Adejoke found the list on a Saturday morning in March, while she was packing up her flat in Yaba to move closer to her office in Victoria Island. It was in a blue exercise book at the bottom of a drawer, under old bank statements and a programme from her university fellowship’s singles’ retreat. She was twenty-two when she wrote it. She is twenty-nine now.
The heading, underlined twice, said My Future Husband. Below it were twenty-three points in her careful student handwriting. Born again and Spirit-filled. Prays every morning. Tall (at least 6 ft). Has a good job and a car. Not stingy. Good with money. Never shouts. Doesn’t keep malice. Patient. Respects my parents. Listens when I talk. Humble. Can apologise. Faithful in church. Keeps his house neat.
She sat on the floor among the cartons and laughed at the height requirement. Then she read the list again, more slowly, and stopped laughing.
Her younger sister had been staying with her for six months while she did her youth service. The week before, after a quarrel about the kitchen, her sister had said something that stung. “Aunty Joke, you can stay angry for two weeks over one plate. Even Mummy is afraid to correct you.” Adejoke had not spoken to her for four days afterwards, which rather proved the point.
Doesn’t keep malice. Never shouts. Good with money. She thought about the credit card she had been paying minimums on for a year and a half. Listens when I talk. She thought about how often she checked her phone while her mother was speaking. Can apologise. She could not remember the last time she had said sorry first.
Punchline“I had written a description of a man I would have to become,” she told me. “And I was not anywhere close.”
The life you are already living
Many unmarried believers think of preparation for marriage as something that begins when a suitable person appears. Before that, there is nothing to prepare. You wait, you pray, and when the relationship begins, you start getting ready.
Scripture suggests otherwise. The person you will be in marriage is being formed now, in the life you are already living. The way you handle money on a single salary is the way you will handle money on two. The way you respond to your flatmate’s untidiness is a fair preview of how you will respond to a spouse’s. The way you speak to your mother when you are tired is roughly the way you will speak to your husband or wife when you are tired. The wedding does not change your character. It moves your character into a smaller house with another person, where it can be seen more clearly.
That is why Adejoke’s list was so revealing. Most of us know exactly what we want in a spouse. We want kindness, patience, faithfulness, generosity, honesty and humility. We are right to want those things. But we rarely ask whether we are growing in them ourselves. We make a list for the person we hope to marry and never think to read it as a mirror.
There is a guard-rail we need to set in place at the beginning, and I will return to it later. Growing into a mature person is good, and it will bless any marriage God gives. But it is not a payment you make to God in exchange for a spouse. Some of the most mature believers I know have never married. Some very immature people marry young. Character is not a ticket. It is the shape of a life lived with God, and it is valuable before Him whether or not a wedding ever comes.
Prepare the field first
The book of Proverbs contains a short instruction about order:
Prepare thy work without, and make it fit for thyself in the field; and afterwards build thine house.
The setting is an agricultural society. A young man’s livelihood came from the land. Before he built a house and filled it with a family, he needed to prepare his fields so that the household could be sustained. To build the house first, and only then to think about how it would eat, was foolishness. The proverb is about sequence. Get your work in order, and then build.
The word house in Hebrew can mean a building, but it very often means a household or family. So the proverb is not only about bricks and roofing sheets. It is about building a home. Before you build one, prepare your field.
What does that look like in Lagos or Abuja or Port Harcourt today? It does not mean that you must be wealthy before you marry. Many good marriages began in a single room with a mattress on the floor and a kerosene stove. Scripture never makes riches a condition of marriage, and couples who wait for financial perfection may wait for ever. But it does mean taking responsibility for your work. Can you hold a job, or start and sustain a trade? Do you know how much you earn and where it goes? Are you carrying debts you have not told anyone about? Do you give, save and spend with any kind of plan, or does your salary disappear by the fifteenth of each month?
It also means taking responsibility for your household skills, whether you are a man or a woman. Can you cook a meal, keep a living space clean, manage a budget for foodstuffs, care for someone who is sick? These are not tasks reserved for one sex. They are part of being a responsible adult, and a marriage in which one person has never learned them will put an unfair weight on the other.
