Life + Love by Ben StuartSample

Engagement

When it comes to young, budding love, the Bible has a great example for us. Beautifully written with symbols and imagery, this book expounds on the beauties of love in all of its passion, showing us a picture of the kind of love we should aim for as we experience the season of engagement. Song of Solomon shows us how we can have confidence we’re with the right person. 

1. Look for excitement. “Your name is perfume poured out” (v. 3) is a poetically beautiful way of saying when his name is brought up, it causes a pleasant reaction in her and in others. It’s a way of saying that he has a good character. A sweetness. A solid reputation. She’s excited to hear his name. Four people or groups speak in Song of Solomon: God, the man, the woman, and the woman’s friends. 
2. Look for friendship. Notice the excitement the man has for the woman. He doesn’t walk to her. He leaps over the mountains and bounds over the hills. The Hebrew word used in 2:10, translated as “darling,” is translated elsewhere in the Old Testament as “neighbor,” “companion,” or “friend.” In other words, their relationship isn’t built on physical attraction alone. It’s knit closer and closer together by their continued kindness and friendship, which drives the excitement we see in these verses. One biblical mark of a love that lasts a lifetime is friendship. 
3. Look for growth. How do you know you’re with the right person? They produce growth in you over time. Different areas of your life begin to blossom and ripen. Because of your relationship with that person, your life begins to look more and more like Jesus. If your life is already growing because of your partner, imagine what it could look like over a lifetime. Conversely, if your partner isn’t causing growth in you, imagine the spiritual decline that could occur over a lifetime. 
4. Look for vulnerability. Maybe you, like this couple, have arrived at a place in your relationship where you’re increasingly convinced this is the person you’re supposed to marry. On the first few dates the risk you took was limited to a little time and money. But as you continued to evaluate each other during the season of dating, the risk increased. The potential of getting hurt grew as you became more vulnerable with each other. One way we expose the hidden places of our hearts is through confession. For all of us, it means being honest about ways we’ve failed to live with purity or integrity. And for all of us, it means being honest about sins we’ve personally committed. Before you’re engaged, you should have weathered a moment of confession between each other. That process continues during engagement. Revealing your missteps during engagement is vital to avoid surprises in marriage, and to establish the freedom of knowing all of the doors in your lives are open in your home. This might be a difficult conversation, but wading into these waters signals a deep level of trust in your partner and greatly increases the bond between the two of you. 
5. Look for trust. When a vulnerability is received and reciprocated, it allows trust to deepen. The man is extolling the beauty of the innermost places of the woman's heart, the places she may be inclined to hide from view, fearing that if they were exposed, they would leave her raw, ugly, and rejected. The man builds incredible trust by affirming and valuing her as she reveals more and more about herself. How do you know you’re supposed to be with someone? You have a relationship marked by trust. Wisdom is found in community. Some threats are hard for us to see until we’ve experienced them. Bad communication, inappropriate relationships, poor financial planning, and relationships in each other’s family all have the potential to cause stress during engagement. Part of building trust is allowing your community to speak into your relationships from their experience to the glory of God