I am soon to be married. But the words on the page don’t really do justice. Maybe I’ll write it like this: I AM GETTING MARRIED SOON!!!!!!!!!!! YAHOOOOOOO!! … eh, still doesn’t really do justice. When people ask me, “Hey man, are you excited to get married?” What am I supposed to say? No amount of words, facial expressions, or charades could express the emotions leading up to May 18th. So yeah, I’m not even going to attempt to describe what it’s been like being engaged for the past 9 months and being only one month away. For those of you older and already married for some time, please look past my naivety and enjoy reminiscing what it was like for you. For those of you unmarried, it’s great! But it didn’t just happen that way and it’s not the greatest thing in the world. Jesus is.

Nevertheless, since I am getting married soon, I want to reflect on my intentions for doing so. We live in a marriage-happy sub-culture where marriage is the next best thing to heaven. In fact, when I was a kid, I wanted Jesus to wait to come back until after my honeymoon. It’s true. Laugh all you want. I have been around my community long enough to know that marriage is a goal for about 99% of people around me. Is that wrong? Perhaps not. But Jesus and Paul seemed to think singleness was awesome, so we have to take a step back and look at the real reasons why one should get married. The reasons why most in our country want to get married are quite skewed. The following smattering of words is an attempt to explain what I want my impending marriage to be (and not to be). Rachel and I are planning for a good wedding, but we are making sure we have a great covenant. Do I know everything about marriage? No. Why on earth would you think that? I’m not even married! But I have seen enough incredible marriages to know what’s right and what’s not so right.

Holiness, not Happiness
Am I marrying Rachel because it will make my life easier? All those tax benefits and splitting the rent with someone sure does help. I imagine it’s a lot easier living with a very organized girl than it is with 7 other college guys (no offense Brosvenor). So is this the foundation for my marriage? No. In fact, if you think marriage is going to fix all of your problems, you’re in for a big letdown. Your single person problems will just become your married person problems. I am not marrying Rachel to make my life easier. While some things will be so much easier (the benefits are tremendous), other things will make my life much harder. No longer is it me, myself, and I. I have someone who is going to challenge the way I do things. I am tying myself to someone who grew up differently from the way I did. I am linking myself to someone who won’t always agree with me, who won’t always see things the way I do, who won’t always operate in the same modus operandi I do. Marriage with Rachel is going to be challenging. I had a friend tell me “If you think you’re humble and selfless now, wait till you get married. Then if you think you’ve got a hang of it then, wait till you have kids.”

Am I marrying Rachel because she makes me happy? Life with her sure is swell! Every time we are together, my cheeks are always hurting from smiling (you’d think they would have endurance by now) and my demeanor is always joyful. With her, the most meager of tasks seems like a whimsical adventure. She certainly adds meaning to my life. She certainly makes me chuckle, dance, and swoon. She certainly is so gorgeous, cute, and easy on the eyes. So does Rachel complete me? No. Jesus does. And it’s because of Jesus that I can truly enjoy Rachel for who she is, flaws and all. When you set someone up as the one to satisfy all your wants and desires, they become your god. Putting an imperfect person in a role requiring perfection is an apocalyptic romance. Does Rachel make me happy? All the time! But she does not give me my joy. Rachel or not, my joy rests in Jesus.

So why am I marrying Rachel? Holiness. I am marrying Rachel not for ease or happiness, but holiness. I set myself on a course to pursue Christ. In that course, Jesus pointed to towards loving Rachel as He loved me, not because it is essential to life but because doing so will establish sanctification—a fancy word for becoming more like Jesus. All the bad things about me—selfishness, greed, lust, envy, pride—will slowly melt away in the flames of matrimony. In essence, I am marrying Rachel because she will make me more like Jesus. Likewise, Rachel is marrying me for the same reason. In the end, I will have the honor of presenting Rachel to God to say “Here she is. I served her. I loved her. I challenged her. I prayed for her. I used Your love to shape and mold her. I allowed You to work through me to grow her.” I intend for this marriage to be a holy furnace of sanctification. We are not marrying each other because we couldn’t live without each other (though that certainly feels true at the moment). We are marrying each other because we are more effective serving God together than we would be apart. We hope to be like two mirrors hinged at a 45 degree angle such that God’s light and love from above can come down and reflect off of us onto one another and everyone else. You could say that when you add us together, we hope to not just be twice as much Jesus, but 16 times as much. We want to magnify the love of God. The cool thing is that life will probably be happier and easier as we get holier. Happiness comes from holiness.

