About Soul Mate

Originally posted on my facebook account last month.

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Now, this will be an interesting topic. I have a feeling that this will be my most popular post of the year. Noo, no, hold your thoughts, it is not because that it will be a good post (I am not a very good writer), but, well I realize most of you are still searching for one! Come on, admit it, how many of you are still single.

Some of you might think, it is not my time yet, so I do not need to think about it, but well, I guess at some points, you will need to. Why? Because everything need a preparation, and your mind needs to be ready when it is coming. Your life next year might still be far, but you need to do at least some thinking about it. A life with a concept of riding with the wave will have a lot of problems. Some of you might disagree, but let’s save it for another post.

Well, this post is not about how to find a soulmate (as you can observe, my status is still desperately single, but happy). It is just about my thinking that I have compiled from years of reading books (yes, I know, “kebanyakan teori”) and also talking with people (with experience). Some of the people that influenced me greatly are not limited to Ravi Zacharias, Andy Stanley, Voddie Baucham, Gary Thomas, Susanto Yap and my dad. I am not trying to be a Dr.Love here, but I am sure you will learn something here.

To find the true concept of soulmate, I will use bible as a reference point. You see, even though if you are not Christian, you have to admit the validity of it, that there is certain degree of truth that bible can provide even though you are not Christian. In the bible, it is said that God was the one who came up with the idea that a man need a helper. So, he created Eve from Adam’s rib.

From Adam’s Rib

There was a reason why He took it from the rib, not the head or leg. No, no, the reason is not because Adam had many ribs or because if God had taken the bone from the leg, he would be unable to walk. It was not as simple as that. There was a profound meaning when He decided to create the woman from man’s rib. The first principle of finding a soulmate is to remember that a woman should not be the head over a man, nor should she have lower status than man.

There is a principle that reside when we choose a soulmate. We have to find someone with the right balance with us. That means, trying to find someone with similar attribute to you. Wait, around this time, there will be a lot of objections directed toward me, but let me explain myself. I personally don’t believe that differences will give more colorful life together, it may work in a more trivial relationship (where I believe diversity is important), but in more intimate life, many times differences can be main cause of conflicts. It is a very pragmatic thinking, I know, but it takes a lot of effort to consolidate between a lot of differences. It may work on two souls that has high level of tolerance, but you should know yourself.

The bible spoke of a particular difference that needs to be addressed. It is faith. There are no guarantees that if you have someone with the same faith with you, you will be happy. In fact, there are many cases in bible where there is sin in a marriage even arranged by God (such as Abraham, Isaac). Even in the most perfect household, there is still sin, and the reason is obvious, human has lost the image of God. But I think there is a wisdom found in choosing a mate with a same faith with you. There is a much deeper fellowship going on in a couple that put their trust on God for their marriage. Far deep beyond sexual intimacies.

OK, so many of you will raise this particular issue. Why can’t I find someone that has different faith to be my soulmate? There is no guarantee that getting a person with the same faith will give me happiness, right? Furthermore, I know a certain person who marries a girl with different faith and they get along well and she converts to his faith, isn’t that a good thing? Well, my answer will constitute two parts.

First, happiness is not a measure of good marriage. Happiness is overrated. If happiness is used to measure the truthfulness of a particular thing, then Hitler may be happy when he slain the people. Truth will result in happiness, but happiness doesn’t mean truthfulness. As I will elaborate further in next part, it is holiness that should be used as the measure, not happiness. Be careful, that I am not saying that happiness is not important in marriage. If you surrender your marriage to God, you should be happy in Him, it is the result, not the cause of good marriage.

Second, we have to differentiate between experiential truth and logical truth (if someone can give me better term, please do). When someone marries a person from different faith, and it ends well, it is experiential truth, and you cannot overwrite logical truth with experiential truth. For example, just because Jesus healed the blind who pleaded to him, did not mean that He will heal all the blinds who pleaded to him. The same logic applies here, just because that one marriage between different faiths works, does not mean that it is okay to do that.

Remember, you are only married once, do you want to take chance with your marriage?

God created marriage

It was God that gave us a notion about it was not good for a man to be alone. He was the one who provide man with a helper. So, why does a man needs a woman? It is logical that to find out the answer, we trace it to the original idea giver.

Originally, God saw Adam and He thought, it was not good for a man to be alone. And He created Eve, and then commissioned them to be fruitful, conquer and fill the world. Now, in these days, it doesn’t literally means that we should produce a lot of kids and have a big family. Far from that, we have to see the context of the world we are living in right now. We know that there are children of light and darkness in this world.

Now, I am going to use the term ‘legacy’ here. When we form a family, we are given assignment, to continue His story. That means, God gives us a duty to educate and teach our children, so they can continue the story of God’s amazing work in their lives too, which mean, to have more children of light. Now, it may sound quite alien, but if we think of it, it actually makes sense. It is, because when we are saved, the meaning of our lives change. We are actually showing the world, God’s stories in our lives, and we are not living for our stories anymore, which simply means, we are carrying God’s legacies.

