Partnering with Someone God Did Not Send

In Philippians 4:19 (NLT), God promises to provide for all our needs from His more than abundant resources in Christ: “And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus.” When it comes to finding the right person for our lives, this verse is very reassuring. God takes care of all our needs, and this includes the provision of a marital partner—the one that He has ordained for our lives.

Too often, we lean on our own understanding and wisdom when it comes to significant relationships, but trusting God’s provision is the way to go. It’s truly the only approach that guarantees fulfillment. It’s such a vital aspect of our Christian walk, and we should never assume that the Father would overlook it. Allowing Him to guide us ensures that we are in lockstep with His perfect plan for our lives.

Stepping Outside of God’s Plan

Acts 17:26 (NLT) says, “From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries.” Our Heavenly Father is sovereign over all creation. His brilliance is beyond our comprehension, and this verse reveals this. There are over seven billion people on this planet, and to think that we all have our origin in the one man—the first man that God created, Adam. Acts 17:26 makes it clear that He alone establishes the times, places, and even the families we were born into. He establishes both the rise and fall of nations and has ultimate control over history. His plans for our individual lives were established long before our births and learning about what He has in store for us is the only way to live.

God’s sovereignty—His absolute control—provides us with guarantees in life. One of the most important ones is that nothing alters His divine plan. Even with all our mistakes, missteps, and mishaps, and even with all the chaos in the world, the brilliance of God’s plan continues to unfold according to His perfect timing. His plan can’t be stopped by human actions, and we can trust that cooperating with His plan and timing ensures the very best outcome. This is where our faith must be.

It's our privilege and responsibility to submit to God's sovereignty and plan in light of our desire to partner successfully. Families and their unity in Christ are very important to our Heavenly Father. He established the family as a foundational part of His design for humanity from the very beginning. In Genesis 2:24 (NLT), we see this truth: “This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” Marriage and family were never just human arrangements that we can make on our own, without God’s intervention. Marriage is His institution, and we can best believe that He designed them to reflect His love, order, and purpose. If we step outside of this, we’re stepping outside of His plan.

When a man and a woman come together, God calls upon them to be rooted in Him through their commitment to the example of Jesus Christ. He desires them to grow together in faith, and to reflect His heart in their relationships. It’s not about our agendas, because we can really get into trouble letting our flesh dominate—basing our decisions only on aesthetics rather than looking at the heart. Joshua 24:15 (NLT) declares, “But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.” Before meeting the one that God ordained for them, this commitment to serve Him through their marriages and families should be already grounded in the heart of singles that desire to be spouses. It’s also important to know that the unity in Christ that God has ordained for a married couple is not automatic. It’s a choice—a decision they must make to align their households with God’s Will. 

But when we step outside of His plan—especially in choosing a partner that God didn’t ordain for our lives, the consequences can be devastating. 2 Corinthians 6:14(ESV) says, “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?” Many single believers struggle with applying the discipline and wisdom of this verse to their own lives. 

Navigating Single Life

The challenges of navigating single life in today’s environment are notorious. Just about everyone has heard of some of the pitfalls, from catfishing to serious dysfunction and deception. If someone is on the quest for marriage without committing to continual prayer, careful thought, and most importantly, a willingness to follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit, dating can become as hazardous as walking a tight rope without a safety net. A single person can be deceived by someone that looks the part but isn’t at all what they seem. And not only this, when we fall for the wrong person, our hearts can be broken to such an extent that we become insecure and filled with fear. We might lose out on finding the right person altogether.

The unbelievers that 2 Corinthians 6:14 talks about are individuals that do not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God; many of them do not even believe there is a One True Living God. They don’t believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross, shed his blood for the remission of our sins, and was resurrected from the dead by the Holy Spirit. In other words, they don’t believe in the born-again reality through Jesus Christ. God warns us not to be yoked together with such individuals. He is not trying to make our pleasure any less, nor does He intend that we should be unpleasant to those who do not honor Him through the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s telling us not to form a partnership with them, because doing so injures our faith, our well-being and, more importantly, our relationship with Him. In this verse, God is giving us the wisdom and truth that will preserve our spiritual well-being and therefore keep us from being demolished by darkness and evil.

Loneliness Weaponized

Loneliness can be used as a tool of satan, coercing people into idolatry. The simple definition of idolatry is when people place anything above their allegiance to God through His Holy Word. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve bowed to satan by believing his word above the Word that God has given them. He told them in Genesis 2:17 (NLT) that if they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, “you are sure to die.”  Eve’s first mistake was even giving the enemy the time of day; she should have ignored him, but she didn’t. Instead, she responded to his question, and he replied, “You won’t die!” We all know how this ended. Eve bought into the lie satan told her hook, line, and sinker. She and Adam took the enemy’s word over God’s Word, and this was their catastrophic downfall.

As God’s children, we should make it our business to reject the actions of Adam and Eve through our own obedience and unwavering allegiance to God, but many of us are not living this way. We put pleasing people over being obedient and pleasing God. This is one of the ways the enemy tricks us into bowing to him the way that Adam and Eve did. When an unbeliever gets us to repeatedly violate God’s commandment, and we partner with them sexually, we have idolized them, elevating pleasing them over pleasing our Heavenly Father.

The methodology of satan is to first minimize God’s influence through the emotional pull of an unbeliever. Then the evil one moves to methodically and slowly squeeze Heavenly Father out of the believer’s life. Sometimes it starts with the little things. It seems harmless at first, as subtle compromises are made. Prayer time is shortened, quality time with the Lord becomes inconsistent, or the conviction to live righteously starts to weaken under the influence of the unbeliever. Before you know it, the believer begins to make choices that once seemed unthinkable. They justify actions that they know deep down are not in alignment with God’s Will.

We can’t fool ourselves; in the current environment, dysfunction is pervasive, and some of it is toxic and insidious beyond what we think. There are those that are foot soldiers for the enemy, sent to destroy our faith and methodically tear our lives apart. When we lie down with them, we partner with that darkness. This is why Proverbs 4:23 instructs us to guard our hearts. If we don’t, and we give ourselves away emotionally, mentally, or physically, we set ourselves up for unnecessary heartbreak—and that’s only the tip of the iceberg. A stronghold that’s deep and hard to break can strangle our vitality, and its imprisonment can impact us for a very long time. 

Give yourself a tremendous gift and be good to your soul. Do not partner with someone the Lord did not send. If you find yourself entangled in a relationship that is pulling you away from God, don’t ignore His warning signs. He sees what you can’t. He knows the outcome, and He loves you too much to let you settle for anything less than what He has for you.

Remember, the enemy’s tactic is to disguise destruction as attraction. That’s no joke. It’s a plot to tempt you with what seems pleasing, but in reality, it’s poison for your soul. Guard your heart, not out of fear, but out of wisdom and love for the life God has planned for you. When we choose to trust His guidance in relationships and don’t lean on our own understanding, we’re putting our faith in motion. This leads us to the kind of peace and fulfillment we all want, and it sends heaven a clear message that we are choosing to seek and put God first. ■

Holy Bible, New Living Translation copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

“Partnering with Someone God Did Not Send”, written for victoryinjesuschrist.life. Copyright© 2025. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.