There is a particular Nigerian dimension to this. Many of us carry real obligations to our wider families: a parent’s upkeep, a sibling’s school fees, the roof on the house in the village. Scripture honours that care. Paul writes, “if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith” (1 Timothy 5:8). But unexamined family obligations have strained many young marriages. A husband sends half his salary home without telling his wife. A wife quietly pays her brother’s rent from the housekeeping money. Preparing your field includes deciding, now, what you can sustainably give to your family, and learning to say it honestly. Then, when the day comes, you can bring that clarity into a shared conversation instead of a hidden arrangement.
Even in Eden, God gave the man work before He gave him a wife. He was put in the garden “to dress it and to keep it” (Genesis 2:15) before Eve was formed. Work is not a curse that came with the fall. It is part of the dignity of being human, and a person who has learned to work faithfully brings that faithfulness into every relationship.
Looking on the things of others
Paul wrote to the Philippians from prison. The church there was dear to him, but there were tensions within it, including a quarrel between two women who had laboured with him in the gospel. Before he addressed that quarrel directly, he set out the mind that should govern every relationship in the church:
Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
“Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory.” Vainglory means empty glory, the desire to be seen and admired. Paul knew that much of the conflict in any community comes from people competing for recognition, protecting their image, insisting on being right. Then he gives the alternative: “in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.”
This does not mean pretending you are worthless. It means deliberately placing another person’s good ahead of your own preference. “Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.” Notice the word also. Paul does not tell you to neglect your own needs. He tells you not to be limited to them.
Then he points us to the supreme example: “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5). The Son of God emptied Himself and took the form of a servant. Every Christian marriage is meant to be a daily practice of that mind.
Here is the point for the unmarried believer. You do not need a spouse to start practising this. You can practise it today with your flatmate, your siblings, your parents, your colleagues and your church. When your younger brother needs a lift to the bus park on the morning you planned to sleep in, you are being trained. When you choose not to win the argument at the family meeting, you are being trained. When you notice that the woman who cleans your office has not been paid on time and you speak up for her, you are being trained. Every one of those small choices is forming the person who will one day, perhaps, stand at the altar and promise to love another person above themselves.
If you only practise generosity toward people you are trying to impress, you are not yet growing in it. The real test is how you treat those who can give you nothing back.
Clothing you can put on now
Paul’s letter to the Colossians gives one of the most practical descriptions of Christian character in the New Testament:
Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.
Notice how the passage begins. “Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved.” Before Paul tells us what to put on, he tells us who we are. You are chosen. You are holy, set apart for God. You are beloved. The virtues that follow are not a way of earning that identity. They are the clothing that suits it. A king’s child dresses like a king’s child because of who they already are.
Then comes the wardrobe. “Bowels of mercies,” which is the old English way of saying deep, heartfelt compassion. Kindness. Humbleness of mind. Meekness, which is strength under control. Longsuffering, the ability to bear with provocation for a long time without retaliating. “Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another.” And over everything, like an outer garment that holds the rest together, “charity, which is the bond of perfectness.”
Paul says put on. That implies choice and practice. You do not wake up one morning already clothed in patience. You put it on, day after day, often when you do not feel patient at all. And you put it on in the company of real people who test it.
This is where Adejoke began. She realised that her habit of keeping malice was not a personality trait. It was a refusal to forgive, dressed up as a sensitive temperament. “Even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.” She had been forgiven much by God. She could not keep a plate in her heart for two weeks and call herself clothed in Christ.
If you carry patterns of anger, sulking, sharp speech or holding grudges, the time to deal with them is now. They will not disappear at the wedding. They will move in with you, and they will grow, because marriage gives them more occasions. But the good news is that the Spirit of God is able to change them now, while there is time and room to grow.
NuggetThe wedding does not change your character. It moves your character into a smaller house with another person, where it can be seen more clearly.
Faithful in that which is least
Jesus said, “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much” (Luke 16:10). He was speaking about money, but the principle reaches every part of life. Small faithfulness now is preparation for larger faithfulness later.
Think about honesty. If you tell small lies to your boss about why you are late, or adjust figures on a claim form, you are building a habit that will follow you into marriage. A spouse who cannot trust your small words will not trust your large ones.
Think about time. If you constantly arrive late, forget commitments and leave others waiting, you are telling the people around you that your convenience matters more than theirs. That habit will cost a marriage a great deal.