The concept of legacy is important, because marriage suddenly become a bigger scope than what the culture teaches us. The culture teaches us that marriage is between two people, is about two people and about one family. The original concept of marriage was not that! It is about God, always God. Suddenly, the focus of marriage is not about two people anymore, and the spotlight is moved toward God.

We are living in the world that is bombarded by media every day. And look at the movies nowadays, what do they teach us about marriage? A good marriage will involve two people that like each other, and they move in together, and marry one another, and happily pass their lives together. Happily ever after. Isn’t that what the fairy tales told us? Now, the one million dollar question: Where in the bible that is written that God created marriage for human’s happiness? (*silence)… Do we, as a Christian, realize that when we think about marriage? It is a question for us to reflect upon, because it determines who will have control in our marriage lives later. Is it two people? Or is it the Creator?

The concept of legacy is not only applicable to our children, but also to two in the marriage. How the couple lives their marriage will become a page that is visible to the world. As a single, we are responsible for our behavior and action in the society, as a couple, we are responsible also for our marriage. Through the marriage, a couple needs to learn, extend God’s holiness and tells about His story. So, it is holiness which is His original purpose for marriage, not happiness.

They fell into sin

Who is the guy/girl you fall in love with? Sometimes it is hard to accept that the other person is so full of weakness. Of course, we have our own weakness, but it seems that we are okay with it, while weakness is other person is a no-no.

When I was in high school, there is one term called “puppy love”. It is a term that we use to describe childish love. Of course, this love cannot be the foundation of long-term relationship. I can say that, a lot of us do not fall in love with a person, but we fall in love with an image.

Another important fact that we have to remember that, guys, you fall in love with a woman that has fallen out of grace, and girls, you have fallen in love with a man that has sin and live in imperfect world. In other word, both people are imperfect, sinful, full of weaknesses and missing resemblance of God. Sometimes we tend to forget that, and we expect the other person to do more. It is true that one should strive to be a better person, but one must not forget that we have the responsibility to guide and support our mates too.

After all, human cannot fall in love with ‘angel’ (which is perfect). If that happens, I suggest you to stop your dreaming of falling in love with an angel. Why? Because an angel cannot love you back, since you are imperfect and she is perfect, why does she need you anyway? Furthermore, if you fall in love with an ‘angel’, you are technically falling in love with and image, not a person.

When we hold on to the fact that both parties are sinful and imperfect, it will make us change our perspectives. We do not see and put our hope on our husband/wife anymore, instead, we set our sight upon God, who reigns over our relationship. This is a very powerful view that will also shift the focus in a relationship from human to God.

Do I choose my mate?

Every person has different story how he/she meet his/her soulmate. One person told me not to worry, because God will prepare the one for you. He will know the best and he will prepare the best also if you trust in Him. I, however, do not believe that God has chosen and paired up people in heaven. I do not believe that He already pre-determine our partners. If that is true, then why only marriage? He could also determine which school I will go to, or which major should I take.

The reason that I hold on to my belief is because I think we have a responsibility to choose our own partner. He merely gave us the guidelines and we are responsible for our own choice. This way, if our marriage messes up, we cannot blame God, because we make the decision ourselves. Of course, if you believe that God has prepared it for you, you have the option to blame God (Since He is the one who gave it to you at the first place).

I do not deny, that there are certain circumstances where God intervenes and prepares the partners for us, but I believe it rarely happens. And when it happens, does not mean that the same reasoning will hold unto the rest of us (remember about experiential truth). For most of us, we do have to look for the one.

About dating

Some of you might ask, why do I keep talking about marriage? It seems that it is too far, and right now we should talk about something closer, like dating. Well, maybe it is because in the bible there is no concept of dating. In fact, it is our culture that introduce this term of ‘dating’.

I will try my best to share my view about dating (I have minimal experience here, so help me out). I believe dating is process between two people that try to understand and know each other more. So, technically, any activity that can fulfill that purpose can be called dating. You might go together for a movie or dinner, or maybe you spend time together in fellowship, maybe you study together (not that fun). Dating does not require only two people at the same time, contrary to popular belief. I know that it is more romantic if there is only two of you, but still I believe those activities can be categorized as dating.

For this issue, I will discuss it maybe in other notes.

Closing

Some said to me, “You are thinking too much, Chris.” I personally think that choosing a lifelong companion is one of the most important decisions of our lives, and it deserves considerable times set aside. I am not saying that one should be obsessed with this issue, I am saying that it is important to think about what we really want, what is our criteria and work toward it. I personally think that God doesn’t determine one’s soulmate in heaven, and in the end we are responsible for our own choice.

Before you rush try to find the one, I have to say that you cannot expect finding a woman and be happy. Some people think that finding a man/woman will make him happy, but the truth is you have to be happy yourself first. If you can’t be happy by yourself, chances are you will not be happy even if you find someone else. You need a life before you can share life with someone else. Obviously, you also need a happy life to share a happy life. You cannot share something that you do not have. Chances are, if you are unhappy, you will just take happiness from the other side (assuming that she has happiness).

There is no blaming God if one day our marriage is not what we expected before. Keep praying and do your own search. (of course, some people are luckier, it always seems that God send his/her husband/wife from heaven, but again, generally it does not happen)

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