons why He has you married to your spouse, then your marriage is no longer just about personal enjoyment, it becomes a powerful ministry!

* Which family member did Jesus bring to mind as you read this lesson? May we pray with you for this person?