Tonye first saw Sefiya at a friend’s wedding in Port Harcourt. She was the one in the bridal train who could not stop laughing during the photographs, and the photographer kept having to start again. By the time the cake was cut, he had found a reason to sit at her table. By midnight they had exchanged numbers. By the end of the week, they were speaking on the phone every night until two or three in the morning.
It was the kind of beginning people write songs about. He drove from Port Harcourt to Owerri one Friday night after work, more than an hour on a bad road, simply because she had told him on the phone that she was sad and he wanted to see her face. She sent him voice notes of herself singing worship songs. Within six weeks he told his closest friend, “I have found my wife. I have never felt like this in my life.”
In the fourth month, they went for dinner at a restaurant in GRA to celebrate her promotion. The waiter brought the wrong order, and then took a long time bringing the right one. Tonye called him back to the table and spoke to him in a voice Sefiya had never heard before, loudly, in front of the other diners, using words that made the young man’s hands shake as he cleared the plates. Afterwards, in the car, Tonye was cheerful again, as if nothing had happened.
A week later, they had their first serious conversation about the future. She mentioned that she would like them to have a joint account after marriage. He laughed. “My money is my money. I will give you housekeeping. That is how my father did it.” She told him she had always planned to keep working after children came. He said that a wife of his would not need to. She asked where he saw them living. He said Port Harcourt, of course, near his family. She had assumed Abuja, where her career was taking her.
None of these things cancelled her feelings for him. That was what frightened her. She came to see me with a friend and said, “Pastor, I still love him. I think I love him. But I am not sure any more whether I love him, or whether I love the way I feel when I am with him.”
What attraction can and cannot do
Let me begin by saying something that churches do not always say clearly: attraction is good. God made us as embodied people, male and female, with the capacity to be drawn to one another. The Song of Solomon is in your Bible. It is a whole book of love poetry in which a bride and bridegroom delight openly in one another’s beauty. “His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend” (Song of Solomon 5:16). Notice the two words she uses together: beloved and friend. Desire and companionship belong together in the picture God gives us.
So if you feel a strong attraction to someone, there is nothing wrong with you. That feeling is often the way interest begins. It draws two people to pay attention to one another, to spend time together, to want to know more. Many good marriages began with exactly that spark across a crowded room.
But attraction has limits. It can begin interest. It cannot settle the question of whether two people can share a life. It tells you that you are drawn to a person. It does not tell you whether that person is kind when tired, honest about money, faithful under pressure, or able to say sorry. It does not tell you whether you agree about the things that will shape every day of a marriage: faith, children, money, where to live, how to handle conflict, how to relate to two extended families.
There is an opposite error, and it is common in some church circles. A believer is told that attraction does not matter at all, that a spiritual person should marry whoever is godly and available, or whoever a prophet has named. People have entered marriages with no affection whatever for their spouse, because they were told that feelings were carnal. Scripture does not teach that. The Song of Solomon celebrates delight. Paul assumes that desire is a normal part of marriage (1 Corinthians 7:2-5). Attraction is not sufficient, but it is not irrelevant either. A marriage in which one spouse feels nothing but duty toward the other has lost something God meant to give.
The more common danger, though, is that strong feelings can drown out every other question. When you are in the early intensity of attraction, the other person’s faults look small and their virtues look enormous. Anything that does not fit the picture is explained away. Your friends may see clearly what you cannot see at all. Sefiya was beginning to discover this. Her feelings were real. But feelings alone could not tell her what she needed to know.
Jacob loved Rachel
One of the most famous love stories in the Bible begins with attraction:
And Laban had two daughters: the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah was tender eyed; but Rachel was beautiful and well favoured. And Jacob loved Rachel; and said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel thy younger daughter. And Laban said, It is better that I give her to thee, than that I should give her to another man: abide with me. And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her.
“Rachel was beautiful and well favoured. And Jacob loved Rachel.” The order matters. Jacob saw her beauty, and he loved her. And his love was not shallow. He served seven years for her, “and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her.” That is a beautiful sentence. Anyone who has waited eagerly for something they long for understands it.
But read the rest of the story. On the wedding night, Laban deceived Jacob and gave him Leah instead. Jacob then worked another seven years for Rachel. The household that followed was full of rivalry, favouritism and pain. Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah, and the Bible does not hide what that did to Leah, or later to the children. Rachel’s own sons became the favourites, and Joseph was nearly killed by his brothers because of it.
