Ask Pastor Mike Live

Alexis: Hi, Pastor Mike. I had a question that had to do with relationships.

Pastor Mike: Okay.

Alexis: Does God want us with a specific person? The reason I ask is that sometimes my girlfriend and I have petty arguments, which most of the time are caused by me. After it gets resolved, I feel terrible. I was wondering if maybe there was a better person for her or if the Lord wills, would it be better if I took classes to manage negative emotions?

I'd really love to get engaged and married to her in the future, but I just want to know if there's a specific person for everybody. Or if I learn to better manage my emotions, would it be in God's grace for us?

Pastor Mike: That's a really good question, and here's how I would respond to that. There are two sides to looking at reality on the timeline. One is our side, where we've been placed on this timeline working in this world, making decisions, and trying to find what is wise and best.

On the other side of the tapestry, God is at work and he is working out his will, as it says in Ephesians chapter 1. We know that there are things he's doing that we will look back on and say this is precisely what God in his providence wanted done. The problem is we can't think about the other side of the tapestry and try to figure out what's going on there because we don't have that perspective.

The only perspective that we have been given as finite beings as Christians is to look to his Word, to gather wisdom, and to look to the principles of God's Word. Then we try to make the best decision we possibly can, and the Bible gives us ways to do that.

Then we're just going to have to say that the decisions we make can't be somehow muddied by thinking there's probably some perfect plan out there and maybe I got plan B, C, or D. I've got this paralysis by analysis trying to figure out what God's will is. Here's what I know for sure. God's will is for someone that is a follower of Christ.

If you're a follower of Christ, it's someone that is relatively near your age; that just makes biological and biblical sense. It needs to be someone you are attracted to; that makes biblical sense in the book of the Song of Solomon. It needs to be someone that is attracted to you. It needs to be someone that you feel and you sense in subjective feelings is a good match.

Now, here's the problem. Even for someone you think is a perfect match, in a matter of days, months, or years, you're going to find out that because everything in this world is flawed and imperfect, you're going to find problems. It just takes time to get past some of those feelings to realize there's not a single relationship on the earth that I've ever met, other than dishonest couples, that will tell you their relationships don't have problems.

So you're going to have conflict and you're going to have arguments. In your youth, assuming you are youthful, there's a lot we don't do very well in terms of self-control. We say things we might be able to withhold better ten or twenty years from now because we've learned self-discipline and self-control.

I trust that everybody in your stage of life finding someone they're attracted to, someone that is a Christian that shares that devotion to the lordship of Christ, is getting to know each other. You're going to get past some of the things that you might overlook because you feel those feelings of attraction. You're going to start to settle into a relationship and say, "I think this may be the woman for me."

But then all of a sudden, you're going to realize you have conflict and disagreements. That's just going to happen. Now, if it happens to an extent that the people around you were to say, "Alexis, all I see you guys doing is arguing; you just seem like you don't even get along," you should ask people how they view your relationship.

You know it better than anyone looking at it, but if everyone around you can see that you guys are always bickering and fighting, then I would say you probably need to look for someone else. If you think all those great marriages out there feel like they're in the center of God's will and don't have conflicts, that's just not true.

They have conflicts; they just need to learn to work through them. Maturity, growth, and strategies of being wise and peace-seeking Christians help those couples do better at the conflicts. Then God throws you bigger conflicts, but whatever, you're going to learn to manage to live with someone. You're a sinner, she's a sinner, and there are going to be the struggles that everyone has.

I would start by saying, why don't you ask the people that know you guys the best how they view your relationship? See if they start saying things like what you're afraid of, that it seems like you guys argue a lot. If that's the case, then it's time to slow down and maybe even think about putting this on pause for a while as you see if this is really what God wants for us.

For someone who is not yet married and they're still in the dating process, if they're arguing all the time, that's just not a good sign. It's a conflict of the kinds of personalities and propensities we have that probably isn't going to make for a very good marriage. I see that often in relationships that most people can look at and say this doesn't look like a good match.

As the book of Proverbs says, victory is bound up in the abundance of counselors. You need some people that know you to speak into this and help you. Make sure she's a devoted Christian and she loves Christ first. Make sure you love Christ first. That's the main thing. Then, if people say you guys seem like a good match, it's just about you growing up and her growing up and trying to work out your conflicts better than you have in the past.

Can I ask you, Alexis, how old you are and how old she is?

Alexis: I am 26 and she is 23.

