A couple's engagement is the perfect time for them to talk about any issues and set the standards they want to uphold in their marriage.
Pastor John Piper, founder of Desiring God, shared on his website that the more issues couples can tackle during their engagement, the better. "It is far more frustrating and threatening to think of something after you are married that you should have talked about before," he said.
Some couples might shy away from certain issues or conversation to avoid conflict, but Piper said they need to be brave and confront these head-on.
"This is what engagement or courtship is designed for: maximum exposure to what each of you thinks, believes, feels, does habitually or occasionally — no secrets, nothing held back. You don't want marriage to be based on ignorance, but on trust in the face of all truth," he said.
Another important thing to do during one's engagement is to set patterns of spiritual leadership. How should couples initiate Bible study, prayer time and study, as well as other biblical activities? If couples don't share the same theological views, Piper said they will find themselves pulling each other in different spiritual directions and ruining their relationship.
He added that couples should both be "seeing God in the same way and seeing Christ and seeing the Holy Spirit and seeing faith and seeing love and salvation and heaven and hell and Satan and sin and holiness and obedience, seeing all these things in the same way."
At the same time, Piper said couples should not only be mindful of what they do together to strengthen their marriage. In fact, he believes what couples do apart from each other is just as important, if not more.
"Far more important is what you do apart from each other, as each of you meets Jesus and consecrates yourself afresh over and over so that your devotion to Christ is absolutely unshakable personally between you and Him, and your experience of Him is profoundly satisfying," he explained. "When two people operate out of that individual profundity, the marriage will endure — and not only endure, but flourish with joy and fruitfulness."
