If you are single, or even in the final stages of getting married, take this one piece of advice from me: marry your best friend and you will never regret it.

A tough, painful, and long journey of marriage with a best friend is like a vacation on a Caribbean beach.

You cry, but you also laugh a lot. You fight, but your fight teaches you a brand new way to love your best friend. You hurt your best friend and your best friend hurts you, too, but as the Word says, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend” (Proverbs 27:6 KJV) – “The wounds which a real friend inflicts by his just rebukes are directed by truth and discriminating affection” (Pulpit Commentary). You get hurt by others, but because someone who loves you is waiting for you at home, you let go of other’s wrong doings very quickly. When you fight with God, your best friend always takes God’s side and fights for you, not against you. When you choose to take a wrong and sinful way, your best friend chooses the opposite way because true love “does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.” (1 Corinthians 13:6) When your heart gets full with pride, your best friend reminds you where you came from.

Yes, marry your best friend!

If you’re already married and you know in your heart that your spouse is not your best friend, or that your spouse used to be your best friend, but along the way you two lost that friendship, don’t lose heart. We worship a God who “calls into being things that were not” (Romans 4:17b).

Let’s say you are the wife of one man and you desire to have a close friendship flourish between you and your husband. What you need to do, I believe, is this: focus on your call and strive to be the person God calls you to be, and you will see how God “calls” that non-existing friendship into your marriage. Yes, He can do that! God has wonder-working power! As He called Lazarus from the grave (John 11) and Isaac from the dead womb (Genesis 21), He will call friendship into your marriage. You just be faithful to your call, which begins, “Wives, – – -” (Ephesians 5:22-24).

No man – listen to me carefully please – no man can resist a woman of God. Don’t ever forget that!

Please don’t read me wrong here, though. I’m not talking about a woman who is a legalist, who runs her life, as well as everyone else’s, by her “Thou shalt not” and “Thou shalt” rules and regulations. Oh, no! This kind of woman cannot be attractive to any man because no man can measure up to her standard.

Rather, I’m talking about a woman like Abigail. You should read her whole story in 1 Samuel 25, but let me quote one verse from this beautiful chapter here that overwhelms my soul: “When Abigail saw David, she quickly got off her donkey and bowed down before David with her face to the ground.” (1 Samuel 25:23). Wow! No man can resist this kind of beauty a woman displays like this in the open!

And remember, this advice can only be applicable to a marriage or a relationship where there is no abuse of any sort (physical, emotional and mental abuse).

Can a person whose house is on fire fix a broken window? No, he cannot. The fire doesn’t allow him to fix that broken window. He first has to stop the fire. In the same way, any sort of abuse has to be stopped before we talk about how to create and cultivate a lasting friendship. ///

P. S. The short definition of a best friend: the first person you think to go to when you’re in trouble, sad, happy, and hurt and the person you can open up to without fear of being judged and condemned. A best friend is the one you hide nothing from, the person you love to spend time with just talking about anything and everything (or, just being on the phone with, even while just listening to each other’s breathing). A best friend is the one who stands beside you when the whole world stands against you, the one who believes in you even when you struggle to believe in yourself. How to find this person? By being one first.