Are you wondering if it’s God’s will that you should marry the person you are dating? This article will try to give you some Christian advice on how to decide on marriage and how long to wait before making that decision.
The first and foremost thing you should do is pray. If you have made a commitment to pursuing a relationship with God, I hope that you already spend regular time in prayer and seeking His guidance for your life. If you do not regularly pray or are not sure how to seek God, it is not too late to start. As John Piper puts it, ‘seeking God’ means seeking His presence. I encourage you to click on the link above and read this short article before moving on. It may help you in seeking God’s will for you in the spouse area.
The second thing to do is to ask God for spiritual discernment so that you can make a wise decision about marriage. The marriage covenant is a binding commitment and should be taken seriously by Christians (Malachi 2:14; Hebrews 13:4). We need to have God’s discernment both in who to date, who to make a marriage commitment with, as well as how long to wait before being married. I believe that the decision process toward marriage can start right away, at the start of a dating relationship. I recommend waiting a while before making the final decision, but the clues towards the decision can be collected from the start of a dating relationship. Each person is different. Some people wear their heart (good and bad qualities) on their sleeve, so it’s much quicker to get to know them, while some people can be closed and you may only know good qualities about them for a long time. Most of us have, at least, some struggles. If you only know good qualities about your dating partner, do not proceed to the marriage commitments before getting to know, at least some, negative qualities. All things can be worked out when two people have committed themselves to loving each other, but the point of dating is to avoid the surprises. It can be so hurtful to discover a negative past or awful quality about another person after a marriage commitment is made, especially if you take the marriage bond seriously.
It is also wise to seek out the spiritual counsel of mature Christian friends or leaders that you know, preferably those people that know both you and your partner well. Involve them from the start of your relationship so that, once the marriage decisions begin, it would be easier for your Christian mentors to give knowledgeable advice. Aside from accountability, involving these people can be very helpful in seeing your relationship in a Christian perspective, minus all the emotions.
So, the answer to how to make a decision for marriage and how long to wait before making that decision can be a summarized like this: seek God, seek Godly discernment throughout the dating process (bearing in mind that the marriage bond is serious), and involve spiritually mature Christians. Above all, seek God and pursue a relationship with Him first.
