”Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.”¹

Guess we’ve all heard and maybe experienced falling-in-love at first sight. Sure, it can be exhilarating, but let’s be realistic. It’s really attraction, infatuation, or lust at first sight. How can you possibly love someone without knowing them or anything about them? You can’t. True, attraction can grow into love but more often than not those who fall-in-love too soon, all too soon fall-out-of-love.

And then there are those who, totally neglecting God’s instructions, argue that you should live together before getting married to make sure you are compatible. However, according to James Kennedy, “A recent study challenges the practice of living together ‘before marriage.’ The journal, Demography, reveals that cohabitation ends in separation 90 percent of the time. More than half end in less than one year.”

And “according to lead researcher Daniel Lichter of Cornell University ’Serial cohabitation may be an emerging norm as cohabiting unions form and break up. The common view of cohabitation as a steppingstone to marriage needs to be seriously questioned.’”²

For at least a decade-and-a-half I’ve been teaching in divorce recovery programs and repeatedly I have seen divorcees “fall-in-love” before ever resolving the part they played in the breakup of their marriage. Over and over we recommend that divorcees resolve their issues before ever committing to another permanent relationship, for only healthy, mature people are attracted to and find healthy, mature partners—and develop healthy relationships and marriages.

Also, it is imperative that one gets to know him/herself and their potential partner before ever saying, “I do.” The fact is that if I don’t fully know and understand myself, there is no way I can ever fully know and understand anybody else.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to grow and mature in every area of life and know and understand myself so that I will be able to know and understand others and therein know how to develop healthy and mature relationships. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Hebrews 13:4 (NIV).
2. James Kennedy, Center for Reclaiming America, cfra@coralridge.org.

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Paul the Apostle wrote, “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”¹

Ron Farmer of the University of New South Wales (Australia) Psychology Department said, “Any man seeking too strenuously for recognition in his early adult life was likely to find that neglect of his family unit during that time would lead to an alienation from his wife and children at the time he most needed their affection and understanding.”

As fathers we know we are to provide for our families, but this provision goes far beyond just meeting physical needs. We are to model Christian fatherhood and provide for our families’ spiritual needs. Equally important is to be present for our family and meet their emotional needs, the absence of which is a major cause of family breakdown.

As fathers we need to be emotionally present and connected to our wives and children. However, if we’re not connected to our own emotions and inner self, we cannot be emotionally connected to or intimate with our families or anyone else.

Listening beyond words to what our loved ones are saying and feeling, and accepting, caring, spending quality time with them is all a vital part of providing for our family’s needs. Being present emotionally and spiritually, as well as physically, is critical.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, help me to be connected to my own ‘inner self’ so I can be fully connected to you and my loved ones. Help me to change so my loved ones will never say that I was distant or emotionally uninvolved with them. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. 1 Timothy 5:8 (NIV)

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