It is worth noticing, too, how little Jacob seems to have known about the family he was marrying into. He was in love, and he did not ask enough questions about Laban. He learned on the morning after his wedding exactly what kind of man his father-in-law was. Love that is in a hurry rarely looks closely.
Jacob’s attraction to Rachel was genuine, but it could not make him a wise husband or a fair father. The intensity of his feeling for one woman did not give him the character to love his whole household well. Strong feelings, even lasting ones, are not the same as the capacity to build a home.
When intensity is mistaken for love
There is a much darker story in 2 Samuel 13. Amnon, a son of King David, became obsessed with his half-sister Tamar. The text says he “loved her,” and he was so consumed that he made himself ill. On the advice of a cunning friend, he pretended to be sick, lured her to his room and raped her. Then the Bible records this:
Then Amnon hated her exceedingly; so that the hatred wherewith he hated her was greater than the love wherewith he had loved her. And Amnon said unto her, Arise, be gone.
The same intensity that had looked like love turned instantly into hatred. What Amnon had felt was never love at all. It was desire for possession, and once he had taken what he wanted, the woman herself meant nothing to him. “Arise, be gone.”
I include this painful story with care, because Tamar was a real victim of real violence, and the fault was entirely Amnon’s. Nothing in the passage blames her, and nothing in our application should either. But the passage teaches us something we must not miss. Intensity is not proof of love. A person can feel overwhelming desire for you and still not seek your good. Some of the most controlling and dangerous relationships begin with an intensity that feels flattering: constant messages, a desire to be with you every moment, jealousy that seems romantic, pressure to commit quickly. If someone’s “love” for you leaves no room for your freedom, your other relationships or your “no,” take that seriously.
The bride in the Song of Solomon, who knows the power of desire, gives a repeated warning to her friends:
I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please.
“Stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please.” The refrain appears three times in the Song. Its exact meaning has been discussed, but it seems to counsel patience: do not rush love, do not force it, do not awaken desire before its proper time. Desire is powerful, and when it is stirred too early it can carry people into decisions their judgement has not yet made. Slowing down does not kill love. It gives love time to show whether it is real.
What love actually does
PunchlinePaul’s famous description of love in 1 Corinthians 13 was written to a church, not a wedding. But it gives us a set of searching questions for any relationship.
“Charity suffereth long, and is kind” (1 Corinthians 13:4). Is this person patient with others, or only with you while they are trying to win you? Watch how they treat a slow waiter, a younger sibling, a junior colleague, a struggling driver in traffic. Kindness that is reserved for the person you are courting is not yet kindness.
“Charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up” (1 Corinthians 13:4). Can this person rejoice when you succeed, or do they become sulky when your career outshines theirs? Do they need always to be the one who is admired?
“Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil” (1 Corinthians 13:5). Does this person insist on their own way in every disagreement? How quickly do they become angry? Do they keep score of your wrongs?
“Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:6). Do they tell the truth when it costs them? Can they hear the truth from you without punishing you for it?
You will not find these answers by asking the person directly. Almost everyone says they are patient. You find them by watching, over time, in ordinary situations. Spend time together in groups as well as alone. Meet each other’s friends and listen to how they speak about the person. Notice how they treat their parents, and how they speak about former relationships. A person who describes every former friend or partner as the villain of the story may be telling you something about themselves.
These are not questions only for the other person. Ask them of yourself as well. But notice that every one of them describes character expressed in action. Paul says nothing in these verses about how love feels. He describes how love behaves. That is why love can be examined in a relationship before marriage, and why it must be.
Attraction tells you that you are drawn to a person. It cannot tell you whether you can share a life. Only time, truth and observed character can answer that.
A faithful man who can find?
The book of Proverbs puts a sharp question to every courtship:
Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness: but a faithful man who can find? The just man walketh in his integrity: his children are blessed after him.
“Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness.” Anyone can describe himself well. In the early months of a relationship, both people are presenting their best selves. They say what they believe, how they intend to live, what kind of husband or wife they will be. Most of it is sincere. Very little of it has yet been tested.
