Scriptures: James 1:5-6, James 4:8, Matthew 6:25-34

An Intentional Engagement

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding! Whether you are newly engaged or days away from tying the knot, the Bible can provide you with a vision and purpose to guide your engagement and prepare you for a marriage that honors God. I hope you find encouragement wherever this guide meets you in your wedding planning journey.

The months leading up to your wedding day are filled with voices competing for your attention. Gorgeous photos of perfectly styled weddings invite you to set unrealistic standards for what your celebration should look like. Family members with good intentions have a plethora of advice to offer on everything from the guest list to the menu. Even our own inner monologue can distract us with negativity and anxiety during what should be a time filled with hope and excitement. Over the next few days, we’re going to tune out these voices and tune in to God’s word as our only source of truth. Ask God to give you peace and direction as you prepare for your future marriage and the celebration that marks its beginning.

James 4:8a says, “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” If we take the time to slow down and seek God’s guidance, he is willing and waiting to provide it (James 1:5-6). When you feel overwhelmed by your to-do list, pray for vision to prioritize what matters. When you face tension with family members or even your fiancé, pray for wisdom and unity.

Over the next few days, we’re going to explore God’s design for marriage and study passages of the Bible that will challenge us to prioritize what God says is important over what the world considers of value. Today’s passage from Matthew 6 invites us to shift our perspective from the temporal to the eternal. By adopting a kingdom mindset, we can abandon the anxiety and stress often associated with planning a wedding and trust God to care for us as he does in every area of our lives.

Imagine what it would look like to spend the time leading up to your wedding seeking God and preparing your heart for the commitment you are about to make. I believe even the shortest engagements have enough room to plan a beautiful and meaningful celebration, while still intentionally growing in relationship with God and your future spouse. The key is to approach every wedding planning decision with a kingdom mindset, acknowledging that even the most beautiful of events only last for so long while marriage rooted in the foundation of God’s word was designed to last a lifetime.

Scriptures: Proverbs 3:5-6, Proverbs 16:3, Philippians 4:6

Submit Your Plans

It’s easy to think your wedding plans are too trivial or insignificant to bother God with. With everything going on in the universe, we can convince ourselves that we should handle things like party planning on our own and save our bigger problems for God.

However, the Bible tells us no situation is too small to take to God. In fact, Scripture challenges us to go to God in every situation (Philippians 4:6). We don’t have to wait until we reach the end of our rope, or find a problem we can’t solve. We can present our requests to God from the beginning and trust him to take care of us.

Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” Again we see we are to submit to God in all our ways. God wants to partner with us in every area of our lives, not just the ones we think we can’t handle on our own.

When we submit our plans to God, he promises to make our paths straight. We no longer have to carry the weight and anxiety of the end result. God has promised to establish our plans if we commit them to him (Proverbs 16:3).

Does this mean that everything will work out exactly as we envision it? Not necessarily. By submitting our plans to God, we are stepping down as god of our own lives and letting him take his rightful place on that throne. We are trusting that even if absolutely nothing goes according to plan on our wedding day, God is still in control and will take care of us.

Have you been tempted to try to handle everything on your own? What do you think it would look like to submit to God in every area of your life, including planning your wedding? As you read the following verses, ask God to partner with you in planning and reveal to you any areas of your life that you have not yet surrendered to him.

Scriptures: Galatians 1:10, Colossians 3:23, Matthew 6:26-30

Battling Comparison

From the moment you get engaged, you are bombarded with questions and suggestions about what your big day should look like. Your friends and family members may have your best intentions at heart, but they are only a fraction of the inputs your brain has to sort through. Social media has an infinite number of beautiful wedding images for you to browse for inspiration. From the very first time you search for anything related to planning a wedding, you will begin to receive countless targeted ads specifically designed to influence your decisions.

With an overwhelming amount of information to process, it can be easy to begin to set unrealistic expectations for what your wedding day should look like, or compare your future celebration to every wedding you’ve ever been to. Trying to plan an event that lives up to the standards the world sets is exhausting, not to mention expensive.

Colossians 3:23 says, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.” If we apply this truth to wedding planning, our decision-making becomes much simpler. We no longer have to please everyone around us with every choice we make, God’s approval is the only one we should seek (Galatians 1:10).

Staying grounded along this journey is not easy, but thankfully the Bible is full of wisdom to keep us focused on what matters. When your social media feed invites you to set unrealistic standards, or you feel a desire to impress everyone around you with every decision you make, ask yourself, “Who am I trying to please?” When our hearts are in line with God’s will, the Bible promises he will take care of us. Looking back to Matthew 6:23-30, we are reminded that nature is full of evidence of God’s love. If he ensures the birds of the air have plenty to eat, and clothes the grass of the field with beautiful flowers, how much more does he care for the details of your life?

Scriptures: Proverbs 18:20, James 3:1-12

Practicing Healthy Communication

Most humans share the same core emotional needs. While they may word it differently, many marriage experts agree that a husband has a core emotional need to feel respected and honored, while a wife has a core emotional need to feel secure and loved.

We tend to interpret the words of our spouse according to our needs. For example, at the beginning of our marriage, car maintenance was a touchy subject. Trying to be helpful, I’d regularly ask my husband if he had been keeping up with the oil changes on our car. I never understood why my “helpful reminders” would make him so annoyed until we read about these core needs.

