I’ve mainly seen this from Evangelicals, although some from others as well. Christian men and women generally want to know or believe that:

  1. God “hand picked” their spouse for them
  2. You need confirmation from God before dating your spouse

Let’s look at these two concepts.

  • Regarding God “hand picking” their spouse I believe that’s false, but God allows or possibly gives opportunities for us to take action.

I’ve know a couple cases where “God” tells someone that someone is going to be their spouse and it happened. On the other hand, I’ve also known many more cases where “God” told someone that someone was going to be their spouse, and it didn’t happen which led to tons of heart break on both sides. Some people didn’t discern whether it was God or not (1 John 4).

We have free will. We can pick and choose who to ask out or decide to marry, even if God gives us hints that someone might be good (or even bad) for us for some Christians.

There is no “one” or soulmate or anything like that. Who you marry is your “one.” Soulmates are a myth as there is no marriage is heaven.

  • Regarding confirmation from God I believe that’s all false. I think there’s over-spiritualizing of the ‘asking out’ and ‘dating’ process, especially with the Evangelical crowd. It puts a large amount of impediments in your way before even going on a date.

Why do you need to pray to ‘get to know someone better’? Just ask them out (or accept a date) and see if they like you and get to know their personality and character. Pray and decide from there.

I did pray during the relationship and before engagement and marriage starting I decide she was a good girlfriend candidate because that’s when there’s at least some form of ‘commitment’ish behavior where you’re headed toward marriage and you want your potential spouse to be growing with you to be like Christ in action and character.