Tag: Christian marriage

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10 Qualities of a Man Ready for Marriage

I started thinking about my unmarried or newly married friends and their dating/courting relationships. After you have committed to someone and have dated exclusively for some time, how do you know when you are ready to take the leap of faith and get married?
Marriage is wonderful but it can come with it’s challenges so you need to be prepared emotionally, spiritually, and financially to be happy beyond the wedding day.
This post is focused on the man especially since he is the head of the relationship. I have listed 20 qualities that I believe are attributes of a man ready for marriage. I decided to break this up into two separate articles to keep this one from being a book chapter instead of a blog post. Stay tuned for Part 2 and “Qualities of a Woman ready for a Godly Marriage”.
1. Seeks God with his whole heart-
Psalm 119: 9-11
9 How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word.
10 I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands.
11 I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
The scripture says in order to keep yourself pure, hide His word in your heart. Seeking Him with your whole heart will keep you focused on pleasing God in all that you do.
2. Attends, gives and serves at a church
As a saved young woman, I have heard this line many times, “You are a Christian (or saved), oh that’s cool, I go to church, I am a member of…” I am happy that you “go to church”, but I believe you are a true member when you have invested your time, resources and talents to this church. The church cannot run itself without it’s members.
Your local church will be blessed by your help. What areas of the church are you serving in? How can you be a blessing to your pastor and members? I have found that serving in the church keeps you grounded, accountable and you learn so much about yourself and the life of Jesus by serving His people.
3. Has godly friends- Having godly friends will also help with accountability. Having friends who are walking with Jesus that will give you godly advice and will understand your struggles, praises, and will encourage your spiritual growth. The scripture says in Proverbs 27:17 that “Iron sharpens Iron”.
4. Has a good relationship with his family- I know all families are not perfect, but is there communication and respect with and towards the family.
This is important because if there are majors signs of dysfunction in the family, this unfortunately can filter over into your marriage. You will need to have open communication about the future in-laws.
5. Prays with and encourages you to pursue God more while he is pursuing you- The man is the head of the household. He will need to treat the bride as Jesus does the church. The Lord of Lord’s desires a church without spot or blemish.
Jesus loves us with an everlasting love. A godly man will want his wife to be all that God has called her to be. A godly man will want his woman to put God first before him.
6. Has a job or career- The husband will be the provider of the family and head of the household. He will need a job or is working (in school) to obtain a career.
7. Encourages you to  pursue your passion and goals- He will not be intimidated or will not limit his woman’s God given gifts.
8. Abstains from sexual immorality and fornication-
1 Thessalonians 4: 3-5
For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God;
1 Corinthians 6:18
Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.
The above scriptures describes those that fall to lust as those who do not know God. God does not want you to corrupt your body with this sin. Having sex outside of marriage will bring on a slew of problems into a pure relationship.
It is created for husband and wife only to enjoy. If you are not abstaining from this, you are sinning against God and your body.
This will keep the enemy from corrupting your union before it has even started. If this has already happened in your relationship, please seek Godly counsel on how to proceed with your relationship.
This goes back to being involved in a church, having Godly friends, and being guided by your pastor. Your support system will help you as a couple get back on track.
9. Communicates with you about his past, his struggles, and future- You do not want to have any surprises before you say “I do”.
10. Enjoys spending time with you- My grandfather who had been married for almost 60 years before he passed, gave me and Joel this one piece of marriage advice, “Have fun with each other.”
You want to enjoy your time together even if you are doing something that you don’t want to do. It shows that you want to invest in getting to know your mate and showing them how much you love and appreciate them.
 

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Dating/Courting Engaged Marriage Parenting

Putting an End to Generational Cycles

A man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. This births the next generation. The launch of a new household starting from ground zero to structure what will become their family.

But we all have a past of people and events that have significantly shaped and influenced our lifestyles possibly more than we ever took the time to realize. Our entire life, our behaviors and thought patterns have been mentally conditioned since we were little children; most of which takes place in the home.

It’s called social learning. Social learning is something we learn to adapt by observation, imitation and practice. And our families have possessed the most influential power over us because we’ve been raised constantly observing them in natural settings, specifically in the home, every day sometimes all day. No matter how destructive, unhealthy or dysfunctional, when it’s been seen as a natural attitude or behavior at some point we accepted these as a normal way to live because we’ve grown so familiar to them.

Now wait a minute Brittney, are you trying to say my family is crazy?

I don’t know. Maybe they are!

Look, maybe your parents, your family did everything they could to ensure your survival and I wouldn’t take away from that for one second. Surviving gets real. As a young mother, I already know. And I’m not saying they were bad people, because we can be well intentioned people with terribly conditioned mindsets. There comes a time as we begin our own families that we have to really stop and analyze some of the unhealthy habits that we were exposed to in our childhood so that we don’t repeat the cycle in our own family. We have the opportunity to completely start anew and give our children a better trajectory of life. No, we won’t be perfect, but we can be preventative.

