How To Serve Your Future Husband During Your Engagement
Other than Joseph and Mary, we hear very little about being engaged or betrothed in the Bible. This time period or stage in a relationship from the outside may appear blissful in knowing that two will become one and in a few months you and your loved ones will get to celebrate the union of two people.
While there is a lot of excitement around being engaged, shopping for a wedding dress, picking out flowers, and daydreaming about what married life together will be like, there is also a lot of hard work done behind the scenes (and I’m not just talking about searching many websites for the perfect invitation!). I’m talking about quietly and daily sowing good seeds into your marriage during your engagement and trusting God that you will reap the fruit of this long after you are married.
Not yet engaged? Even if you’re completely single, this post applies to you as well. You may not have a name or a face to attach for whom you’re praying for or preparing for, but God knows and He will know exactly where to direct your prayers and give you wisdom in how to refocus and merge in order to prepare yourself for your future marriage!
Here are three ways God is teaching me to serve my fiance in our engagement season:
Refocus
While it might be easy to get caught up in what stationery you should use to announce your engagement or what hors d’oeuvres to serve during cocktail hour at your reception, we should be spending just as much time, if not more, focusing beyond the wedding day and on the journey that lies ahead, your marriage.
Use this season to seek first the kingdom of God (Matthew 6:33) and to prepare to take on your new role as a wife. Ask the Lord to reveal any sin in your life that could harm your marriage. Ask Him to give you wisdom to be the helpmate your future husband will need. How exactly can you do that? Spend time daily in the Word and prayer. “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12).
Time after time, we see in Proverbs how a wife’s folly can bring corruption to her husband and home. We also see how a complete opposite type of wife can build up her house. Invest in your relationship with the Lord during this time, because it will determine what kind of wife you’ll be.
“An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who brings shame is like rottenness in his bones.” -Proverbs 12:4
2. Merge
I like to think of engagement as the merging lane on the highway. It would be a terrible idea to swerve into a 55 mph highway lane, without a blinker and a short strip of road in order to merge into traffic. Similarly, it would be foolish to wait until after saying “I do” to begin to think of working on your marriage.
Prior to being engaged, my fiance, Vinny, and I would have fruitless conversations about some big decisions. Both of us were set a little in our ways and were determined to not want anything to do with what the other wanted. After being engaged, our conversations shifted drastically. I became less interested in having things my way and more in doing whatever would be best for our marriage. No longer was I just thinking about me, my needs, and what I want.
This was one way we both began to unify our lives before exchanging vows. In Genesis, we are reminded that “a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). Yes, you are both still legally single and not yet married before the Lord, but you can serve each other even now by beginning to prioritize your marriage during your engagement.
3. Pray, pray, pray and then pray some more
Ladies, this is perhaps the most important gift we can give our future husbands; pray for him. In Thessalonians 5:17, Apostle Paul exhorts us to “pray without ceasing.” Within a few months your future husband will bear the responsibility of loving you like Christ loves the church and together you will both display the gospel through your marriage.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church. -Ephesians 5:25-29
To know that Jesus loved the church so much as to lay down His life for His bride reminds me of how monumental of a task this will be for my husband. In just a few shorts months, he will also have to lead me, love me and care for me. He won’t be able to do that without the Lord’s help, and as his soon-to-be-wife you have the utmost authority to pray for him.
Pray that the your future husband continues to put God before you and all else. Pray through Ephesians 5:25-29 that he may love you in a way that will make your union be pleasing to God and would put His love for the church on display for this world to see.
May your marriage be a thousand times more beautiful than your wedding day!
What other advice do you have for engaged gals?
What are other ways can you prepare for your future marriage, both while you’re single and engaged?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Meagan is Jersey girl doing life in New York City, as a Kindergarten teacher. She recently got engaged to her best friend and looks forward to marrying him in July of this year. Meagan loves the Lord and serves and worships at a church plant. During her spare time she likes to read, travel, and eat good food.