Did you search for and marry your soul mate? Michael (Ted Dansen) from the Good Place says, “Soul mates are not found, they’re made.”
I think he’s right.
Soul Mates are Forever
Just because you fall in love instantly with someone doesn’t really mean you are soul mates. The physical, chemical reactions in your body could happen with anyone. Andy Stanley says anyone can fall in love. It’s staying in love that’s the real challenge.
“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Matthew 19: 4-6 NIV
Soul mates stay in love – forever. Soul mates don’t fall “out of love.” Their love is deeper than a chemical reaction and more sacrificial than puppy love. Soul Mates are in it for the long haul, through all the circumstances listed in our wedding vows.
For better, and for worse. For richer and for poorer. In sickness and in health. Until death do us part.
Soul Mates are Made, not Found
The soul is your inner self, made up of your heart (emotions), your mind (intellect), and your strength (will). So a soul mate is someone who knows and loves all these parts of you. When we’re dating, we’re usually on our best behavior, and don’t often display the faulty parts of our souls.
And, trust me, our souls have plenty of faults!
Becoming a soul mate with my husband has been a process of 43 years at this point. We’ve made progress, but we still have a way to go before we are truly “one.”
Becoming one, becoming soul mates, is about being completely known and completely loved at the same time. It’s knowing your spouse completely and loving them sacrificially anyway. It’s laying aside shame and pretense and being who you were designed to be. It’s putting their needs above your own.
Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
Genesis 2:25 NIV
Becoming soul mates really starts with each individual spouse. Our selfish sin nature makes us want to hide and put on masks with people. It’s only in the freedom of Christ that we can lay aside our shame, selfishness, and masks and be truly as wonderful as God intended us to be.
When each spouse journeys toward freedom in Christ, that’s when you truly begin to become soul mates!
Become the Best Soul Mate for your Spouse
To start your journey, my book, Making Peace with Prickly People (affiliate link) provides a road map to transforming your relationships with God, and with your spouse.
What’s a prickly person? All of us are! We have all fallen short of the glory of God, and at times can be pretty prickly toward others. We try to pretend we’re perfect, we live in shame because we’re not, and we endlessly compare and criticize to deflect attention from our own faults.
Download the free study guide at PricklyPeople and begin your journey toward becoming the best soul mate for your spouse.
…because U count, deb