Maybe you don’t believe in God.
Or maybe you believe there probably is a God, but you’re not particularly religious. You pray when things get bad. You wonder sometimes. You have questions you can’t quite answer.
And yet somehow, you found yourself asking: Why did this person come into my life?
Maybe the relationship was unlike anything you had experienced before. Maybe you loved someone you never expected to love. Maybe everything seemed to line up perfectly, and then somehow fell completely apart.
Maybe they left. Maybe you left. Maybe they came back. And somewhere in the middle of trying to understand them, you started wondering about God. What if that isn’t an accident? This is Part Three of a series about why God brings people into our lives. But this time, we’re going to ask a different question.
What if God’s purpose for bringing two people together is affected by each person’s relationship with Him?
And perhaps an even bigger question:
What if God brought someone into your life not simply so you could find each other—but so one or both of you might eventually find Him?
Not Every Relationship Begins With Two People Walking With God
When Christians talk about God bringing two people together, we often imagine two faithful believers praying, waiting patiently, and eventually being brought together by divine providence. Sometimes that happens.
But life is considerably messier than that. Sometimes two Christians meet. Sometimes a Christian falls deeply in love with someone who doesn’t believe. Sometimes two people who want absolutely nothing to do with God find each other. And sometimes two people both call themselves Christians while having completely different relationships with God.
One may be pursuing Him. One may simply believe He exists. One may pray every day but struggle to distinguish God’s direction from their own desires. And one may not be certain there’s a God at all. Yet they meet. So where is God in all of this?
Two People Walking With God
When two people are genuinely pursuing God, something exists in the relationship beyond attraction, compatibility, chemistry, or shared interests. There is a common center. That doesn’t mean the relationship will be easy. It doesn’t even necessarily mean the relationship is supposed to last forever.
God can bring one believer into another believer’s life to encourage them, challenge them, correct them, prepare them, teach them, or change the direction of their life. Proverbs 27:17 tells us:
“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”
Sometimes the purpose of a relationship isn’t simply happiness. Sometimes it is transformation. Two people walking with God have an opportunity to ask something beyond, “What do I want from this relationship?” They can ask: “What does God want to do through it?”
Those are very different questions.
What Happens When Only One Person Is Walking With God?
This is where things become complicated. Scripture warns believers about becoming unequally yoked with unbelievers (2 Corinthians 6:14). The picture is agricultural. Two animals joined beneath the same yoke must move together. If one is pulling toward one destination while the other is pulling somewhere else, eventually something suffers.
Relationships can work the same way. One person may be trying to move closer to God while the other has no interest in going there. But here’s an important distinction:
God allowing two people to meet does not necessarily mean God approves of everything they choose to build from that meeting.
We sometimes assume that because someone entered our life in an extraordinary way, every decision involving that person must therefore have God’s endorsement.
That doesn’t necessarily follow. Perhaps God brought someone into your life so you could influence them. Perhaps they were meant to influence you. Perhaps the relationship exposed something in you that needed to change. Perhaps you planted a seed that won’t grow for another ten years.
Perhaps they did the same for you.
Divine purpose in an encounter does not automatically mean divine approval of every relationship we create from it.
But What About Two People Who Don’t Believe?
This may be the most interesting question of all. Does God care about a relationship between two people who don’t acknowledge Him? I believe He does. The Bible doesn’t describe God as existing only in the lives of people who already believe in Him.
In Acts 17, Paul speaks to people who did not know the God he was preaching. He tells them that God established the times and places in which people live so that they might seek Him, reach for Him, and find Him.
Think about that. Someone doesn’t have to recognize God for God to already be present in their story. Two atheists can meet. They can fall in love. They can marry. They can build a family. They can experience loyalty, sacrifice, heartbreak, forgiveness, joy and loss. And somewhere along that journey, one of them might begin asking questions.
Why did I meet you? Why does this feel different? Why did losing you change me? Why can’t I shake the feeling that there was a reason for all of this?
Maybe they don’t believe in God. But suddenly they’re wondering. And sometimes wondering is where seeking begins.
“I Don’t Really Believe in God, But…”
There may be someone reading this right now who wouldn’t call themselves a Christian. Maybe you haven’t been inside a church in twenty years. Maybe you’ve never opened a Bible. Maybe you’ve seen enough hypocrisy from religious people that you decided you wanted nothing to do with any of it.
But something happened. Someone entered your life. And now you’re asking questions you didn’t used to ask. Was this supposed to happen? Was there a reason we met? Did I somehow mess up something that was meant for me? Why isn’t this working the way I thought it should?
