When we’re in love, we easily overlook the flaws in the person we hope to marry. This is good when the flaw is small, but it’s bad when the flaw is more serious—such as a habit of rudely interrupting people or of not going to church. You might put up with a future spouse’s shortcoming because you think that once you’re married you’ll change the one you love. Don’t count on it. Irritations often become worse after we’re married, for our spouse is no longer trying to impress us. They’ve already won our heart.

We shouldn’t count on changing a spouse, but we can count on marriage changing us. As our lives become one, we become part of each other’s families, take an interest in each other’s hobbies, develop our own inside jokes, and find common ground in handling money and serving in church. Take a hard look at your future spouse’s character, values, and habits. If you go ahead and marry, in a few years you may become a lot like your partner!

King Solomon learned this the hard way. He knew God’s command not to marry foreign women (Exodus 34:16; 1 Kings 11:2), and he warned his own sons to watch out for the captivating ways of immoral women (Proverbs 5:1-23, 7:1-27). And his counsel equally applies to daughters marrying immoral men. Yet this man who was gifted with extraordinary wisdom (1 Kings 3:12), who wrote that the point of life was to “fear God and obey his commands” (Ecclesiastes 12:13), somehow followed his wives in worshiping the detestable gods Ashtoreth and Molech (1 Kings 11:5).

If it could happen to Solomon, the wisest man ever, it can happen to you. You may never change the person you marry, but your marriage will inevitably change you. Marry the sort of person you want to become.

NLT 365-day reading plan passage for today: Daniel 2:1-24