Finding a Spouse in the World We Actually Live In
Some Realistic Strategies for a Culture That Thinks Marriage Is Optional
Proverbs says, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.” That verse carries two assumptions: a good spouse is a rare blessing, and you actually have to look. Jewels don’t jump into your pocket. They’re mined. Another assumption is that if it’s good to find a wife, it's also good for a woman to be found by a godly man.
That search used to be hard enough. It’s even harder now. Most older Christians give advice drawn from a world that doesn’t exist anymore: one untouched by social media, pornography, delayed adulthood, broken homes, and the casual sexual chaos that now passes as normal. The landscape has changed. The old paths are still true, but the terrain they run through is different.
Before I deal with the terrain, I want to tell you a quick story.
The Way It Used to Be
I met Emily in 1998 at a Bible study I was teaching. I was a senior in high school. She was a freshman. Neither of us remembers the first time we met, which tells you something about “love at first sight.” We weren’t each other’s type. But one night she cried in group because classmates were mocking her for becoming a Christian. The sincerity of her faith and her natural beauty hit me at once.
Unbeknownst to me, she’d already noticed me too.
We became fast friends and wrote each other letters, actual letters, for months. When I finally told her I was interested, I also told her something else: “I’m going into ministry. I’ll probably be broke, gone a lot, and disliked. If you can’t imagine that life, let’s stay friends.” I figured that would end things. It didn’t.
Our parents were involved. Our church supported marriage, children, and homemaking. There was no social media. I didn’t have internet porn in my past. We married young; she was nineteen, and the internet had played zero role in our relationship.
Almost no one gets that combination today.
And that’s my point.
The Tsunamis
Think of culture as a coastline hit by a century of tsunamis: feminism, the sexual revolution, no-fault divorce, birth control, abortion, high-speed internet, smartphones, and social media. Each wave crashes in and then drags everything back out to sea, reshaping the landscape. The coastline after a tsunami is still the coastline, but it’s not the same place.
That’s where you’re trying to find a spouse.
If you act like nothing has changed, you’re going to get tossed around. So here are three major challenges you must navigate and one mindset that makes the whole task survivable.
1. The Danger of Delaying Marriage, and Rushing It
Marriage is normal. It’s the way God designed men and women to build homes, raise children, and fill the world with image-bearers. Singleness has a purpose, but Scripture assumes most people will marry.
Yet today marriage is happening later and later. Median ages have climbed by close to a decade over the last 70 years. Fewer people marry at all. Porn use is rampant. Sexual history is a mess. Even in the church, there is drift.
Paul said, “It is better to marry than to burn,” and the Westminster Larger Catechism even warns against delaying marriage unnecessarily.
But here’s the balancing truth: rushing marriage is just as foolish.
People talk as if marrying at sixteen was once normal. It wasn’t. Through most of Western history, women married around nineteen to twenty-two, and men in their mid-twenties. “Very young marriage” was never the historical norm; it was the exception.
J.C. Ryle warned that thoughtless marriage is one of the most fertile causes of misery. That was true then and now.
So don’t drag your feet. But don’t sprint blindfolded either. You need maturity: emotional, spiritual, financial. Exceptions exist, but you don’t build your life on exceptions. Getting shot in the head isn’t always fatal, but you don’t make it a strategy.
2. The Danger of No Standards—and Impossible Standards
Modern dating, especially dating apps, teaches people to filter potential spouses as if ordering a custom product:
He must be 6’2”
She must be under 25
He must make six figures
She must have red hair
He must love the same niche hobbies
Pretty soon there’s no one left.
Pornography has only made the problem worse. It trains you to expect a bespoke fantasy instead of a real human being. The more particular you get, the smaller your pool becomes.
Have standards. But hold them with a loose hand.
Maybe the brunette twenty-seven-year-old who loves the Lord would make you an excellent wife.
Maybe the 5’10” junior salesman making $50k will grow into a strong leader and provider.
You’re not looking for a museum piece. You’re looking for someone with whom to build a life.
