Being single isn’t that difficult. You get to buy what you want, eat what you want, go wherever you want to, it’s amazing when you’re below the age of 25 (or younger depending on how mature you are). Then–people around you start getting married, your friends, siblings. Family members start wondering when you’ll meet someone if you’ll meet someone, and what’s taking so long. Then you think to yourself, I have had fun being single, maybe now’s the time I should look for a partner.

Finding that person is difficult for both Christians and non-Christians, but the people of the world have–more options, whereas a Christian should really only be looking for other Christians (2 Corinthians 6:14), preferably a practising bible believing Christian, not an I-only-open-my-bible-on-a-Sunday type, and the former are pretty hard to find. The first place that should come to the mind of one looking to find a Christian partner is the church. You get to see them weekly, speak to them, find out how they interact with others and most importantly, what their relationship with God is like, however, there might be a few problems with meeting someone in the church. What if you’re not physically attracted to anyone in your church? What if everyone in your church is spoken for, or even worse, no one is attracted to you. Try another church? Hope to meet the perfect person at a Christian event? Or try online dating?

Yep, I just mentioned online dating, in a Christian context. A lot of believers might give a disapproving look after reading that, ‘someone who trusts in God shouldn’t need to resort to such methods’, 'people who search for partners online are desperate, you should just leave it to God’.

For the longest time, I agreed with those statements, I always believed God would just bring you together when you least expect it, with your head buried in the word and in service to him, without any effort on my part. If I applied this logic to other situations, however, it wouldn’t make much sense. Don’t go out to look for a job, trust in God and he will bring one to you. Don’t go looking for a house or even prepare food, God’s got that sorted for you too. Okay, the last point is a bit extreme but you get what I’m trying to say.

I am not diminishing the power of the almighty in any way, I just believe we should trust God to do the things we can’t do, not the things we can. Meaning yes, God will provide you with a partner, but that doesn’t mean don’t make a move or don’t approach anyone, and online dating is one form of you making a move. That also doesn’t mean ignore God and spend all your time looking for a partner. Spend time with God regularly, listen and be lead by him. If you do all that and feel the pull towards online dating, then use it, if you don’t feel the pull, then don’t use it. Everybody is different and God knows best so put your trust in him.

As someone who was formerly against online dating, I avoided it for a long time. Although I felt the pull towards it, I ignored it and treated it as a thought planted by the enemy. After almost 2 years of initially feeling the urge, I eventually gave it a try and found the most amazing person in just 5 days. God works in mysterious ways we can’t even begin to understand. If I hadn’t gone online this article, this website and this new opinion I have wouldn’t exist. Most importantly, I would not have met the person God has placed in my life.

Ollie