For example,

Maybe you were raised to see the first reaction to frustration or misunderstanding acted out in anger and hostility; and maybe primarily towards you. Well what does that do as we get older? It teaches us through social learning to handle all our frustrations in anger rather than in wisdom. Nothing’s wrong with being frustrated or upset but when we automatically cloud all judgement in anger or by fighting physically it shows that we haven’t learned how to communicate ourselves in a way where there’s understand that could result in a solution. If we’re yelling and screaming at our kids with no explanation as to why they shouldn’t be doing what they’re doing then it becomes a fluster of wild emotions. They’re confused, frustrated and in return learn that anger is the way to handle things, rather than a teaching experience that brings understanding and grows them in wisdom. We can break the cycle of destructive anger starting with our family.

Maybe there was a lack of affection in your home. Sure they worked, fed you and put a roof over your head so yeah that was a form of love by providing. But kids spell love T-I-M-E and A-T-T-E-N-T-I-O-N. And they need lots of it. What happens when this is missing? We grow up to feed off of the acceptance and praise of others in order to feel good about ourselves. For a young woman, many times it leaves you to try and recap that void by giving yourself to a number of men. We were created to love and be loved in an intimate way.

Or maybe you only got attention when you behaved badly, yet never received any acknowledgement for good behavior. “I expect you to do good.” is what we’re told. But human psychology tells us that we’re naturally conditioned to repeat behaviors that have a good response or positively affect us and we tend not to repeat behaviors that inflict harm or a bad reaction toward us. However, if there’s no balance of praise along with chastisement, we might continue to be rebellious because its bringing some form of attention, even if it’s not the right kind. It leaves us open to grab at any type of attention even if its self destructive. An absence of that can certainly condition our behaviors as we grow older. We can break the cycle of neglect starting with our family.

Maybe problems in your home were never really faced and talked out, but constantly swept under the rug as if everything was perfect or things would somehow “fix themselves”. But what usually happens is those things accumulate and have a snowball effect which leads directly into a crisis. By not learning to be responsible and have the character to face our problems and obstacles in life or in our households we create people who take flight once the going gets tough. You walk away from your problems and try to act like they don’t exist. You find yourself constantly stuck in life because you haven’t built the mentality of overcoming obstacles which are usually teaching moments that grow us.

These are just a few examples! But there are so much more out there.

So I want you to really take the time to think and talk about it as a couple. Get both sides. What are the unhealthy things that took place in my upbringing that have had an affect on my life in a negative way? Not only does that challenge us to make changes in our own lifestyle right now but it opens our eyes to the powerful changes we can make in ending these dysfunctional cycles so our kids won’t have to go experience them the way we did. We teach our children how to behave. They are watching us and developing our same habits through social learning. “Do as I say and not as I do” is not an accurate term we grew up hearing. They will do what you do.

On the other hand, what are new traditions and boundaries you can create with your family? Family game nights, sharing at the dinner table, disciplinary actions that are structured to help build wisdom and direction; even when they won’t always understand but it’s for their good anyway. Being able to do things over is an amazing experience.

Remember, we’re building lives here! Society is built on families and as the church, as the body of Christ we need healthy examples.

Your sister,

Brittney Moses

Categories
Dating/Courting Engaged Home Marriage Parenting

4 Ways Marriage Has Made Me a Better Human Being

Jonnese and I met each other my senior year of high school. There’s no way I would’ve predicted that years later, at the young age of 20, I would be married! If you knew me at all, just the thought of that is insane! My relationships didn’t last more than three months, life was one big party constantly lived for the moment and I was nowhere near a healthy, stable or mature state to be responsible for other lives let alone my own highly dysfunctional self.

I should’ve been the last of my friends to settle down and be serious about marriage and this whole “starting a family” thing. In fact, I thought it was a joke! The pursuit I had for my life was for the pleasure and success of me. But as we all know, God tends to have extremely different plans.

Anyone who’s had children or married young will tell you, it challenges you to grow up and mature pretty quickly. Not everyone does, but any sincere person who cares for the well being of their child and spouse has to make changes and make them immediately for their survival; mentally and physically.

Although I never planned to get married and have a family young I don’t at all regret it. I thank God because my family saved me from the destructive path I was on, reeled me in and molded me into a better person for so many reasons.

Marriage has taught me:

  1. To Accept Differences

Sure everyone is different, we know that much. Different races, personalities and backgrounds are things we briefly encounter day to day. But what happens when you have to live with those differences every day and it affects you in a personal way.

Well, honestly you’re forced to understand, respect and work those differences out if your marriage is going to have any chance of surviving. Because you will be more different than you thought!

