Preparing Your Heart for Marriage: Devotions for Engaged Couples is a book that I received from Zondervan. My review of this book is written from my honest impression. Links for purchase included in this review part of the Amazon Affiliates program; it will not cost you any additional fees to purchase through the link. Thank you for supporting this site.
If you’re new to Yoked, then let me tell you one of the fundamental things about us…
We’re devoted to helping you to prepare your heart.
Be it for marriage, wifehood, a new relationship, new life stage, or your singleness, you (we all) have to be prepared for whatever stage of life that it is we’re going to enter.
When hubby and I were preparing for our engagement, we took so many extra steps to make sure that we were ready to be married to…each other. We’d had our individual experiences that helped us to prepare to be a husband or wife. Specifically, a bunch of things happened along the way to show us what we didn’t want out of marriage. We found our Marriage Advocates and sought guidance from them on how to navigate the world of matrimony. After we were engaged, we did another 40 hours of premarital counseling to be sure that we had the best tools we could have going into it.
We have an amazing marriage. It’s not because we’re perfect or because life is perfect. Life happens. Disagreements occur. Feelings are hurt. Sometimes we disappoint each other.
But we are smiling through it all and still living in the ministry of marriage because we were prepared.
Preparing Your Heart
The main book that we used in our own premarital counseling was Gary Thomas’ book Sacred Marriage. I can’t recommend this book enough; we still recommend it to our couples who we work with to help them prepare for marriage. Now that this devotional is out, I’m going to add it to the preferred reading list for couples who are seeking to enter into covenant marriage.
As I read this book, it was refreshing to see that the principles that we’ve learned from others are reinforced in the community of marriage building and strengthening. One thing that jumped out at me was that couples the author polled spoke about the benefit of pursuing God together or, as we emphasize, being equally yoked. He notes that “You don’t just gain a husband or a wife when you get married; you live with a brother or sister in Christ. You will never experience such a level of accountability and the possibility of encouragement and inspiration with anyone quite like you can with your spouse.”
Y’all…
We would be here all day if I could tell you about what it’s like being held to these standards and expectations by my husband. And what it’s like to hold him to the same. We’ve experienced such a level of growth and maturity in Christ by being together. The things that we’re doing for the Kingdom were no where close to our radar before we met each other. He never says it about himself, but I always tell him that he is God’s gift to me. We’ve grown so much together that we can’t help but to encourage others to grow. As Gary states on p. 11, “If you live a life of worship and walk in grace, you’ll feel compelled to love and serve others. God’s Holy Spirit orients you toward a life of blessing, and marriage provides the most immediate context in which to live that out.” Going into marriage with a prepared heart opens up a world that you could only ask to be ready to receive.
But don’t miss this: going into marriage…for all of its ups and downs, blessings and trials…requires that you prepare for it. It never works quite the same if you go through marriage with a reactionary mindset. Remember this: marriage is a God-centered ministry. Your marriage is to be an example of the love and covenant that God has with the Church. There are forces who will try to tear that ministry down and you have to go into the fight with the right armor and defense strategy.
BOOK REVIEW
Preparing Your Heart for Marriage: Devotions for Engaged Couples is an engaging and deliberate approach to the way that we enter covenant marriage. The devotions included in this book take practical steps and create necessary conversations for anyone looking to do Christian marriage the right way. It…along with so many of Mr. Thomas’ other works…is a well thought-out and inclusive read for couples who want to enter into marriage with the habit of praying together and to learn how to truly do this “marriage thing” as one. To quote Mr. Thomas, “…no one person is spiritually complete and ready for marriage, ‘finished’ to the extent that {they don’t} need to grow any more.” Going into your covenant with a spirit of humility and desire to grow in love is the first major step in having a marriage designed after God’s own heart. There are prayers at the end of each chapter, along with Questions for Reflection. These things will help you to work together to ensure that you’re a team and on the same page. While that might not seem like a big deal, “leaving and cleaving” is much harder when you don’t know what it means and how to scripturally do so.
Book title: Preparing Your Heart for Marriage: Devotions for Engaged Couples
Author: Gary Thomas
Book Info: Hardcover
Content Length: 193 pages {197 pages in entirety}
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