Marriage That Give Life

Getting Engaged

We should really have sorted out these situations before we get engaged but if we haven’t it is vital to our wellbeing and the wellbeing of our marriage that we give them serious attention before the wedding day. The engagement period is not just to plan the wedding it is a time when we can look at the real motives in our hearts for getting married now that we have narrowed our choice to a single person. It is a time to face up to the challenges that being married as God intended us to be will bring into our lives and whether we are willing to take them on. During the engagement the woman should look at her man to see if he manifests sacrificial love and integrity towards her welcoming her full involvement in God’s plan for their lives so she can give him her trust. The man should look at his woman to see if she manifests trust towards him so she can receive his sacrificial love. The question a man asks himself when thinking of marriage is ‘do I have the integrity to love her sacrificially and lay down my selfishness’ for her, the question a woman asks herself when thinking of marriage is ‘do I trust him enough to submit to his headship and give myself to him. We are not looking for perfection but a heart disposition which gives us confidence that our partner wants to live the way God wants us to live. If a wife doesn’t trust her husband she can’t receive the security his love gives her even though he gives it and if a husband doesn’t love his wife he can’t receive the capability her trust gives him even though she gives it.

The reason for emphasising this issue while we are engaged is because this period of time is our last opportunity to find out whether we are making a mistake and that we have allowed our fixation with romantic love and sexual attraction to blind us to the real person we are marrying. Many men marry a woman they lust after but do not love sacrificially and many women marry a man they romantically love but should not trust thinking that their love will change him. Then they both wonder why their marriage either doesn’t last or becomes a living hell of constant disappointment, frustration and conflict which eventually ends in divorce. If we want to know what someone is really like we should observe how they treat a person who can be of absolutely no use to them (like Jesus and the thief on the cross), old people and animals because it is a good indication of their real character and may contradict how they treat us. People are very good at deceiving each other to get what they want, then, when they get it their true colours come out and we have been trapped into marrying someone who doesn’t really care for us. Because of the goal centred approach to life that men have they will often pursue a woman just for the buzz of a conquest, especially if she is physically attractive, then once they have gained their victory they have no real interest in a lifelong relationship. Women can misinterpret this pursuit thinking they are behaving this way because they love them. This happened to my oldest daughter who was pursued by a work colleague. He did and said all the right things so they became engaged. We were planning the wedding when at an office Christmas party someone else caught his eye. I have always been grateful to God that we only had to pick up the pieces of a broken engagement and not a broken marriage. She now has a wonderful husband and we have three precious grandchildren.

The wedding service warns people not to enter the marriage state lightly but sadly so many do today. If you are reading this and are engaged to be married I earnestly encourage you to consider these things because so many before you have experienced a lot of unnecessary trauma because they didn’t.

Why is the Woman given away and not the Man

The man leaves His family and takes a wife to himself but the women becomes a wife by being given in marriage to her future husband. God placed Eve into the care of Adam because He brought her to him so a man asks the father of his intended bride for permission to take her as his wife. If he says yes the father takes his daughter to the marriage ceremony and gives his daughter into the care of her husband. This is the origin of why the person who is performing the wedding service asks who is giving the woman away and why it is only she who is given away. The parents of the man do not give him away because he leaves his parents first and is already waiting at the church for his bride to be brought to him. Once married the parents role is to support the new couple by seeking to help them develop their unique married life, it is not to impose upon them the parents style of marriage, even if it is a good one.

Check list for getting Married

1. Adam and Eve were already functioning in their roles before they were brought together which means we need to develop the character of a husband or wife long before we get married if it is our desire to become married. We need to start work on ourselves before the event so we are already displaying right attitudes.
2. The man should attract his Eve by his Godliness of character, his commitment to God and what God has called him to do along with his willingness to care and provide,
3. God provided a wife for Adam and a man wanting a wife needs to trust God for his Eve who is the perfectly equipped woman to become part of God’s call on his life, God knows best the needs of our heart and the needs of our calling.
4. God brought Eve to Adam and a woman wanting a husband needs to let God take her to her Adam.
5. God made Eve complete before He brought her to Adam so a woman wanting a husband needs to allow God to develop her into the right woman for the man God has chosen for her so He can take her to him. Hunting for our partner by dating prospective clients means that we are using our perceptions of who we think we need as our standard of who Mr or Mrs right is which means we are looking for a partner who will fit in with us and our desires which puts us rather than God at the centre. This is finding a partner to suit us rather than us becoming the partner to suit someone else. We want a partner who will help us fulfil our personal ambitions but what we need is a partner who will help us become the husband or wife God intended us to be so we will be able have a marriage as God intended it to be. We have so many divorces among Christians because we still conform to the world’s way of finding a partner so we end up with someone who we think is right only to find out later that they are not so right after all then the conflicts begin and we start walking the path that may lead to divorce. This does not stop us being pro-active in finding a partner it just gives us the right perspective like Abraham finding a wife for Isaac Genesis ch 24.
6. Because God’s work and the reflection of His character is central to God’s intention for marriage we can see the foolishness of marrying an unbeliever and the prohibition expressed by Paul in 2 Cor 6:14 – 16Don’t team up with those who are unbelievers. How can righteousness be a partner with wickedness? How can light live with darkness? What harmony can there be between Christ and the devil? How can a believer be a partner with an unbeliever? And what union can there be between God’s temple and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God said: “I will live in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they will be my people. makes perfect sense. It is for the protection of our spiritual life.
7. If we are married to an unbeliever either by choice or because we have been converted after marriage then 1 Cor 7 v 10 – 16 and 1 Pet 3 v 1 – 2In the same way, you wives must accept the authority of your husbands. Then, even if some refuse to obey the Good News, your godly lives will speak to them without any words. They will be won over by observing your pure and reverent lives. can be helpful to finding the way ahead.

The passage in 1 Cor 11 1-17 which is so much misinterpreted makes the relationship of husbands and wives clear because it is not about hats it’s about hearts. This passage is a call to harmonious togetherness serving God according to His original creation not to a constant battle for position and power and is the basis of everything the bible says about the family. Eph Ch 5 22 – 33 clearly defines how the harmony is to be practiced.