In preparation for employment in the bigger world, students study and ask questions for no less than 12 to 16 years or more. They do this in class, from strangers, bullies, and just about anyone that can help. They yield to endless torments, stay up late at night, give up endless opportunities to have fun, and so on.
Hoping to get a job by going for a job interview, people inquire from those who may have worked there, study the specifics of that workplace, simulate an interview session, and study, just to be equipped to find acceptance.
Expecting a baby, families acquire baby things in preparation; even if the child is adopted, they still prepare to welcome the child.
To celebrate an occasion of any sort, people blah, blah, blah… You get the point, yes?
In none of these instances do the people involved focus only on their dressing, the decor, or on just how they will appear.
Except of course, for marriage ceremonies. Typically called ‘wedding events.’
Have you considered that people (Christians and non-Christians alike) consciously or unconsciously spend their singlehood preparing for a ‘wedding day’ instead of an extended period of time relationship known as marriage? You spend longer being married than you typically have spent being single or living with anyone including your close family. For such a long journey, (anything from 30-60 years), shouldn’t you prepare rather extensively?
And if it is God’s will for you to marry, just how exactly are you preparing?
First, could this be the primary reason for marriage according to the Holy Book?
READ ALSO: SHOULD EVERYONE MARRY?
LOVE
Eph 5:22-25 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and He is the savior of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it;
Eph 5:31-32 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and will be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This mystery is great – but am actually speaking with reference to Christ and the church. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she respect her husband.?
Learning God’s love is a major reason for marriage. Marriage is a chance to give and receive love: to your spouse, children, and above all, the maker of marriage – God.
Have you learned to love the people around you? Your love for your spouse can only be gotten from God.
1 John 4:19-20 We love because he loved us first. If anyone says “I love God” and yet hates his fellow Christian, he is a liar, because the one who does not love his fellow Christian whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
1 Cor 13:4-7 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Before pre-marital tease to post-marital bliss.
There is a rocky journey ahead that no one can miss.
But with the Word as a guide and truth as a guide,
we’ll conquer all foes if we prepare with all our might.
READ ALSO: THE MARRIAGE GUIDE SERIES