Why Is God Taking So Long To Send My Spouse?

All of us want good things to happen in our lives. Oftentimes, we don't want to wait for it, we want it now. For some of us, that includes a spouse. When it doesn't happen when we want it to, we are tempted to ask, "When, God, when?" or we get frustrated and give up. I know how difficult it can be to wait on God's timing. Right now, I am waiting on God for several things that are important to me.

Even though we say we trust God, we humans like to think that we can control things, sometimes even God. But God's ways are not our ways. Waiting makes us realize that we aren't in as much control as we imagined, and that is what becomes so frustrating. Waiting helps us come to terms with our weaknesses and mortality. Believers are called to live by faith and rely on God. The frustration of waiting can prevent us from enjoying the present. That's why surrender is important.
​Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us to "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths." When we trust in God's timing, you understand that He knows the plans that He has for us, which are for good, not evil (Jeremiah 29:11). Satan has a plan for us too; a plan for evil, not good. God sends people to us and so does Satan. When we get impatient, we end up trying to create our own blessing, like Sarai and Abram did. Sarai and Abram got tired of waiting and devised a plan to fulfill God's promise of children to Abram (Genesis 16:1-16). Their plan created Ishmael, who had twelve sons, who became the founders of many Arab tribes, the Ishmaelites.

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God said of Ishmael and his descendants, "their hand against every man, and every man's hand against them" (Genesis 16:12). The Ishmaelites spread over the wide desert spaces of Northern Arabia from the Red Sea to the Euphrates (Genesis 37- 39). The wars that have been going on in the Middle East for years are a result of Sarai and Abram's plan (Genesis 16; 17:23).


When I turned 40, after many years of praying and waiting on God to send my mate, I got tired of waiting and tried to create my own godly marriage. That was a horrible mistake. Even after the molestation I endured as a child, the struggles of being a single parent, and watching my only daughter go through breast cancer and go home to be with God, none of that comes close to the pain, shame, and heartache I endured in that marriage. If you are single and looking for a mate, God may be protecting you from a bad relationship. I encourage you not to settle for the wrong person because you are tired of waiting. Pray and submit to God and allow Him to continue to make you into the spouse He wants you to be while He is preparing your spouse for you. God may very well be protecting you from a bad relationship.
You’ve probably heard it before and really don’t care to hear it again, but seasons of waiting are times that God wants to use to grow us and prepare us for what we are asking for. Maybe we simply aren’t ready. In my book "I Don’t Believe in Fairytales: Breaking Anti-Marriage Strongholds," I talk about the preparation phase. In this book, I offer strategies to identify, root out, and pull down marriage-destroying strongholds that trap us and keep us from experiencing the godly marriage we desire. It's time to learn how to break those spiritual strongholds so you can move forward in God's wonderful plan for marriage.