I didn’t have to break this news to my wife. She already knew. And guess what, she wasn’t upset. Maybe because I also understand I’m not her soulmate either.
Now, before you go feeling sorry for either one of us – Don’t.
The term soulmate has become distorted. Maybe too often and in some weird way has morphed into a definition of emotion superseding that of love. Like this ridiculous claim – “This person is my spouse, but that person is my soulmate.”
Time Travelers
Soulmates don’t exist in a bible-based marriage. God is the center, and alone provides for both spouses. The current soulmate ideal revolves around one person being all that the other person needs to complete them. This is an affront to Christ. God is crystal clear that He is enough.
I recently read an article titled, The 10 Elements of a Soulmate, and was floored by the candy-coated bullet points used to determine whether you’re connected to your soulmate, or merely just in love. The article talks about “flashbacks,” and claims that the two souls would experience them as glimpses of their past life connections. Reincarnation is not a part of God’s creation of marriage.
Love requires choice, commitment and effort. It’s rewards are God-approved, and have nothing to do with reincarnated spirits reconnecting as time goes by.
Opposites Attract
Another misconception wrapped up in the soulmate misconception is perfect compatibility. Often times opposites do attract. When God created woman for man, she was called helper. This is sometimes mistaken as man’s sidekick like Robin to Batman. This couldn’t be further from God’s truth.
I’ve mentioned this before, but want to continue focusing on it because it’s vital to understanding the relationship God wants us to share with our spouse. The “helper” God created is “ezer” in the original Hebrew. It literally means vitally important and powerful acts of rescue and support. Not to complete, but to help.
You Complete Me
Each spouse is created to lean into God to provide for them and make them whole. Crediting another human being with a heavenly task such as completing them, says God failed in His creation of that person and thus requires another human to finish what God couldn’t.
Genesis states that God created man in His own image. God is perfect, therefore God’s image is perfect. And complete.
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.Genesis 1-26-27
God is very clear that we are not to place anything or anyone above Him. Claiming another person is what it takes to make you whole, is to say you don’t need God – you only need your soulmate.
When you consider the impossible weight of responsibility you’ve placed on “Johnny” to complete you, it’s an unheavenly task to attempt or expect him to succeed.
God’s commandments warn against having other gods before Him. These gods can be your work, alcohol, exercise, money, your children or this person you’re all ga-ga about. Anything that relegates God to second or third place has become a god that you’ve placed before him. He wants to provide for you so you may learn who He is.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;Exodus 20:3-5
“You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 10 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Deuteronomy 5:7-8
Made To Win
There are soul mates, but they aren’t meandering spirits who reconnect through reincarnation throughout history. In a Christ-focused marriage, the uniting of two into one is the Godly mating of souls.
For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. Genesis 2:24
There’s no wonder why over 50% of all first marriages fail. Many relationships are based on the earthly soulmate misconception that it’s universally designed or mystically meant to be. As that article I read earlier implied, “The beauty of free will is that you can remain in or change any relationship as you see fit.”
How’s that for zero commitment? I guess the secular meaning of soulmate involves the temporary satisfaction of attraction or lust. The loving people’s negative connotation didn’t go unnoticed, “…two loving people who have settled for each other’s strengths and weaknesses…”
If you want 100% assurance of matrimonial success then follow God’s desire for your marriage. He created it, He cherishes it, and He has never designed anything to fail – Especially marriage.
And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.Colossians 3:14
Leah knows she is my heavenly soul mate because through Christ and marriage we’ve become one. One body, one mind, and one soul.
As far as the sugary-sweet fantasy of finding the one soul you’ve known since the beginning of time, and the act of sharing flashbacks of earlier centuries when the two of you were together, that’s ridiculous.
I can’t even recall what I had for breakfast, much less if I knew Leah during the Palaeolithic Era. Although, I’m sure she would’ve been just as gorgeous riding a dinosaur as she is driving her car. Of course, I know there were no humans during that period, but as long as we’re talking fantasy soulmating, why not have a little fun?
Lead From The Front,
Scott
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