Love Like Jesus
What are my intentions in marriage? To love Rachel like Jesus loves me. In essence, love in marriage is self-denial; self-denial and love are on opposite sides of the same coin. So when Rachel drives me crazy—she hasn’t ever yet, but according to most, she will eventually—I will deny myself and honor her. When Rachel asks, I will give. When Rachel hurts me, I will forgive. When Rachel knocks, I will open the door. When Rachel loves me, I will be thankful. When Rachel feels ugly, I will affirm her beauty. When Rachel feels worthless, I will make her feel her worth in Christ. When Rachel mourns, I will mourn with her. When Rachel rejoices, I will rejoice with her. When Rachel sins, I will love her, for love covers a multitude of sins. I will fight fair. I will trust that she has my best intentions at heart as well. We will never be enemies, but always teammates.

Covenant
While other couples pursue marriage as a legal agreement that can be broken, we will pursue marriage as a covenant. Hence, divorce is never an option. It doesn’t matter if Rachel cheats on me a thousand times, I will not divorce her. My reason for loving her and pursuing her depends not on her love for me, but on Christ’s love for us. If I am having trouble loving Rachel, it’s not because our relationship is failing but because my relationship with Christ is. As long as I am connected to The One Who Is Love, I will never fail. You want to know a common denominator in all of my relationship problems? Me. In every single one of my relationship problems, I’m involved. This covenant will do a mighty good job at helping me get over myself.

Here Comes The Bride
Rachel will always be my bride. She isn’t just a bride on May 18th. She will be my bride always. I’ve heard a lot of husbands speak negatively of their wife. My wife doesn’t like this. My wife won’t let me do this. My wife nags me about this. But I hope to always see Rachel as my bride. Am I still going to call her my wife? Duh. But I will also refer to her as my bride, because that will put in the position of service and pursuit. I hope to always speak well of her, whether she deserves it or not. I hope to always defend her. I hope to always affirm her. “Always” is a hard word for us humans—and I may never achieve my goal—but I will always work to achieve it.

Prayer Partner
When I’m married, I intend to pray with my bride, day and night. Everything we do will be covered in prayer. I hope to wake up with her and pray with her before every day. I hope to end each day with her in the presence of our Father. I hope to lead her in into the Throne Room where we can worship together. Prayer is the oxygen of the Christian. I pray that together, our prayer life will take a new form beyond that which we can understand or imagine right now. It’s a lot harder to have fights when you are praying for each other constantly. It’s a lot harder not to communicate when you are praying for each other constantly. Quite simply, prayer will be the connection that ties us, day and night.

Money Money Muh-nay
As a married couple, we hope to honor God and each other with our finances. Neither Rachel nor I have much experience on our own, so this is perhaps the greatest area of naivety and humility. Nevertheless, Rachel and I want to learn how to serve one another with money. We don’t want to be self-seeking and separated. We wanted to be united in every endeavor together and completely transparent. We want to live a life of constant blessing where God’s blessings roll right through us into each other’s lives and into the lives of those around us. We want to free the oppressed, feed the hungry, give clean water to the thirsty, and fight for the cause of orphans and widows. In essence, we want our heart to be like God’s heart. This will take a lot of learning on our part. It’s going to take a lot of effort to not try and keep up with the Jones’ or allow our standard of living to expand over our income. We want to be a couple that starts generously and just gets more generous as time goes by. We want to live a life of economic ease. We won’t allow the love of money to erode our love for God and each other. Likewise, we won’t get caught up in worrying about not giving enough. Instead, we will be joyful givers, constantly working with the Spirit to decide what to give and when. This is our financial hope in marriage.