“But a faithful man who can find?” Faithfulness is rarer than fine words, and it is only revealed over time. It is seen in how a person keeps small promises, whether they turn up when they said they would, how they handle money that is not theirs, whether they remain kind when the relationship is no longer new. You cannot discover faithfulness in a few weeks of late-night phone calls, or in a relationship conducted mainly through a screen. You discover it by watching a person through different seasons: when they are tired, when they are under pressure at work, when their family makes demands, when they are disappointed with you.
“The just man walketh in his integrity.” Integrity comes from a Hebrew word meaning completeness or wholeness. It describes a person who is the same in private as in public, the same with the waiter as with the pastor. That is exactly what Sefiya had begun to wonder about. The man who drove to Owerri at midnight and the man who humiliated the waiter were the same man. She needed to know which one was the truer picture.
“His children are blessed after him.” The proverb looks ahead a generation. The character of the person you marry will shape the home your children grow up in. A man or woman who walks in integrity gives their children a gift that outlasts any inheritance of money. That is one reason why this choice deserves such care.
Looking on the heart
When Samuel went to Bethlehem to anoint a king from among Jesse’s sons, he saw the eldest, Eliab, and was impressed immediately. Surely this was the Lord’s anointed. God answered him:
But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.
Even a prophet could be misled by height and appearance. Israel’s first king, Saul, had been chosen partly because he stood head and shoulders above everyone else, and his reign ended in tragedy. God was teaching Samuel to look past the outward and attend to the heart.
The same principle appears in the closing poem of Proverbs, addressed in the first place to a young man choosing a wife:
Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD , she shall be praised.
“Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain.” Favour here means charm, the ability to please and attract. Charm can deceive, and beauty fades. The verse does not say they are worthless. It says they cannot bear the weight of a marriage. What lasts is the fear of the Lord, a life lived in reverent trust before God.
The principle applies equally to women choosing husbands. Good looks, a fine car, a confident voice in the church choir, a gift for saying the right thing on the phone: none of these is wrong, and none of them is enough. Ask instead how this person treats God, how they treat people, and how they treat themselves.
In our setting, outward appearance includes more than a face. It includes the questions families and friends often ask first. Is he from a good family? Does he have a duplex in Lekki? Is she fair in complexion? Is she from our tribe? Some of these questions carry real wisdom. A person’s family background will shape them, and cultural differences can bring genuine challenges that a couple should discuss honestly. But none of these things is the heart. A man with a large house can be a cruel husband. A woman from your own town and your own church denomination can be dishonest. And a couple from two different ethnic groups, who share a living faith and have agreed on the commitments that matter, may build a far stronger home than two people who share only a dialect. Christ has made one new people out of many (Ephesians 2:14-15). Let that shape what you look for.
Agreeing to walk together
The prophet Amos asks a question that has often been applied to marriage:
Can two walk together, except they be agreed?
In its original setting, the verse is the first of a series of questions about cause and effect. Two people walking together have arranged to meet; a lion roars because it has caught prey; a trap springs because something has touched it. Amos is explaining that his prophecy has a cause: God has spoken. So we should not make the verse into a complete doctrine of marriage. But the picture it uses is common sense, and it fits marriage well. Two people cannot walk the same road for decades unless they have agreed where they are going.
Compatibility is often discussed as though it meant having similar personalities. That is not what sustains a marriage. Many happy couples are very different: one quiet, one talkative; one a planner, one spontaneous. Differences can complement one another. What a marriage needs is agreement on the commitments that will shape your shared life.
Here are some of them. You need to share a living faith in Christ and a common desire to follow Him. You need to agree, at least broadly, about children: whether, how many, how they will be raised. You need to agree about money: whether income will be shared or kept separate, how decisions will be made, what support will go to each extended family. You need to agree about work and calling: whose career, if either, takes priority, and where you will live. And you need to agree about how you understand marriage itself.
That last point matters more than many couples realise. In Ephesians 5, Paul introduces his teaching on marriage with the words “Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God” (Ephesians 5:21), and then tells husbands, “love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it” (Ephesians 5:25). Sincere believers understand headship in that passage in different ways. Some hold a complementarian view, in which the husband carries a distinct responsibility to lead within equal worth. Others hold an egalitarian view, in which leadership is shared according to gifts and circumstances. My own teaching is servant headship within mutual submission. But whichever view you hold, you need to know which view the person you are considering holds, and what it will look like on a Tuesday evening when you disagree about school fees. Tonye’s “my money is my money” was not a reading of Ephesians 5 at all. It was his father’s household arrangement, assumed without examination. That is the kind of thing that needs to be talked through before a wedding, not discovered after.