And maybe, buried underneath all those questions, is another one you haven’t wanted to ask:
What if God really is there?
If that’s you, I’m not going to tell you your relationship failed because you didn’t believe enough. Faith isn’t a transaction. Christianity doesn’t teach that if you believe hard enough, God will give you the person you want. Maybe the more important question isn’t why God hasn’t fixed your relationship. Maybe it’s:
Why has this relationship caused you to start thinking about God?
When We Mistake Our Desires for God’s Voice
There’s another side to this that Christians need to confront. Believing in God doesn’t automatically mean we’re good at hearing Him. People sometimes say: “God told me to date this person.” “God told me to leave.” “God told me this person is my soulmate.” “God told me I’m supposed to start over.” And later: “God is punishing me because I made the wrong decision.” But sincerity doesn’t necessarily equal discernment.
Scripture warns that our own desires can lead us astray. It also warns that deception can sometimes appear righteous and attractive. Paul even warns in 2 Corinthians 11:14 that Satan can disguise himself as an angel of light.
But there is also a possibility we sometimes overlook. Sometimes it isn’t God. Sometimes it isn’t Satan. Sometimes it’s us. Sometimes we want something so badly that we convince ourselves God wants it too. That is why spiritual discernment requires more than a feeling. Does it agree with Scripture? Does it produce godly fruit? Does it require us to compromise things God has already made clear? Have wise people who genuinely know us raised concerns? Are we seeking God’s will, or God’s permission for something we’ve already decided to do?
Those can be uncomfortable questions. But they matter.
Consequences Aren’t Always Punishment
Then something goes wrong. The relationship collapses. Money disappears. Addiction returns. A career falls apart. Someone ends up alone. And suddenly we ask: “Is God punishing me?” Maybe. Scripture certainly teaches divine discipline and judgment. But we should be extremely careful about claiming to know exactly why God allowed a particular painful event.
Sometimes consequences are simply consequences. Walk into fire and you get burned. Build your life around destructive people and destruction may eventually reach you. Make decisions while ignoring warning signs and eventually those warning signs can become realities.
God doesn’t necessarily have to manufacture suffering to punish us. Sometimes our choices are perfectly capable of producing suffering on their own. But here’s where grace enters the story: God can use consequences He didn’t need to create.
He can use the broken relationship. He can use the failure. He can use the loneliness. He can use the moment when everything we thought would make us happy finally collapses. Not simply to punish us. But to turn us around. Conviction says: Come back. Condemnation says: You’re getting what you deserve. Those are not the same message.
Jesus told the story of a son who took his inheritance, left his father, wasted everything and eventually found himself completely broken. When the son finally came home, the father wasn’t waiting at the door with a list of punishments. He ran toward him. Maybe you’ve been interpreting the consequences of your choices as evidence that God wants nothing to do with you.
What if they’re the circumstances that finally caused you to turn around and look toward home?
Maybe the Relationship Wasn’t the Destination
This brings us back to the original question. Why does God bring people together? Sometimes for companionship. Sometimes for marriage. Sometimes for friendship. Sometimes to teach us. Sometimes to expose us. Sometimes to prepare us. Sometimes to redirect us. And sometimes, perhaps, because another human being can reach a place inside us that nothing else could reach.
That person may make us confront our selfishness. Our wounds. Our addictions. Our fears. Our pride. Our capacity to love. Our capacity to forgive. Our need to be forgiven. And eventually, our need for something larger than ourselves. Maybe that’s why some relationships affect us so profoundly. We thought the entire story was about finding another person.
But God may have been using that person to awaken something much deeper.
The Relationship Beneath the Relationship
Maybe you’ve spent months trying to understand why they left. Maybe you’ve spent years wondering why you met. Maybe they disappeared and suddenly returned. Maybe you keep replaying every conversation, every mistake and every moment when things could have gone differently. Maybe you’re asking:
“Why did God bring this person into my life if we weren’t going to end up together?”
That’s a fair question. But after three parts of asking why God brings people together, perhaps it’s time to ask something else. What if the most important relationship in this story isn’t the one you’ve been obsessing over? What if God isn’t asking you to understand them first? What if He’s asking you to seek Him?
Because whether two Christians meet, a believer loves an unbeliever, two unbelievers somehow find one another, or two people who barely understand God stumble through life together, there is still one relationship underneath all the others.
Our relationship with God.
And perhaps that relationship changes how we understand every other one. You may have come here trying to understand why God brought that person into your life. But perhaps the better question is: Why did that person bring God into your thoughts? Maybe the relationship wasn’t the only thing you were supposed to find.
Maybe somewhere along the way, you were supposed to start looking for Him.
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