Think about your walk with God. Some single believers hope that a godly spouse will finally make them pray, read the Scriptures and attend church faithfully. That is a heavy burden to place on another sinner. A spouse can encourage your faith, but no spouse can carry it for you. If you are not seeking God when you are single, a wedding will not change that. Build the habits of prayer, of the Word and of belonging to a local church now, for their own sake and because you love the Lord. Then, if you marry, you will bring a living faith into the home instead of looking to borrow one.
Think about your inner life. The book of Proverbs puts it this way:
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
“Keep thy heart with all diligence.” The heart in Hebrew thought is the centre of the person: thoughts, desires, will and emotions together. “Out of it are the issues of life,” meaning that the direction of your whole life flows out from what is going on inside. What you allow to settle in your heart now, in your private thoughts, in what you watch, in the resentments you nurse, will eventually come out in the way you live with another person.
For some, keeping the heart means dealing honestly with old wounds. Perhaps you grew up in a home where your father beat your mother, or where nobody ever said sorry, or where money was always a source of shouting. Those experiences shape us, often without our noticing, and we carry their patterns into our own relationships. There is no shame in seeking help. A mature pastor, a trusted mentor or a qualified Christian counsellor can help you understand what you learned in your family of origin and what you need to unlearn. Many couples discover these patterns only after the wedding, in painful ways. You have the opportunity to face them before.
Growth is not a bargain
Now I must return to the guard-rail. It is very easy to hear everything I have said as a transaction. If I become patient, God will send me a husband. If I clear my debts, God will release my wife. If I fix my character, the delay will end. Many single believers have been taught exactly that, and it has produced enormous disappointment and confusion.
The verse most often used to support this idea is the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount:
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
Look at the context. Jesus has been speaking about food, drink and clothing. He tells His disciples not to be anxious about these daily needs, because their heavenly Father knows they need them. “All these things” refers to those necessities. The verse is a promise that God cares for His children’s needs as they make His kingdom their first priority. It is a call to trust, not a formula for obtaining whatever we want if we are spiritual enough.
Seek the kingdom first because the kingdom is worth seeking. Grow in patience because patience is Christlike. Get your finances in order because it is wise stewardship. Each of these is good in itself, and each pleases God now, today, in the life you are actually living. If God gives you a spouse, they will bless your marriage. If He does not, they will still have blessed your life, your church, your family and your workplace.
The psalm that says “Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart” (Psalm 37:4) has been misused the same way. The verse does not mean that delighting in God is a way to obtain what you already wanted. As we delight in Him, our desires are shaped by His, and we find in Him the deepest desire of the heart.
The story of Ruth is sometimes taught as a strategy for getting a husband. Look at what Boaz actually says to her when they first meet:
And Boaz answered and said unto her, It hath fully been shewed me, all that thou hast done unto thy mother in law since the death of thine husband: and how thou hast left thy father and thy mother, and the land of thy nativity, and art come unto a people which thou knewest not heretofore. The LORD recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the LORD God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust.
What had Boaz heard about? Her faithfulness to her mother-in-law. Ruth was a widow from Moab who had refused to abandon an older widow with nothing to offer her. She had left her own country and people to care for Naomi. She was gleaning in the fields to feed the two of them. None of that was a plan to attract a wealthy landowner. It was love, offered freely, at great cost, to someone who could not repay it. Boaz noticed it, and God did eventually give Ruth a husband. But the book of Ruth is a story about God’s covenant kindness, hesed, at work through ordinary faithful people. It is not a manual for winning a man.
Ruth’s character had value long before Boaz saw it. It would have had value if he had never seen it at all. That is true of yours.
Perhaps you have done much of this already. You have worked on your temper, cleared your debts, served faithfully in your church and grown in prayer, and you are still single at thirty-five or forty-five. You may be tempted to feel that the effort was wasted. It was not. “For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name” (Hebrews 6:10). Every act of patience, every apology, every hour given to others has been seen by your Father, and it has done its work in you and through you. The growth was never a deposit on a future husband or wife. It was the life of Christ becoming visible in you, and that is never wasted.
Learning from the marriages around you
One of the best ways to prepare for marriage is to watch marriages closely and ask questions. Find couples in your church who have been married for twenty or thirty years and whose homes you respect. Ask if you can spend time with them. Watch how they speak to one another when they disagree. Ask how they handled their first serious financial crisis, or the season when a child was ill, or the year when one of them lost a job. Most mature couples are glad to be asked, and you will learn more from an afternoon in their sitting room than from many sermons.