Purity
My intention in marriage is to be pure in heart and to keep my eyes away from temptation to lust. Thanks to Jesus, my past has been redeemed, and thanks to the Holy Spirit, it’s stayed that way. However, I know that I will be even a greater target in marriage. The enemy absolutely hates purity. I am going to be attacked on all sides. Thus, my intention is to never let myself get too close to temptation. That means no movies with images my eyes don’t need to see (this will be easy since Rachel only likes PG and under). That means no tolerance on my computer. That means, if necessary, not even having a smart phone. I will gladly give up my freedom for the sake of purity in marriage. But in the end, it will all depend on my heart. The Spirit and the flesh are in constant battle. If I am constantly pursuing Christ and the Spirit, all the other areas of temptation will be stifled. I have every intention of not hurting my bride. Fortunately, if I ever fail, grace will be there to catch me.

Under the Sheets
Sex is pretty valuable, especially for men. Like I said earlier, I likened it to heaven as a kid. Perhaps that is why our culture is so eager to hop under the sheets with anyone willing. Men, marrying someone for sex is like buying an airplane just to get free peanuts. Sex is not everything, but it is something. In marriage, I intend to give myself completely to Rachel. I intend to put her needs above my own. I find it interesting the way God made us. Men need sex to show affection. Women need affection to have sex.  In our culture, men use intimacy to get sex while women use sex to get intimacy. We were made to complement each other. To put it simply, in wedlock with Rachel, I intend to give intimacy, sex or no sex. Many married couples have terrible sex lives because they are focused on what they can get, rather than what they can give. Like Jesus, I intend to give regardless of what I get. I will put her needs above my own. And hey, from what I hear, married Christians are having the best sex out there. There’s no secret why.

We’re Weird
If you can’t tell, Rachel and I are going to be a little weird. But we’re okay with that, because normal isn’t working. Rachel and I hope to be set apart—to be holy. We don’t want to compare ourselves to society. We want to compare ourselves to Christ. We want to learn from other’s mistakes. We want to learn from couples older and wiser than us. We know that we don’t know it all. In fact, that’s the reason why we’ve read over a dozen marriage books together. We are seeking wisdom and we will never stop seeking wisdom. Being married the way we want to be married is going to be like swimming against the current, like running up a down escalator. The culture is against us. This culture is all about me, me, me. It’s about pleasure and instant gratification. It’s about short attention spans and happiness. It’s about always going and never stopping.  It’s about self-preservation and self-fulfillment. But we want to be different. We want to be holy. We want to be weird.

Intentions, Not Expectations
These are all intentions of mine, but not necessarily expectations. I have learned from many who are wiser than I that expectations destroy relationships. If I expect something, but don’t get it, I’ll be left disappointed. But if I intend for something and know it is not guaranteed, then I will work earnestly to make it happen. If you’ve read my intentions with an aroma of disbelief, all I can say is I hope to prove you wrong. Rachel and I will work towards these goals in marriage through hope not exasperation. We know the “Honeymoon Period” is bound to end, but we intend to always find new ways to fall in love with one another. There will be times when it will feel like I’m married to a stranger, but I’ll just use my time to serve, know, and love that stranger better. We know that we know little and we understand that we have far to go. In fact, if after 50 years of marriage I decided to come back and read this, I’d probably laugh at how idealistic I was. However, we know the One who holds our future. He is faithful. He has something much better for us then we know. We are simply excited to live a life of faith, hope, and most importantly, love.

So there it is: an extended set of vows you could say. You have no idea how excited I am to do life with Rachel. She is so precious and I adore her more and more every day. If you told me two years ago that I was going to get married this May, I would have laughed in your face and given you a lecture about why the single life is so great. But fortunately for me, God has led me down this splendiferous path of friendship and courtship. Like I said before in one of my favorite blog posts ever, The Proposal, I am so excited for our wedding, but I am even more excited for Christ’s wedding between Him and His people. Life is good and Jesus is worthy.