Should We Get Married?

Since you are planning on getting married, it is vital that you consider your general and specific reasons. Why do you want to get married in the first place? Are you sure that you have the right person in a world full of potential candidates?

Before you allow those questions to sideline you with unwelcome doubt regarding your engagement, you best wrestle with those questions now, or they will overtake you later. It would help if you articulated why you desire to get married and precisely why you want to be married to this person. Your fiancé probably fascinates, fixes, furthers, or fulfills you in a way that no other person has.

My Engagement Dilemma

It may seem odd, but I knew I wanted to propose to my girlfriend when I couldn’t be around her for months. You might think that proximity sealed the deal, but having to experience cutoff communication caused me to realize my treasure in her. I was serving as a summer missionary overseas, and we could not contact any person back home for some time due to security reasons with our group. I was growing spiritually during those long weeks, but God also poignantly clarified His direction for me at that time.

I knew I wanted to serve God, but I also learned I didn’t want to follow Him alone. I prayed about my future often that summer. The burden in my heart for God’s work was only intensifying, so anyone willing to accompany me for life would be unable to know practically what that would entail. Regardless of vocational aspirations, any person cannot anticipate the future. If couples knew what awaited them after the moment they repeated “for better or for worse,” they might have second thoughts. Life is unpredictable, and we never know what awaits us. At that pivotal time, I wanted to ensure that any potential relationship would further His direction for my life rather than frustrate it. I desired the same for that person too.

I read and reread the Apostle Paul’s teaching on marriage and considered if I could legitimately follow God single. Paul reasoned that serving Jesus in this world would bring trouble, and if you had the security of a spouse to consider, that would only create additional challenges (1 Cor. 7:28-35). Marriage isn’t sinful, but it does dramatically increase responsibilities. As a follower of Jesus, you still have to maintain the same pace and fervor but add extra considerations to caring for a spouse wholeheartedly. In Paul’s uncertain times, he knew that his ministry would be complicated if he had to consider how to protect his spouse and care for her if he was threatened, imprisoned, or killed.

With those words, I wrestled. Could I follow Jesus on my own? In reality, my desire to be married would remain a distraction. I wanted to follow Jesus, but I wanted to follow Him with her beside me. And that’s precisely what Paul was trying to express. “I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord” (1 Cor. 7:35).

If you can be more dedicated to Jesus as a single person, then stay single. If you can be more dedicated to Jesus as a married person, then get married.

On the other side of the world, I reasoned that I could follow Jesus better with her than without her, and everything changed. During that summer and the college years we were apart, I desired her even when she was absent more than someone else who might have been nearer and thereby more relationally convenient. I truly believed that she could help me be who Jesus was calling me to be, and I could do the same for her.

Your Personal Dilemma

Have you considered what God has you on this earth to accomplish? Knowing where God has called you to go can better ensure that the person you believe to be your traveling partner is heading in the same direction. Marriage should provide a healthy relationship primed to strengthen your most important relationship. In the previous chapter, we looked at how God has designed us uniquely. We now need to discover what He expects marriage to accomplish in order to help one another practically fulfill His calling on our lives.

No relationship will affect your life as significantly as whom you choose to marry. If you’re not careful, you may quickly find someone to walk alongside who could potentially steer you in a different direction from what the One who called you to follow in the first place. Marriage seeks to help us glorify God and find greater joy in this life. The original union sought to address an underlying need for both Adam and Eve – it was a solution to a particular type of isolation. God created marriage to address the fact that He saw them as helpless and alone, and that reality also applies to us.