Unfortunately we won't be featuring our guest blogger for today's love chronicle series due to circumstances beyond all our control. The post will be up ASAP but in it's place we are featuring extracts from an article we think you would all enjoy. Before marriage we believe you have to do your due diligence and go into it well informed.
This article poses some questions you should ask yourself and intending before tying the knot. The courtship period is meant to get to know each other better in and out. Apart from counseling in church, I remember my hubby and I went over the manual "
Before you say 'I do'" by H. Norman Wright and Wes Roberts. It shed a lot of light into our relationship and helped us to ask ourselves questions we didn't think about initially. I definitely recommend that manual.
So we will be sharing some of the key questions from the article with you. If you would like to read the complete article it can be found
here.
Are you willing to grow up? Your own maturity level,
and that of your spouse, will determine how well you all can work
together in marriage and how likely you all will be to stick with your
relationship or give up on it. So each of you needs to honestly assess
your current spiritual, emotional, social, and financial maturity by
reflecting on issues such as how much self-control you each have, how
much you respect authority, how much you can say “no” to some activities
so you can say “yes” to those that are best for you, how much peace
versus drama you have in your relationships with others, how often you
keep your promises and follow through on commitments, whether or not you
have a job that pays your bills, and whether or not you’re in debt.
Are you “equally yoked”? It’s never God’s will for you
to be yoked (tied together) in marriage with someone who’s not a
Christian, because
a person who’s not connected to Jesus can’t head in
the same direction as you can. Don’t deceive yourself into thinking that
you can pull an unbelieving spouse closer to Jesus; what happens
instead in marriages between believers and unbelievers is that the
unbelieving spouse pulls the believing spouse further away from Jesus.
Realize that you can fall in love with anyone you happen to be attracted
to, but that doesn’t mean that you should marry them.
Have you talked about money? Disclose all of your
financial information to the person you’re considering marrying, and
expect full disclosure from him or her, too.
Talk about how each of you
plans to earn, spend, save, give, and invest money if you get married,
and why. If you discover that one or both of you doesn’t currently have a
healthy budget or healthy money management attitudes or habits,
get
help and make changes before getting married to save yourselves from
having to go through tremendous stress afterward.
Will you commit? Marriage as God designed it requires a
lifetime commitment. So you and the person you’re considering marrying
should face your fears about that and discuss issues such as how you
plan to handle disagreements and crises that may come up in your future
marriage, such as illness and job loss. Determine whether or not both of
you are willing to trade the lives you have now for a new life
together, and whether or not you’re willing to eliminate the option of
divorce and keep turning to God for the strength to keep working on your
marriage.
Are you compatible? R
ealize that just because you love
someone doesn’t mean that person is a good match for you. Honestly
evaluate which personality traits and personal habits you can live with
for many decades in a future marriage, and which will drive your
marriage apart. Let go of any person who isn’t truly compatible with you
to save you both years of heartache.
Have you communicated your expectations? Discuss each
of your expectations about married life, such as where you’d live, where
you’d go to church, when you’d start trying to have children and how
many children you want, and what types of careers and work hours you
each hope to have. Since surprising each other after you’re married will
cause lots of stress, i
t’s much better to talk about your expectations
beforehand and see if you can reach agreements before committing to
married life together.
Are you ready to marry an entire family? Get to know
each other’s family backgrounds well, since each of you will carry over
the attitudes and behaviors that you learned growing up into the new
family that you create together. Pursue healing for issues that concern
either of you (such as anger management problems or addictions) and end
the dating relationship if you discover character problems (
such as a
lack of integrity) that the person you’re considering marrying isn’t
willing to address.
Are you willing to submit? Each of you must be willing
to submit to Jesus in obedience in your life together, to express honor
and respect for Him. That means mutually following Jesus’ example of
loving service to others. Never try to control each other, but instead
choose to serve each other even when doing so is difficult, just as
Jesus served others when He was on Earth. Through this process in your
future marriage, God will help each of you become more like Jesus.
Will you give respect? You each must also be willing
to
respect each other – even when you don’t think that the other
deserves that respect – because God has made you both and highly values
you. By choosing to respect your future spouse when he or she doesn’t
deserve it, you can motivate your spouse to change and begin acting in
ways that are worthy of respect.
Are you ready to love? Realize that l
ove is an action,
not just a feeling. Are you prepared to act in love toward your future
spouse, even at times when you don’t like his or her behavior? Some of
the ways you’ll need to show your love include listening, protecting,
providing, and serving each other, no matter what.
Are you ready to “get naked”? Understand that sexual
intimacy within marriage involves far more than just a physical
connection; it also calls for a
spiritual, emotional, and conversational
connection. How do you plan to build the kind of relationship with each
other that makes healthy and fulfilling sexual intimacy possible in
your future marriage? Discuss that openly and honestly with each other.
Adapted from
12 Questions to Ask Before You Marry,copyright 2011 by Clayton and Charie King.