He explained that when I remind him of something he hasn’t done, it makes him feel like he’s failing as a husband. When we avoid statements that trigger fear in our spouse of their core need going unmet, we can sidestep a lot of unnecessary conflicts.

That’s not to say that I need to walk on eggshells around him or let the cars go unmaintained to avoid hurting his feelings, but there’s a more productive way to approach the situation than to say, “Did you ever get that oil change like you were supposed to?”

I can see now how that single sentence (and likely the tone of my voice) carried a subtle accusation that he wasn’t doing his job as a husband. Proverbs 18:20 (NLT) says, “Wise words satisfy like a good meal; the right words bring satisfaction.” By choosing our words with care, we can influence the outcome of most conversations.

During your engagement, you have the opportunity to set the tone for your marriage by choosing words that affirm rather than accuse. James teaches us that our words have tremendous power over the course of our lives. As you read today’s passage from James 3, consider what each of the metaphors used is illustrating about the power of our words. Ask God to show you how you can better control your speech and choose the words you speak to your future spouse with care.

Scriptures: John 10:10, Ephesians 5:22-33

Becoming Husband and Wife

Ephesians 5:22-33 explains that God designed marriage to model the relationship between Christ and the church. This passage instructs husbands to love their wives sacrificially. In return, wives are called to submit to their husbands.

As an immature believer, I struggled against these verses during our engagement. “Submit” was a difficult word to accept. I was a strong, independent woman and did not love the idea that my role in marriage would involve submission. I feared that submission meant my opinions and thoughts wouldn’t hold as much weight and that I would lose my voice in our marriage.

In the early years of our marriage, I still convinced myself that I didn’t need to submit; I could handle everything on my own. This attitude mirrored the beginning of my relationship with Christ.

I liked the idea of a Savior but didn’t want to admit I needed one. I’d go to church on Sundays but insist on running every other aspect of my life on my own. It wasn’t until I surrendered my life completely that I began to experience the abundant life that the Lord promises (John 10:10).

Much like my walk with Christ, it would take a few years for me to understand the joy and abundance found in submitting to a husband that would lay down his life for me, that loves me as he loves himself, that “nourishes and cherishes [me], just as Christ does the church” (Ephesians 5:28-29).

In my opinion, the husband has the much more difficult end of this bargain. In exchange for honoring our husbands, we receive protection, encouragement, and sacrificial love.

The Bible tells us if we step back and allow our husbands to take on the role God designed for them as the leader of our families, we can experience a healthy, life-giving marriage. By assuming an attitude of honor and respect for your husband, you are setting the stage for him to develop into the man God is calling him to be.

As you prepare for marriage, pray about your future role and ask God to help you understand what might need to change in the dynamic of your relationship. If the call to “submit” evokes a negative response in your heart, ask God to reveal to you any areas of your life where you haven’t fully submitted to Jesus Christ.

Scriptures: Genesis 2:18-25, Exodus 20:12, Matthew 19:4-6

Navigating Family Relationships

In Genesis 2:18-25, we are given a description of how the very first marriage came to be. God creates a suitable partner for Adam and it is declared that these two separate beings are now one: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” There are two significant truths we can draw from this passage.

First, given the fact that Adam and Eve had no earthly father and mother, the presence of these words in God’s description of marriage should draw our attention. The marriage union marks a distinct transition where your closest familial tie is no longer your parents, but your spouse.

Second, we can see that God designed marriage to be a lifelong covenant. This idea is echoed in Matthew 19 as Jesus responds to the Pharisees by saying, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

During your engagement, you can begin to let these two truths guide your family relationships. Anytime you face conflict with your parents or future in-laws, look to scripture for guidance on how to handle it. Remember that your future spouse will soon have priority over all the other humans in your life, approach any conflict unified with them. As you begin to separate from your parents to become one with your future spouse, remember the Bible instructs us to honor our mother and father (Exodus 20:12).

As you read the passages from Genesis 2 and Matthew 19, reflect on God’s design for marriage and how you might apply these truths to your future family relationships.

Scriptures: Romans 12:2, Genesis 2:18-25

Two Become One

During our engagement, our officiant gave us one word of advice that stuck with us: Remove the word divorce from your vocabulary. I remember he prefaced the advice by saying, “I’m going to say the word once in this sentence, but apart from giving this advice, we do not use this word in this house. That’s how seriously we take this rule.” He went on to explain that in the heat of an argument, it can be so easy to throw out hurtful statements that you can’t take back, and the threat of divorce should never be one of them.

As we saw in Genesis 2 yesterday, God designed marriage to be a lifelong covenant. As with all of his plans, this one is for our good, for our protection. God wants us to experience deep, committed love without fear of abandonment. When you agree to take divorce off the table, you can trust each other completely, committing to forgive, repair, and restore your relationship when things get challenging.

This is contrary to the way the world views marriage. The movies and TV shows we watch, the stories we read in the news, and even the relationships of our friends and family members can portray marriage as conditional, dysfunctional, and ultimately disposable. However, Romans 12:2a says, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” We have the power to build a marriage that looks different from what society portrays — one characterized by strength and unity rather than discord and disappointment.

You have made it to the end of this seven-day plan! I hope that it has sparked meaningful conversations between you and your fiancé and alleviated some stress during this busy season of life. As you begin a life of intentionally pursuing one another, I pray that God blesses your marriage with unity, joy, laughter, and a love that grows year after year!