Is Love Good Enough A Reason For You To Get Married

One of the first questions mostly asked intending couples is if they LOVE each other. It is the norm that one of the prerequisite for marriage is love. But I want those who will be reading this post to ask themselves this question very sincerely whether married, about to marry or hoping to get married someday. Is Love good enough a reason for one to get married to a person or not? This is the question I will trust the Lord to help us answer in the today's blogpost.

Song Of Songs 8:6-7(NIV)
6Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like the blazing fire, like a mighty flame. 7Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away. If one were to give all the wealth of his house for love, it would be utterly scorned. 

This passage is a description of love between a man and a woman as found in the Bible. The kind of love described here is the love that is meant to exist only between a man and a woman in marriage. When I sought the face of God for a better understanding of this kind of love, the Holy Spirit opened up my heart to see and understand love as a catalyst feeling that God has put in the heart of the man and his wife to enhance their bonding in marriage. The love described by Solomon here is like an adhesive that enhances the bonding of a man and the woman he is married to.
I will like to share with those reading this post that this love that is talked about is a beautiful feeling. It's the strong bond between two married couples. This love is sacrificial, it's strong, it ignites warmth, it enhances oneness, it enhances a sense of protection between the couple who share this bond as one spouse will always want to protect the other. This love produces peace and it is fun to have. When there is love between married couples prosperity reigns in their midst. I can go on with all the beautiful things that comes with love and so it's not abnormal to be sure that this love exist between any intending couple.
But just as I asked earlier, is this Love strong enough to hold a marriage till eternity such that it becomes the sole criteria for any two people to come into a marriage covenant? If we look at the description from the passage above, Solomon said this love is strong as death and it's jealousy as unyielding as the grave, and so this tells me that this love has its good and bad side. This love is powerful yet can be destructive when channeled wrongly.
Solomon warned in Songs of Songs 2:7, he said"Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you by the gazelles and by the does of the field: Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires." From what I am learning in this book of the Bible, this beautiful love that God has made and filled into the hearts of men solely for marriage purpose can be misused, misapplied and aroused or awakened inappropriately. And when this happens, this beautiful additive that God made exclusively for marriage becomes as unyielding as the grave. Then this love that is sweet and beautiful becomes a venom of death. And so we hear and see people become very destructive and doing absurd things just for the sake of love. When you hear someone killed for love, then you realise that it is love that has been misapplied and awakened unnecessarily. Then love becomes as strong as death. No wonder Solomon had to repeat that same warning three times (Songs of Songs 2:7, 3:5, 8:4) within an eight chapter book.
There is a step that precedes the release or the awakening of love, and that is a divine consultation with God. When you see someone you think you might be interested in, the first thing to do is to pray and ask God to reveal to you if that person is the one whom He has made for you or has made you for, before releasing your love to such a person. Because when you allow the release of love before a divine consultation with God you will not hear clearly what the Lord is saying to you about the one in whom you have invested your love.
In quite a number of cases where we hear of people getting their hearts broken, when questions are thoroughly asked, it is always a case of one falling in love with someone they never prayed about before falling in love with. And so Solomon charges all not to arouse or awaken love until it so desires.
In the book of Genesis 24, we find the story of Isaac and Rebekah, and one thing that caught my interest in that story was the fact that Rebekah was willing to marry Isaac despite the fact that she had not met him in person. And when you read through the story of Isaac and Rebekah you will discover that they both loved each other through their troubled times, when they had no child for a long 20years. One secret behind the success of Isaac and Rebekah's marriage was that the choice of who to marry was made by God and nobody else. And love was awakened in their relationship after God had approved of the union. The fact that God was the origin of their union didn't mean they did not have their challenges, but they scaled through them all with their marriage still standing strong.
We discover that those who love themselves so very dearly at the point of getting married might eventually fall out of love for each other to the point of getting a divorce in some cases, and in some other cases the issue of violence and abuse then surfaces in their marriage. Based on this fact, I will then say that love is not a reason strong enough for a marriage covenant to stand on. Love like all other emotional feeling appears and disappears. There are times a person is happy and there are times that same person is sad. In the same manner there are times the love between a couple is very strong and there are times the love between them is almost non-existent. When all that is holding a marriage together is love, then at the point where it fades, trouble starts.
But when you have the hold of the hand of God on your marriage which is bigger and better than any love you can feel, then there is the confidence that your marriage can weather any storm whether you are in or out of love for each other. God is the origin of love and so He knows when to reapply the bond of love when it seems to be fading away.
So from my own discovery and conclusion, I will say that LOVE as an emotion, strong as it maybe, is not a reason strong enough for any two people to enter into a marriage covenant with each other without first seeking the mind of God on the matter. If for any reason you see someone you think you are interested in getting married to, please hold the love in within you and objectively seek the face of God on the step you are about to take before releasing your love to such a person.
And for those who are in marriage and didn't seek God first before taking the decision, we all serve a God of second and third and forth and fifth and endless chances. All you need to do is get wise enough to invite Jesus into your marriage and He will right all your wrongs and rebuild that marriage of yours and do for you and your spouse what you otherwise cannot do for yourself.