All right. Here's a question. While the desire for marriage is natural and good, how does a single person keep it from becoming the be all end all goal and feeling like singleness is of less value. We just talked about all that didn't we? The end all be all.
Address that Janet. I'm not interested. Well, I wrote down something I wanted to say and we'll just say this question is the right thing to say it for. I thought about preparation for marriage. If you're single, you're preparing for marriage.
Whether or not, you don't know if you're going to be married or not, but everybody's preparing for marriage. And a lot of us have taken the very practical view of, well, that's cooking and cleaning and how to raise children. And all those are great. You can learn all that and not be even close to ready for marriage. Those are just very practical skills that are honestly easy to check off a list.
You're preparing for marriage when you're becoming a disciple of Christ. The things that they've already talked about. So be careful when you think about preparation for marriage. It's who you're becoming. I heard my husband give advice to a young single lady a long time ago, and she was talking about waiting for her Prince Charming, and she wasn't ready for Prince Charming, she was like Princess Godzilla.
Okay, so Prince Charming isn't interested in Princess Godzilla. So you know we do, the guy that we should be interested in one day, it should be because he's holy and because he's a lover of Jesus and other things that God will knit you together in but, so if you want that kind of guy you got to be that kind of girl so you should be spending your days letting God pour into you learn the practical stuff do the ministry love the local church You should be becoming more like Jesus and that's how you prepare for marriage. Do the love the one another's that the New Testament talks about. If you're walking in that kind of life you'll be ready for marriage. Don't think about it.
Don't put a checklist together about preparing for marriage. Become a lover of Jesus more and more every day and you'll be ready. And I would even add to that, like when you're thinking about marriage, what are the specific types of ministry in marriage that you're really excited about and really looking forward to. Is it the idea of being in that close level of spiritual relationship with a person where you're spiritually strengthening one another, comforting one another, encouraging one another. There is nothing stopping you from doing that all the time with the people around you.
Is it the idea of spiritually speaking into the lives of children and making, you know, an eternal impact on the souls of small children. There is nothing stopping you from doing that right now, all the time. Is it the idea of showing hospitality to people? You know, if You can actually separate out in the picture of marriage what are the things that actually matter and the things that actually last and are there any of them that I can't actually be doing right now. I think you'll find that the really important things, God has made ways for you to be doing them right now And that I think can take away so much of the sense of frustration of there's so much fruitful ministry that I was made for that I can't be doing right now because you actually can.
And the more you do it before you're married, like you were just saying, actually the better you will be able to do it as a wife and a mom. You actually won't just automatically, poof, go from never having spiritually encouraged a person to now being married and being a pro at doing that for your husband or for your kids.