Are You Making Good Predictions about Your Future Marriage?

by: Brenda Rodgers

You may not know this about me, but I am a former reading teacher. For many years I taught children reading strategies to help them read well.  One of those strategies was making predictions.

Even though they’re not aware of it, good readers continually make predictions while they’re reading. Readers use the details of what’s going on presently in the story to make predictions about what’s going to happen next. A good reader makes accurate predictions, which helps her comprehend the story better. A poor reader does not make accurate predictions.

Making predictions during reading is similar to making predictions about your future marriage and family. 

Many young women begin their adult years with bright dreams for their future marriages and families. Maybe they want to marry a strong, Christian man. Maybe they hope for a fairy tale marriage full of love and joy and happiness. Maybe they see themselves serving God and the church alongside their husbands. They may dream of raising godly children. Maybe they dream about adoption or foster care. These are their predictions about their futures. 

Unfortunately, many times young women’s present stories, the lives they’re living right now, do not show evidence that their predictions about their futures will come to pass. Instead their present stories point to a very different future, and their predictions are inaccurate. Let me give you an example from a story I once heard in a sermon.

A young woman in her twenties met this awesome, attractive man at a church event. He was mature and godly, and he had a good job. Later that week when she was at her parents’ house, she told her mom about this guy. She went on and on about what a good Christian man he was and how he was so different than the other guys she’d met. When she was finished telling her mom about this amazing man, her mom looked up at her.  “That’s wonderful, honey,” her mom said gently, “but a man like that is not going to be attracted to the woman you are right now.”

Her mom’s words went into her chest like a knife even though she knew they were true. You see, this young woman predicted a godly marriage and family for herself one day, but her present story did not show evidence that this would be the case. Throughout college and even into her twenties, this young woman did not prepare for the future she hoped for. She partied with her sorority sisters and dated guys who may have been nice, but weren’t strong in their relationship with Jesus.  Her desire was for a healthy, loving marriage, but she wasn’t doing anything to get it.

If you desire a God honoring marriage, you have to prepare for it now.  A man who is strong in his faith is going to look for a woman who is also strong in her faith. You want to be that woman.

Sometimes young women have this backwards. They think that their twenties are the years to “sow their wild oats” and “find themselves.” They think to themselves that when they’re married they will settle down, go to church, and begin a relationship with Jesus. However, when you do it this way, you will bring into your marriage baggage that’s hard to overcome.

What predictions are you making about your future marriage? Are you dreaming of a healthy marriage and family that honors God? Does your present life story point to that being an accurate prediction for your future? Whatever your life looks like right now is what your future life will be like unless you begin now sowing seeds that will one day produce the fruit you long for in your marriage.

Share with us. Can you relate to this young woman's story? Do you know young women who are stuck, not making wise predictions about their futures based on how they live their lives now?