A Pig in a Poke

In the Middle Ages, people traded with each other, offering at the market what they themselves grew and produced. When selling small livestock, they did not pack it in cardboard boxes or special containers, but put the goods in a sack and gave it to the buyer. Some fraudsters used this rule for themselves and handed over instead of the purchased livestock a sack with a cat, which had no value and immediately ran away when released into the light.

It turned out that when you bought goods, you did not know what was in the sack, but believed that it contained something necessary, and did not doubt the seller's honesty.

Creating a family and deciding to love one another are actions similar in many principles, features, and characteristics. Choosing a candidate for the role of friend, I do not know what that person represents who henceforth becomes close to me. And he, in turn, does not know me. And in this mutual ignorance we begin to build relationships, discovering for ourselves the world of a new life friend, allowing our heart to open as well.

Hasty marriages are dangerous because you do not know what is in the sack of the human heart and what animal lives there. And this can be determined only when, in the presence of trust, this heart begins to open for you, and you get full access to its depths.

Knowing each other requires a lot of time spent together, and the desire to love one another makes this knowledge purposeful and interesting.

When two people wishing to enter marriage move to personal contact and allow themselves to hug and kiss each other, then all their knowledge is reduced to the area of feelings and pleasures that require constant repetition and variety. In such a worldview it is impossible to understand the character of the person with whom you are dealing. Your friend is perceived as a center of pleasure, who himself receives pleasure from you. And a firm conviction is created that this celebration will continue for a lifetime, therefore a family can be created with this person. As a result, I do not know what is in the "sack," and with faith that there is something good there, I carry my goods with joy, anticipating how I will use it upon arriving home. Perhaps the seller was honest and handed me the best and most valuable in his eyes.

Ignorance in knowing a friend will not make me a wise person, although my ability to bring him temporary pleasure with my courtship can be very romantic.

When I soberly approach important questions in my life and understand that I need to create a family because someone has appeared who by all appearances is not against mutual relations, I should be guided in such cases by wisdom and ask for it from God. They say that with a dear one even paradise is in a hut. And more advanced people add: "if the dear one is an attaché."

When I am asked to build something or give a decent appearance to what is in a terrible state, then I ask to be given a plan that will clearly indicate to me the final goal of my work and what I should achieve. I am not expected to do in a couple of days what will take long months of interesting work. But I choose the production process myself, having in my mind knowledge of construction laws, industrial norms and regulations. My customers, observing me, eventually understand that they have acquired not "a pig in a poke," but one who knows how to turn their dream into reality and is engaged in this from morning to evening.

Everyone who plans to create a family wants to be happy in this union. But when it comes to a specific person, you often see how wisdom in building this enterprise goes into the perspective of being in demand sometime in the future, and feelings and mood are given free rein.

Letting each other into our lives, we allow all kinds of disagreements, disappointments, disputes, and other negativity, in order to see what we should get rid of now so as not to allow it in the future. To know your friend, for whom there are serious plans, it is necessary to tune in to a prolonged period of communication and spending time in conversations and joint affairs.

In one day spent together, something, of course, will be revealed, but you will not understand with whom you are dealing. If we take only one month as a sufficient period for close acquaintance, then this is very little to comprehensively study a person and open up oneself. Six months is better than one month, but six months will not reveal much either.

It is considered that for a more complete acquaintance with a friend it is best to go through with him all the seasons, holidays, and events that occur in a year. Of course, if I have short communication once a month, then even a year will be little. But if we are not afraid to share with each other the secrets of our souls and spend enough time in communication, then in one year we will learn quite a lot about each other.

If we have developed a firm understanding that we suit each other as members of one family, and we decide on this union, then it is worth spending time in planning married life, so that it too does not turn out to be "a pig in a poke," which in fear will run away from us when released into freedom. Plans can always be changed depending on circumstances, but if there are none, then it is unclear what we will build together and where we will come in our case.

In frequent friendly and prolonged time together, any heart opens up to a friend, and you cannot play some role but become yourself. Being yourself is honest and right. But not all of us know how to do this and not all know what this should look like.

Love and acceptance in friendship gives us a great advantage not to be afraid to open our soul but to share what overflows it. But my heart becomes a promising field with good soil for growing those seeds of love that my friend will plant in it. In our love for one another I can become what I would never have become if my friend had not been engaged in knowing me and studying the depths of my heart, offering me his innovative ideas for my better development and prosperity.

The Lord sees how people approach the important questions of their lives, and how they want to receive from Him what does not become available to everyone simply, like goods on sale. A wise approach to one's life and thirst for God's participation in it gives God the power to apply His hand to our plans and affirm them, embodying them into reality.

In any family and friendship there must be a strong triangle of close relationships: the Lord, I, and friend. And this triangle is not built in one day, and it will withstand all trials, preserving its form under any onslaught, if our mutual love glues us into one whole.

Although we need time to know each other in order to make some important decisions, this knowledge does not end even when we have begun to act in accordance with our decision. We are dealing with the eternal science of researching the friend's heart, which will constantly amaze us with its interesting laws and delight our hearts with new discoveries.

If we plant love in our relationships, then we will reap it with profit and will feed each other with it all our lives.

1. Please read 1 Cor. 13:12; Phil. 1:9-10; Matt. 12:33; Rom. 12:1-3; Prov. 2:10-19; 3:1-6,35; 5:1-6; 8:10-12; 11:16; 30:21-23 in light of this topic.

2. What did you understand from this topic?

3. What other verses from the Bible came to your mind?

4. Is it important to get to know a person better before offering or agreeing to serious relationships?

5. What to do if you acquired a friend for long relationships, and then realized that he does not suit you?

6. Do you think that "a pig in a poke" when creating a family is a tragedy for life?

7. What prevents people from getting to know each other better before undertaking something important?

8. Do you think that sensual pleasures can become an obstacle in knowing a person's character? If yes, what kind of obstacle can they be?

9. Does the Bible give a prohibition on kissing and frank hugging of people in love before their marriage? If not, then why is it still undesirable to experiment with this?

10. What benefit will knowing a friend before creating a family bring?

11. Is it worth knowing each other in marriage too? Why do this if the family has already been established?

12. Can a parallel be drawn between the verse from John 17:3 and relationships in the family?

13. What did Solomon mean when he wrote such words from Eccl. 7:26: "And I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God shall escape from her, but the sinner shall be trapped by her."? And then he also added in verse 28: "Which my soul still seeks but I cannot find: One man among a thousand I have found, but a woman among all these I have not found." Are all women really so bad?

14. Can a person's feelings guide his reason when making decisions about creating a happy family?

15. Is a happy family an accident or a wise approach of two wise people to the question of its creation?