Faith in God's Traffic Lights

The idea of arranged marriages has been slowly brewing in the back of my head recently. Why? My dear friend, Blessy, who I came to know in India last summer, wrote a few weeks ago and said that she had finally accepted a marriage proposal. (She's been offered dozens upon dozens!) Then, I was talking with an extremely Western-in-all-appearances Indian couple from church and found out that theirs was an arranged marriage.

In our Western way of going about marriage, it already seems like such a huge step of faith to trust someone with your heart, to attempt to fall in love, and then--even more trust to commit to them for life. I don't understand such trust; perhaps because I have not yet been in such an experience! But to think that millions of couples around the world take that PLUNGE of faith with someone they do not know seems like more faith than I even know how to conjure up!

Most are trusting their parents. Fair enough--parents ought to be wiser than my fickleness to know what I need and what is best for me in a marriage.

But Christian couples? I know Blessy was given a choice in the matter, and turned down dozens of proposals. Dozens! And I can't even get a legitimate one! (Proposals for visas don't count...) Why did she accept Ben's proposal? She'd only known him for two days!!! Because she believed he was the man God had planned for her. That's faith. (Whether you choose to have that kind of faith or not is not the question. Blessy believes that God chose Ben for her, and is acting on that understanding. That's definitely what I would define faith).

Stan and Julie, the couple from church, said the same thing. He's Canadian Indian and she an expat Indian raised here. They met, prayed, believed God had planned for them to be together, and therefore got married. They allowed the love part to come later. And now, 9 years later, I can easily see that they are in love and have a happy marriage. It almost seems they are putting more trust in God than they are in the other person.

I would, (in my very me-centered thinking), want to grow to trust the person, and after they've earned my trust, then I would go to God and ask, "Okay...what do You think of this guy? Red light? Green light?" Then, God would give the green light, and I would still go through a whole other period of working up the the trust level to believe that God knows what I need and what is best for me.

Why bother with the first step and not just skip straight to trusting God for an answer? If millions can trust their earthly parents--and act on it--why couldn't I trust my heavenly Father, who gives good gifts--and act on it?

But I'm not Indian. And my dad thus far has not arranged any marriage for me. (Truth be told, I'll be quite content to choose for myself). I think I wisely declined Jamal's proposal at 22 (remember him, dad? The Bethlehemite Mafia guy), the many serenading Portuguese at 25, and the guy who couldn't treat me right in grad school. But I wonder... If I met some man, and God said, "Green light!", would I have faith like Blessy to go forward, sight unseen?