What about free will? I don’t believe, and Scripture doesn’t teach, that God controls us like automatons or puppets. As the quote above from the Confession states, God doesn’t force us to act contrary to our wills. God doesn’t make us choose a particular person to marry. And we certainly can’t say that we have no responsibility for our actions. As the Confession also points out, God is not the author of sin. We are capable of making very bad, very sinful decisions. This can include deciding who to marry.

God, from all eternity, did—by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will—freely and unchangeably ordain whatever comes to pass. Yet he ordered all things in such a way that he is not the author of sin, nor does he force his creatures to act against their wills; neither is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established. Westminster Confession of Faith 3.1

Last week, I wrote an article on God’s providence and marriage. Several questions were raised that I want to address in this post: What about free will? If God has a plan for who you marry, can you marry the wrong person? Can you use God’s plan for your life as an excuse to divorce? If God’s providence includes marriage, does that mean marriage will be wonderful and without difficulty?

As a starting point, it’s important to remember that the issue God’s providence and man’s responsibility is one that has been debated forever. Much like the doctrine of the Trinity, this issue is hard to understand and difficult to get a handle on. Anyone who says they fully understand it is kidding themselves. I know that I don’t have it all figured out, so what I offer here are simply my thoughts on the matter.

What about free will? I don’t believe, and Scripture doesn’t teach, that God controls us like automatons or puppets. As the quote above from the Confession states, God doesn’t force us to act contrary to our wills. God doesn’t make us choose a particular person to marry. And we certainly can’t say that we have no responsibility for our actions. As the Confession also points out, God is not the author of sin. We are capable of making very bad, very sinful decisions. This can include deciding who to marry.

If God has a plan for who you marry, can you marry the wrong person? Short answer: nope. This is a common misunderstanding/misapplication of Scripture and the doctrine of God’s sovereignty. God does not have a secret, hidden, mystical plan for your life that you must diligently seek to decipher and that you can therefore miss if you fail to decipher it correctly.

It’s true that we are not privy to all the why’s and how’s of God’s providence, but we cannot act in such a way as to thwart God’s will. So, can you marry the “wrong” person? No, but you can make poor choices that you’ll have to live with. Which brings me to my next question.

Can you use God’s plan for your life as an excuse to divorce? Again, the short answer is “no.” Even if you’ve made very bad, very sinful decisions, you have not missed out on God’s plan for your life. There is not someone out there that God meant for you to marry instead. ”God didn’t plan for me to marry you” is not a biblical reason for divorce.

Just as a side note, I do believe that there are biblical reasons for divorce. These include adultery, desertion, and abuse (which is a form of desertion). These reasons for divorce are not what I’m talking about here. What I’m talking about here is the frequently cited “irreconcilable differences” type of divorce. This leads to my last question.

If God’s providence includes marriage, does that mean marriage will be wonderful and without difficulty? And the corollary: If my marriage is hard work, does that mean I married the wrong person and we should get divorced? As I said in the previous answer, there are biblical reasons for divorce, but marriage is hard work is not one of them.

There are several issues at play here. First, I am a sinner (saved by grace, but still prone to sin). Second, I’m married to a sinner (also saved by grace, but still prone to sin). Third, the world we live in is damaged by sin and the effects of the fall. Because of these, in my marriage, I will sin and make my marriage difficult at times. Other times, my husband will sin and make our marriage hard work. And beyond both of us, the circumstances of the world we live in will bring pain and difficulty into our marriage.

Marriage is hard work. Sometimes it’s our fault, sometimes it isn’t. But the difficulties that we encounter are not proof that we’ve somehow missed God’s plan for our lives nor are they an excuse to break our marriage vows.

To summarize, God’s providence for our lives does include who we marry. However, we are still responsible for the choices we make. We may make bad choices, and we may have to live with the results of our choices. Even in our poor decisions, we can’t miss God’s plan for our lives. God’s providence includes even the difficult things in our lives. Our comfort is not in a promise that life will be easy, but that God is sovereign and that nothing happens (even the bad things) outside of His will.

Rachel Miller is News Editor for the Aquila Report. She is also a homeschooling mother of 3 boys and member of a PCA church in Spring, Texas. This article  first appeared on her blog, A Daughter of the Reformation, and is used with permission.