Pastor Mike: Okay. You get engaged and you get married soon. The kinds of things that you do in responding to each other when you're irritated are probably going to be a lot better eight or ten years from now when you're 35 or 36. I think there's just going to be greater strategies of self-control, of even guarding your tongue, and you're probably going to do better in managing those conflicts. But I couldn't find you a 23 or 24-year-old girl to date that you're not going to have conflicts with.

If you're willing and honest enough to say that a lot of this is your trouble—you're the one that sometimes overreacts or whatever you think your problem is in this—then God's just trying to pressure you to become a better marriage-material man to work harder on that. You should memorize scripture that deals with whatever the problem is and how you respond to irritation.

You should say, "God, I don't want to be the husband of a girl that deserves a man who controls himself better than I have." You need to start working on that before you buy a ring and put it on her finger. I do think that there are things that God may be telling you in how to become a better man.

But if you think you're going to exchange this relationship so that she has some perfect Prince Charming and you're going to find this gal that you never argue with, that's just not going to be the case unless you're both completely betas and you have no opinions. Most of us have these struggles. The question is how well can you deal with them?

Do you both love Christ? Is that the most important thing? Do you find that you're attracted to one another? You like being with each other? Those are the things that need to happen. That needs to be something that pulls you guys together.

Because of Christ and the covenant of marriage, then there's going to be a whole other pressure to stay together and to be committed to loving each other sacrificially. But that needs to start now in the dating era of your relationship. Does that help at all? Are there some people you could talk to that know you guys as a couple that might have some feedback and commentary on how you guys get along and what they see in this relationship?

Alexis: I think there might be my mom and dad and maybe her mom and dad, too. Also, her brother and sister.

Pastor Mike: Great. I would go to dinner first with one set of parents and then the other set and just say, "We're trying to please God in this. We want to make sure if we're going to continue going forward that this looks like the kind of relationship that you think can go the distance." Ask what they think, how you can grow, and how you can be better at this. We don't want to get into this if this isn't God's will.

See what they have to say. If you hear from both sets of parents and some siblings that they've got a lot of thumbs down on this, then maybe it is time to put things on pause. But if they give you a thumbs up and they think you guys are great and don't see any problems here, well then you know the problems.

Then you need to start attacking those problems, which aren't attacking the other person. It's trying to make sure that you know how to deal with the conflicts that you're going to have every day. Everyone is going to have their own opinion about how to parent or where to live or should we spend money on more square footage in an apartment or should we buy a sofa.

There are so many things you're going to deal with in life and you have to do it together. You're all going to come at it with different opinions. If you can't deal with conflict, misunderstanding, and hurt feelings in a mature way, then we probably need to put marriage off a little bit.

But you're old enough. If you're in that range in your mid-20s, it's time biologically and everything else to say I should be ready to get married at this particular point. Of course, there are a lot of things that go into that. Can you sustain this? You have to be able to leave and cleave.

You need the money to do it; it doesn't mean you have to have a lot of money, but you have to have enough to support yourself with a decent job, insurance, and all the things that go with adulting. That has to happen. So there's a big checklist there. I hope there's some people that can help you through the details of that, building a budget and looking at life together.

Alexis: Like when you said earlier, if we go to dinner with one set of parents, is there such a thing as constructive criticism? Would we be able to identify the problem and fix it?

Pastor Mike: You could. But what I'm looking to see is if your parents or her parents say it seems like you guys fight a lot. If that's what you're hearing from both sets of parents, then I'm thinking there's something not right here. It shouldn't be that you guys are contentious and it's always about disagreements.

The kinds of disagreements most couples have, they can keep it to themselves and other people don't always see it. If it's so contentious in this relationship that everyone around you who's closest to you sees it all the time, that's when I think you need to throw a red flag up.

She might have another man that's going to be a lot more adapted to the way she sees the world, and the same for you. You can have a better chance at a peaceful, harmonious marriage with someone else. That's just realistic and mature thinking, and now's the time to figure that out. You don't want to string this relationship along if you don't have a confidence that this is going to lead to marriage. That's the goal. Does that help?

Alexis: I understand, Pastor Mike.

Pastor Mike: Thanks, Alexis. That's important stuff and I'm sure you're asking questions that plenty of listeners have as well. If you have a question about the Christian life, about how to put to use the biblical principles to get us through decisions like that—and Alexis asks about one of the biggest decisions you're going to make as a Christian in your life—or whatever it might be.