Ladies: consider a man if he’s godly, masculine, and respectable.
Men: consider a woman if she’s godly, feminine, and warm.
If you’re waiting for a spouse who checks every box in your fantasy list, you’re not wise; you’re delusional.
3. The Danger of Gnostic Christianity, and Reductive Biology
The Bible holds body and spirit together. We’re not angels trapped in meat nor animals trapped in instincts. We are embodied souls.
Two modern errors wreck dating:
Gnostic Christianity
This treats the body as unimportant. It’s the “all that matters is the heart” crowd. They ignore physical attraction, health, femininity, and masculinity, as if these things were irrelevant or unspiritual.
Biological Reductionism
This treats man like a machine built for appetites. “If it feels good, it’s natural. Go with it.” That mindset built the porn industry.
Both are lies.
Character matters. But physicality matters too. Men and women are drawn to traits that align with the creation mandate: beauty, strength, competence, and fruitfulness.
It’s not shallow to desire a spouse whose body, manner, and abilities fit the work God gave husbands and wives. Calvin put it bluntly: he wanted a wife who was virtuous, obedient, thrifty, patient, and able, and yes, he cared about beauty, but within its proper place.
Spiritualize everything, and you become weird. Materialize everything, and you become a fool.
The Mindset You Need: A Heavenly Perspective
Marriage is a blessing, but it’s not ultimate. If you make marriage your identity, you’ll become clingy, anxious, and unattractive.
If Christ is your center, you can approach dating with joyful steadiness instead of desperation. That steadiness looks like strength. It feels like gravity. It reads as confidence.
An eternal mindset gives you the peaceful swagger you need in the search.
Sharpening the Axe
Ecclesiastes says that if the axe is dull, you have to swing harder. Wisdom sharpens your edge. Finding a spouse takes a lot of swinging the axe: emotionally, socially, spiritually. If you do it foolishly, you’ll wear yourself out and hurt yourself in the process.
So here are a few sharpened tactics: lean, clear, and doable.
1. Become the kind of person someone wants to find
Attraction isn’t random. Men want feminine beauty, warmth, responsiveness, and the industriousness Scripture praises in Proverbs 31. Women want masculine strength, competence, leadership, confidence, and direction commended throughout Proverbs.
You don’t need to be perfect. But you do need to be growing.
Become a man with a mission. Become a woman capable of multiplying a shared mission. Strengthen your body. Strengthen your character. Strengthen your skillset. Quit assuming someone should love you “as you are” when even you don’t want to stay as you are.
2. Interact with many people
Courtship models built for intact families and early marriage don’t translate cleanly to a world of delayed adulthood, broken homes, and high mobility. You don’t need a father’s permission to grab coffee with someone while you gauge interest.
Operate in stages:
Interested but not exclusive — low pressure, exploratory
Interested and exclusive — intentional evaluation
Engaged — mutual confidence, with community affirmation
This keeps things clear without turning every cup of coffee into a covenant.
3. Interested is interesting
People are drawn to those who show actual curiosity: about them, about the world, about life. Ask questions. Pay attention. Don’t stare at your phone. Don’t treat people like interview candidates. Be human.
4. Have fun
Joy is attractive. Seriousness without joy makes you look brittle. Lighten up. Do things that actually bring delight. A miserable person is hard to date.
5. Catch someone on the way up
Finished products don’t exist. The people you envy as “complete packages” got married early enough that they could grow into those roles with their spouse. Find someone with potential and character, and build a life together.
Get Started
You don’t need the perfect plan. You need motion. Start anywhere. Sharpen what you can. Don’t obsess over every flaw like a producer who spends ten hours adjusting a single track. In the final mix of marriage, a lot of individual imperfections fade.
Strike out. Look for the good thing God commends. And pursue it with wisdom, steadiness, and confidence rooted in Christ, not in your own performance.
That’s how you find a spouse in an age that’s lost its mind: not by panic, not by fantasy, but by faithfulness and clarity in the middle of the rubble.
Painting By Victor Gabriel Gilbert Repro