DON'T seek and you shall find

"I think that God blessed me with my mate the second that I stopped looking. So the key to getting a mate is to just stop looking."

Have you heard statements like this before?

I know I have. I'll ask Christian married or engaged couples how it all started for them, and often they'll answer with a similar response. I began thinking about it in depth.

I'm not sure that the key to getting in a relationship is "quit looking." In no other area of life is the "quit looking" principle of finding something logical or successful. I call this the "leprechaun theory." You know because according to lore, you'll never find a leprechaun if you look for one. You have to just wait for it to pop and find you. I tend not to believe that the will of God is like a leprechaun.

If I lose my car keys and have somewhere that I need to go, I'm going to keep looking for them. In fact, depending upon the urgency with which I need to get to my destination, I'm going to start searching harder. I'm going to get my family and friends in on the search, too.

If I lose a hundred dollar bill, and I need that money for a bill, I'm going to look for it and search till I find it. I'm not going to stop and wait for the wind to blow it to me. That $100 is valuable, and there's a good chance that someone else wants it, too. The last thing that I'm going to do is "quit looking to find" my lost money. I might temporarily suspend my search if I grow frustrated, but once my head is clear, I'm going to resume the search.

Because for me, the depth and thoroughness of my search depends up on the value that I place on object that I'm trying to obtain. Since my $100 and car keys are very valuable to me, I'm going to keep searching and searching.

For many Christian young adults, our desire to marry a Christian mate and have a family is second only in importance to our relationship with God. If marriage is a beautiful institution designed by God to fulfill His purpose in our lives, if it brings glory and honor to God, shouldn't we be doing all we can to seek it? How is pretending that we don't want it, and trying avoid praying for it going to help?

The "quit looking to find" idea isn't Biblical. In fact it's the exact opposite. For example, Philipians 4:6 says : Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer, petition and thanksgiving, present your requests to God. If dating or marriage is our earnest prayer before God, then we ought to be praying,petitioning, and praising God for our mate. We should certainly avoid being anxious about it, but we should be praying for our mate and thanking God for him or her and their imminent arrival in your life.

Matthew 7:7 Ask, seek, knock. Jesus says that we should be asking, seeking, and knocking. Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. The Bible doesn't say "DON'T seek it and you shall find." The Bible says, SEEK and you shall find. It doesnt say, "Except for you, ladies. In your case, don't seek and you will get a husband." If the same principle of SEEKING=FINDING works with everything else in life-whether it's finding car keys, a hundred dollar bill, or a job-I really don't see how SEEKING=FINDING somehow is wrong when it comes to dating, love, and relationships.

If you have been trying to "quit looking to find" with no success, then maybe seeking, that is, taking steps to meet and socialize with potential mates might be worth trying to do.

Tell me what you think!