"Looking For The One"

I had this question/response in the previous post:

1. Describe a time in your life when you were relieved God didn't give you something you asked Him for, and why.
I had a nice post-relationship friendship with an ex-girlfriend. She was even in our wedding, good friends with Vicki. But no, God answered correctly with the lovely hubba-hubba I am espoused to now, thankyouverymuch.

... and it invoked this comment:

I just randomly landed on your blog and I want to ask you about the first question. How God answered to you? How you make certain that it was God's answer? I see you are very happy with your wife, so obviously it doesn't matter, whether it was God or not. But... just that I want to have this wisdom and courage too... I mean all the young people are looking for the one. The one, who is in God's will. - Andreas from Estonia

Wow, that's a huge question, with huge answers and more deep questions to follow. So I pulled it out to "comment" here, Andreas - let me know if you've surfed back through, and how this fits with what you're asking.

When Donna asked the question, the first thing that popped into my mind is that life as I'd planned it coming out of high school wasn't as it turned out when I was living it coming out of college four years later. I think we see what's going on around us, we pray for God's blessing and for His guidance in a general sense, and then we probably pray specifically, "Lead me here, Lord - prepare the way for me there." Or we say, "Thank You for leading me here, for putting these people in my life", and live it out on a certain trajectory together.

But when it didn't work out, when that dating relationship fizzled and time passed before meeting the eventual love-of-my-life, I had to decide that I loved God more than that or any other relationship. I needed to love and be loved by Christ. He needed to fill in the empty spots - looking for someone to do that would be unfair to them and unfulfilling to me in the long run. I've found that I am like everyone else - looking for meaningful relationship, for engaging interaction with just a few people who are on the same page going the same way. It's a journey together, and we usually seek to fill that space with clubs or youth groups or dating stuff or other people before seeking to be filled in Christ alone.

The only way we "know" that we're hearing from God, that He's hearing our prayers, that He's paying attention, is that we are listening to Him and paying attention to Him in prayer and in the Bible. We have to interact with God, not just pray and expect Him to act on our behalf, but really pursue Him no matter what. He is the only one who can complete us, can make us feel whole like that - and then He can lead someone else into our lives, or not, as He pleases and as we follow hard after Him.

How's that?