Many singles assume that the greatest blessing in life is to find the right person and get married.

There’s some truth to that thought, because marriage is an amazing blessing.

However, a year or two after you get married, you will discover that your goals are shifting. Being married is no longer the greatest blessing. Instead, the greatest blessing is remaining happy in your marriage, which requires growing as an individual, finding healing, maturing, and having a deep relationship with Jesus.

The marriage journey is bigger than personal goals. It’s about a life of loving God and others with a pure love only His Spirit can give you. This kind of love results in a transformational marriage—something that is bigger than you and stretches far beyond the walls of your home.

You and Your Spouse Are Powerful in the Spirit Realm

Throughout history, God has used married couples to transform the world around them. They are at the bedrock of society. Some of their names we recognize, and some we don’t. Some reach a level of fame in the world that keeps their names in front of us for a time, while others go unnoticed by the majority. Yet their role is just as important to the Father’s heart. Even the married couples we’ve never heard of have had a powerful effect on the world.

Take a moment to really think about this—that you and your spouse are powerful. You don’t have to be a “famous” couple to have an impact. You can bring the light of God just as you are, as you love one another, put God first, and listen to His voice.

Your marriage is so much more than just setting up a house and thinking about children and careers and what you want the future to look like. Yes, marriage is the “cherry on top,” as one of our mentees loves to say, but it’s really so much more than that too. God in His goodness fulfills a desire in our hearts that brings love and learning and growth—but also has a big purpose.

Some of you are going to change the world not because you’re the president, a movie star, or the CEO of a massive charity but because you’re married and listening to God.

The enemy does his best to train us to “think small,” but as the child of a wonderful God, you carry His light, and His light has the power to change everything it touches (Eph. 5:13). The blessings of God, including marriage, tend to be bigger and longer lasting than we think they are. Marriage brings “the favor of the Eternal.”

The man who finds a wife finds something good,
    and the favor of the Eternal is indeed his. (Prov. 18:22 VOICE)

His Power, Not Yours

God thinks about marriage in a different way than we do. He thinks according to centuries and blessings and His light on the earth. He thinks miraculously, and He thinks according to His power, not merely what’s possible in human strength alone. 

The Holy Spirit is the force that empowers us as individuals and couples to live transformational lives. His Spirit is the reason we recognize that life can be different with Him.

The transformation He offers extends beyond the human heart. Romans 8:21–22 talks about growing pains in the world:

All creation longs for freedom from its slavery to decay and to experience with us the wonderful freedom coming to God’s children. To this day we are aware of the universal agony and groaning of creation, as if it were in the contractions of labor for childbirth. (TPT)

I am convinced these growing pains will stop when God’s glory is revealed—specifically, when His glory is revealed through married couples, just like you, who are learning how to live in His glory and who are stepping into the special, holy realm He has waiting for them.

That is not a human decision, carried out in human strength. It is a choice for God and His heart, and this choice causes life in the world around us to be different than it was before. 

What Is the Spirit Saying About Your Marriage? 

We have the joy of being a source of change for this world that so desperately needs to know there is a loving God with great plans for His people. A huge part of this transformational journey is letting the Holy Spirit prepare us before marriage and work through us during marriage.

Whether you are already married or hopeful for marriage, here are some questions you can ask the Holy Spirit. See what He says about you, the future, and how your marriage will affect the world around you.

1.  Holy Spirit, what is on Your heart for my spouse and me as a married couple?

2.  How are we going to affect the world around us? How are we going to bring Your light to other people?

3.  What are our strengths as a couple?

Journal what He shows you and hold on to it. If you have questions after this exercise, take those questions to a mentor you trust. God has a plan, and your marriage has a special role within that plan.