Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Soul Mates: Do They Exist?

Today I’m going to talk about something that has caused me grief for a long time. So, I’ll apologize now if this post ends up being super long. I’d like to talk today about soul mates and how we find them. Everybody may not admit it, but most people hope that there is a soul mate out there for them. It’s comforting to think that, somewhere in the world, there is a perfect match for you; a yin to your yang. Everybody has probably had that dream in which we are with that perfect person. I know I have. It’s nice to think about, but very unrealistic. I’m not trying to be negative or anything, quite the contrary. I’m just saying that there couldn’t possibly be just one perfect match for you. The odds of actually finding that person are astronomical. I wholeheartedly believe that the perfect person for anybody is whoever we decide to make them.

We have been given free agency, so why don’t we use it? I’m positive that God didn’t put us on this earth to only be with a specific person. (The only people he did that to were Adam & Eve.) We’ve been given the ability to choose who we want to be with. And it is our choice, no one else’s.

This brings me to my second part of today’s post. The person we choose to be with forever and all eternity is our choice and our choice alone. Too often I hear of great relationships ending because one person got an answer to a prayer saying that they are not supposed to be with the other person. This is nonsense. We shouldn’t be praying for an answer to every single choice we have to make. We have free agency, remember? People need to learn to make up their minds for themselves. If you’re dating someone and are unsure of whether you should be with that person, then decide for yourself whether it’s right. Asking God to decide for you isn’t the way to go. You’re going to know how you really feel about the person you’re dating. They’re your feelings, not God’s. I’m not trying to discount prayer in anyway, but it seems to me that if God had wanted to make all of our decisions for us, he wouldn’t have given us that great gift of free agency. Besides, didn’t we all learn in primary that during the war in heaven the leader of the side that lost wanted to make all our decisions for us? And isn’t that why he lost? It was a bad idea and our Father didn’t want things to be that way. He wanted us to be able to make our own decisions, whether they were good or bad.

I know there are going to be a lot of people who read this who disagree with me, but that’s just too bad. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and this is mine. But I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Do you think there really is only one person out there for us or not? How do you feel about the topic of praying about being with somebody? Leave me a comment and let me know.

2 comments:

  1. "Asking God to decide for you isn’t the way to go."
    I couldn't agree with that statement more. I believe it was in seminary once where my teacher said "Decide what you want and then ask God if it's right. God can only answer yes or no."

    On the topic of "soulmates", I don't believe there is just one "perfect match" for you out there, I think there are many people you could live "happily ever after" with. The trick is finding one of them.

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  2. I'm glad that we're on the same page here. I was so worried that people were going to be mad at me for my point of view. (which they still could be.) And I think that one of my seminary teachers said the exact same thing that your did. I think a general authority did too, but I can't remember which one. I think your oldest brother knows who it was though.

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