You also need to see how the two of you handle conflict. Not whether you disagree, because every couple does, but how. Can you disagree without contempt? Can one of you raise a concern without the other going silent for days or exploding? Can you both apologise? A couple who have never had a disagreement have not yet learned the most important thing about each other.
What sustains a marriage
If attraction does not sustain a marriage, what does?
NuggetCharacter sustains it. A husband and wife who are growing in patience, kindness, honesty and humility can weather what an attraction alone could never survive.
Agreed commitments sustain it. When two people have talked honestly about the things that matter and have chosen a common direction, the inevitable storms do not tear them apart. They may argue about the details, but they are not arguing about where the road goes.
Covenant sustains it. Marriage is a promise made before God, and the promise holds the relationship steady on days when the feelings are thin. Many long-married couples will tell you that their affection has risen and fallen many times. What kept them together in the low seasons was the decision to keep faith, and very often the affection returned, deeper than before.
And grace sustains it. The love Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 13 is beyond any of us in our own strength. It is the love of Christ, poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). It bears all things, hopes all things, and “endureth all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7). That endurance is not a matter of gritted teeth. It is the life of Christ in two people who keep returning to Him.
One more word needs to be said plainly. Do not marry a person hoping that marriage will change them. If you see cruelty, contempt, controlling behaviour or violence during courtship, take it seriously now. It rarely improves after a wedding. It usually grows worse, because the person no longer needs to win you. Abuse is never something God asks anyone to endure in the name of love. If you are already in a relationship where you feel afraid, speak to a trusted pastor, a counsellor, your family, or the police if you are in danger. Ending an unsafe relationship is wisdom, not failure.
Sefiya did not end the relationship that week. But she did something harder. She asked Tonye to slow down.
She told him what she had seen at the restaurant, and how it had frightened her. To his credit, he did not defend himself. He was quiet for a long time, and then he said that his father used to speak to people like that, and that he had promised himself as a boy he never would. He agreed to meet with an older man in his church, and later with a Christian counsellor, to talk about his anger.
They agreed to stop the late-night calls and start talking in daylight about the things that mattered. They read through a marriage preparation book together, one chapter a week, and argued about half of it. They discussed money for three months before they reached a plan they both believed in. Sefiya met his family in Port Harcourt, and he went with her to see her parents in Kaduna. They both noticed things they had not seen before, and they talked about those things honestly.
There were weeks when Sefiya thought it would end. There was one evening when Tonye did. But the attraction that began at a wedding reception slowly found something underneath it to rest on.
They married two years after they met. At the reception, the photographer had to start the bridal train photographs again because the bride could not stop laughing. Tonye told me afterwards, “When I first met her, I said I had never felt like this. That was true. But now I know her. And I am choosing her. That is better than the feeling.”
PunchlineIf you are in a relationship today, enjoy the attraction. Thank God for it. But do not let it answer questions it was never designed to answer. Look for faithfulness. Look at the heart. Talk about the road you will walk. And let love be proved by what it does.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- In a present or past relationship, what did attraction tell you about the other person, and what did it fail to tell you?
- Which of Paul’s descriptions of love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 would you most want to see tested in a person before marrying them?
- How can you tell the difference between intensity and love in yourself and in another person?
- What commitments do you believe a couple must agree on before marriage, and have you thought through your own position on each?
- How does Proverbs 20:6-7 change the way you would evaluate someone’s description of themselves?
This Week
Write down the five commitments you believe most need to be agreed in a marriage: faith, children, money, work and where to live, and how you understand Ephesians 5. Beside each, write your own honest position. If you are in a relationship, choose one of them this week and discuss it calmly and in daylight, without trying to win. If you are not, share your list with a mature married friend and ask what they would add.
A Prayer
Lord, thank You for creating us to love and to be drawn to one another. Thank You for the gift of attraction and the joy of affection. Give me wisdom not to confuse intensity with love, or charm with character. Teach me to look on the heart as You do, and to value faithfulness more than fine words. Let my own life be marked by the patient, kind and truthful love that Paul describes. Guard me from relationships that would harm me, and give me courage to slow down when I need to. Whatever relationships You lead me into, let them rest on Christ, and let love be proved by what it does. 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.