Watch marriages that struggle too, with compassion and without gossip. Ask yourself what patterns you see and whether any of them are already present in your own life.
Learn about yourself. Know your genotype, and if you do not know it, get tested. In Nigeria, where sickle cell disease affects so many families, this is basic responsible preparation. Know your own health and attend to it. Understand your temperament: what drains you, what restores you, how you react under stress. Understand your expectations of marriage, many of which you absorbed from your parents without realising it. Did you assume that the husband handles all the money? That the wife does all the cooking? That his family will have a say in your decisions? Those assumptions may be right or wrong, but you should know you have them before you bring them into a marriage.
And if your church offers teaching on marriage for unmarried members, attend it. Do not wait for a pre-marital counselling class three weeks before your wedding, when the date is fixed and the invitations are printed. Preparation is far more useful when nothing is at stake.
Grace for the growing
None of this is meant to load you with a heavy project of self-improvement. If you finish this teaching feeling that you must now become perfect before you are fit for marriage, you have heard it wrongly.
You are already accepted by God in Christ. You are already “the elect of God, holy and beloved.” The growth He works in you is the fruit of His Spirit, not the product of your anxious effort. Paul says that God is the one who began a good work in you, and He “will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). You do not grow in order to be loved. You grow because you are loved, and because the Spirit of the One who loves you lives in you.
That changes the whole atmosphere of preparation. You can look honestly at your faults, because they do not threaten your standing with God. You can admit your debts, your anger, your fears, because grace is greater than all of them. You can begin small, with one habit, one apology, one honest conversation, and trust God with the rest. Jesus Himself “increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man” (Luke 2:52). Growth is a normal part of a human life lived with God. It takes time, and God is patient with it.
PunchlineAdejoke did not throw the blue exercise book away. She told me she kept it in her new flat, on the shelf beside her Bible.
On a fresh page, under the old list, she wrote a new heading: Who I want to be, married or not. She copied out several of the old points and put them in the first person. I do not keep malice. I can apologise. I listen when people talk. I am good with money. Then she started working, slowly, on the first one.
She went to her sister the same week and apologised for the four days of silence. Her sister was so surprised she cried. She booked an appointment with a financial adviser at her bank and drew up a plan to clear the credit card within a year. She did it in ten months. She started putting her phone face down on the table when her mother called round. She asked an older couple in her church, married for thirty-one years, if she could join them for Sunday lunch once a month and ask them questions. They said yes and have not stopped feeding her since.
She is still unmarried. She would like to marry, and she says so in her prayers. But she has stopped thinking of these years as a waiting room. Her sister, now finished with youth service, recently told their mother, “Aunty Joke has changed. She is easier to live with.” Adejoke said that was the best testimony she had ever had.
If you are hoping to marry, become the kind of person you hope to marry. Not because it will produce a spouse. Because it is the life God is already forming in you, and it is good, and it will bless everyone you love, beginning today.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- If you wrote a list of what you hope for in a spouse, which of those qualities are growing in your own life, and which are not yet?
- What habits in your handling of money, time or anger would you not want to bring into a marriage?
- Where in your present relationships can you practise looking “on the things of others” this week?
- What patterns from your family of origin might you need to understand or unlearn, and who could help you?
- How does knowing that growth is not a bargain with God change the way you approach this season?
This Week
Write down three qualities you hope to find in a future spouse. Then, beside each, write one concrete way you can grow in that quality yourself this week, in a relationship you already have. At the end of the week, look back honestly at what happened, thank God for any growth, and ask Him for grace for the next step. If you are carrying a debt, a grudge or a habit you have hidden, tell one trusted person about it before Sunday.
A Prayer
Father, thank You that I am chosen, holy and beloved in Christ before I have improved in anything. I bring You the life I am living now. Show me the habits and patterns You want to change, and clothe me with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience. Teach me to look on the things of others and to forgive as You have forgiven me. Help me to prepare my field before I build a house, and to grow in faithfulness in small things. I do not offer You my growth as a bargain. I offer it as worship. Whether You give me a spouse or not, let my life please You and bless those around me today. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.