Not everyone will get married.
That's one of the consequences of our sin. However, most of us are still meant to get married. We just do foolish things to screw it up. Whether it's seeking a spouse before we surrender to Christ, sleeping with everything that moves, or simply dragging the first dummy that gives us the time of day to the altar, most of us do foolish things that either ensure we never get married at all, or that we marry the wrong person. In my case, I once foolishly thought that any beautiful, single young lady who agreed to hang out outside of church was "the one." So, after screwing myself over enough times, I finally realized the following truths:
1) Not everyone in church is a Christian. In fact, many church members are Satanic individuals sent to destroy and undermine our mission to make disciples of all nations.
2) Some Christians choose to take MUCH longer to become mature, responsible, and obedient individuals than others. For this reason, you can have people who are 82-years-old physically but 2-years-old spiritually. People who are spiritually immature are usually emotionally and mentally immature, too. If you marry someone like this, you will babysit them until they grow up, which could take years or decades if it ever happens at all, and you will be miserable.
One day, after yet another romantic disaster, I went to a sermon held by one of my favorite pastors. He clearly taught his congregation the RIGHT way to find a spouse.
1) The man must honor and obey Jesus Christ with His entire being
2) When the man does this, the woman whom Jesus Christ has set aside for him as his wife will recognize this and draw close to him, aiding him in his goal to glorify and honor Christ by conforming to His image.
One real life example of this is Boaz and Ruth. Boaz was a wealthy landowner who focused on being a godly man above all. He was probably in his 40s or 50s; in ancient Israel, becoming a wealthy landowner usually took a lot of time and diligence. However, he remained focused on Jesus Christ (whom at that time had only revealed Himself as "I am"), which is why he was tough but fair to his laborers and stayed sexually pure, which was unusual for a man of his social status. Then, right when he least expected it, Ruth, a beautiful widow from Moab (probably in her mid-to-late twenties), showed up to work in his field to provide for her mother-in-law, Naomi. People praised her character to him, he protected her and gave her extra crops to gather, and long story short, she actually proposed to him! Before this, both individuals had come to faith in the pre-incarnate Christ (Ruth converted while still in Moab with Naomi) and demonstrated this by being sexually pure*! For this reason, they had a joyful and faithful marriage, one that resulted in them being the great-grandparents of King David!
Boaz and Ruth are a clear example of the right way to find a spouse. Again, this is IF Christ has chosen to bless us with one and IF we haven't done something stupid to screw it up. Yes, there are couples that survive and even receive marital bliss in spite of great personal failures. However, they usually spend extra time in the valley of the shadow of death for their errors in judgment and their sins before Christ decides to show them grace.
So if we are truly determine to find a spouse, we must dedicate ourselves to Christ first. And even after we marry our spouse, we must remember that our chief goal as a couple is to preach the gospel so that the world knows that complete and unconditional surrender to Jesus Christ is the only way to avoid burning in the Lake of Fire forever. "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23).
*Boaz did not have multiple wives or concubines, which makes it clear that he was sexually pure at the time. Also, he praised Ruth for not seeking after the younger men, which makes it clear that 1) She was still young and attractive 2) She chose to make an honest living instead of throwing herself at every man of means who came near her or resorting to prostitution, which would have been much very easy for her to do as an attractive young woman from a foreign country.
