Zephaniah 3:17 The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.

Did you see that?   In one sentence, He is with us, He is saving us, He is rejoicing over us, He is quieting us, and He is singing over us loudly.  Seriously?   Try getting your husband to do THAT!   🙂

God designed a void in each of us that only He can fill.   It gets confused with the void we feel when we long for a spouse.   Typically it’s only after we have a spouse that we can discern what void the spouse is capable of filling and what void only God can.   Only God is God and only He is all we need- in the deepest sense of the word.  

That is not to say that He hasn’t wired us to rightfully desire a spouse.  For most of us, He has wired us to want just that. But it’s still HIM wiring us.  We love the gift (of a spouse) but we love the Giver even more.   

If we get it backwards and put our spouse in the void designed for God, then heaven help our spouse!   O.M.G.  You just try to fill God’s shoes and see how that works for you!   

Takeaway:    It’s ok to long to find your spouse or to long for the spouse you have to be more Christlike.   Those are Godly desires.  But to expect God’s perfection in a spouse is to create your own misery.  He designed marriage for the purpose of refining us.  He did not design it for the purpose of providing you with your own personal need-filler that can make the void in you go poof!   We walk together with a spouse as imperfect people, broken and needy, both surrendering ourselves to His refinement and accepting each other’s humanity. 

Prayer:  Dear Lord, teach me Your ways as it relates to marriage.   Give me Godly expectations of marriage and of my spouse (or future spouse).   I don’t want to hold my spouse accountable to fill the void in me that only You can fill.   Set me free from ungodly expectations so that I may take any unfair burden off of our relationship (current or future).   Make me the spouse my spouse needs and transform my spouse into the spouse you know I need as well- in order that we both may know you more.