In the beginning its cute. It’s interesting! Its no big deal. Until you realize you handle struggles differently, you communicate differently which creates barriers when conflict arises or now you have kids and raise them differently based on your individual backgrounds. Differences can easily create conflict in the home. What was once tolerable shortly becomes intolerable when it imposes on your life personally.

Marriage forces you to identify those differences, come to a full understanding of one another and mutually agree on how to work through them on a day to day basis to gain a common goal; a healthy growing family. When you can master this in your home, it’s only preparation for being able to deal with the differences we will face in our world in a positive manner.

 

  1. To Forgive the Unforgivable

Let face it, human mistakes won’t end just because you said “I do.” We’ve been raised on fairy-tale endings of happily ever after, but what really did Snow White and Prince Charming face long after they rode into the sunset?

Perfection and completion finishing at the altar of marriage just isn’t reality. In fact, your spouse may disappoint you a number of times as you will them. As imperfect humans we make mistakes, we learn, we grow from them. And boy is marriage a life lesson of learning and growing.

When you’re in a marriage, two become one, and so everything they do directly affects you. There’s no equal unity so closely bonded like a marriage. No relationship we ever have is like our marriage and so we may have never experienced this dynamic where every choice, no matter how big or how small, one person makes impacts our own life every time in such a personal way.

That includes their mistakes. They will mess up. They will do things the wrong way. They will say the wrong things at the wrong time. They will make you question how this will continue to work this way.

That’s what happens when two imperfect people come together. They become an imperfect couple. But grace is the substance that makes the unworkable, somehow work. So we forgive and we grow again and again and again.

And just when it seems like we got it, we do it all over again. It is the God kind of love that keeps marriages fueled. When we can master the act of grace in our homes, from experience we’re taught how to extend constant grace towards others in the outside world.

 

  1. To Not be Reactive

Reactive behavior is when our choices and behaviors are dependent on the choices and behaviors of others rather than us being responsible for our own selves. Thing like, “they made me act this way” or “maybe if they didn’t do this then I wouldn’t have done this”. It absolves us of all responsibility for ourselves. It’s when our behavior is determined by and reacts base on someone else. Reactive people are ruled by feelings and conditions.

On the other hand proactive people don’t blame others or circumstances for their behavior but act from their own conscious choice based on their values. They determine to focus their efforts on the positive things they can do to shift the situation.

For example, I’m not going to curse you out just because you cursed me out. That doesn’t align with the foundational values I stand on in my life and so I choose to not be reactive by letting your actions determine my own.

When you’re married, again, everything the other person does always affects you personally just from being one and sharing the same living space every day; from their behavior, reactions, language, word choice, etc. In every healthy relationship at some point someone has to choose peace and the bigger picture over being “right”. That’s choosing not to be proactive and not reactive.

If you want your marriage to survive you soon find that retaliation, revenge and pushing buttons back goes nowhere but down. So you quickly learn, or need to learn, the self-discipline of not being reactive. When we can master the choice to not be reactive based on the behaviors of others we can then go out into the world making positive changes rather than conforming to every negative circumstance.

 

  1. To Commit to a Life of Sacrifice

Marriage is sacrifice period. Biblically both leave their families and cleave to one another to begin a new family. The wife submits to the headship of her husband and the husband lays down his life to accommodate his wife time and time again. There’s this ongoing balance of sacrifice consistently being made.

There’s this quote I love that says, “Great marriages are made when husbands and wives make a lot of everyday choices that say ‘I love you’ rather than choices that say ‘I love me’.

And the truth is, in order for any relationship to work there has to be a mutual willingness to sacrifice for one another otherwise it becomes one sided and the other person will soon feel taken advantage of. That kind of model will collapse and won’t last long anytime someone feels unappreciated or unnoticed.

Marriage takes financial sacrifices, sacrificing what I want to do for what you want to do, sacrificing self-fulfilling desires, sacrificing time and much more. You’ve made a vow to commit your life to this person as your partner and you as their support through good and bad till death do you part. And every day you are dedicating to upkeep this vow mostly out of the goodness of love. Learning to make these kinds of sacrifices, putting another’s life and interests before your own, day in and day out teaches you tremendously the heart of sacrifice when it comes to those around you.

When I look back on the person I use to be and was headed towards I can honestly say that marriage has kept me grounded and matured me. It has made me a better human being in general because of the way its molded my heart to learn how to work through and accept the differences of others, to extend grace a midst mistakes, to maintain a positive reaction and live a life of sacrifice. Sometimes we focus so heavy on being ready for marriage that we don’t realize many times it’s the marriage that shapes us.

Was this helpful and is there anything marriage has taught you in growing to become a better person? Don’t be afraid to comment below! I’d love to hear back from you.