It's been said that love is blind, but that marriage is an eye-opener.

It's important that both parties enter into marriage with their eyes open. The Bible says in First Corinthians, chapter 7, that a married man seeks how to please his wife, and a married woman seeks how to please her husband.

When you talk about getting married, your focus, first of all, is always God. That's understood. But your purpose is also to please the other person. You need to please your mate as well as God.

So as a husband, you're to do things to please your wife, and as a wife, you're to do things to please your husband. Basically, the way you're going to please someone is to always walk in love.

You see, God's design for marriage is that you always give, always love, and always serve one another. He wants you both to go higher and higher and higher. It should get to the point where people get tired of being around you, because you're always looking at each other, always smiling at each other, always talking about each other - just constantly giving to each other. That's God's plan.

A man of God has a definite role in a marriage, but let's turn our focus on what it means to be a woman of God, or a virtuous woman, and what her role is in the marriage relationship.

Let's begin by looking again at First Corinthians:
But I [Paul] would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
(1 Cor. 11: 3)
The Bible says that the head of the woman is the man, and the head of every man is Christ. So you should never get behind a man who's not following Christ.

If he's not following God, then you don't need to be following him, because he's not going anywhere. You'll both be going around in circles, and you'll both end up in a mess.

You see that happening in the world. People are out there doing everything they can to be successful and to get what they think will make them happy, but they fall flat on their faces.

So they get back up, try something else, and fall flat on their faces again. Why? Because they're missing the one (and only) thing that can really make them happy.

Single woman, you don't need to follow some knucklehead who's following after something else. You need a man who will say, "Follow me as I follow Christ," and whom you can see is submitted to God.

When you see a man who is submitted to God and submitted to God's Word, it's easier for you to submit to him, because you know he's not just out there doing his own bigheaded thing.

He's doing what God told him to do, and you know the blessings are going to come upon you, too, if you're obedient to God in what you're supposed to do as the woman.

Copyright © God's Plan for the Single Saint by Keith A. Butler, II
All rights reserved. Used by permission.