Practical Marriage Advice (from someone who is not married yet)

Aaron and I attended a marriage seminar a few weeks ago and left feeling pretty disappointed. We tried to have high hopes, but it was- well, to say the least- pretty unbiblical and I was confused. But it got me thinking. A lot of the push back was that it was practical advice and that it was aimed towards couples who had been married for decades. Okay, that's fine, but practicality should always be based on biblical truth. Am I totally off?

Again, these are thoughts are from a most likely naive, soon-to-be married woman. I have absolutely no experience being a wife, but I have a lot of experience being a sinner (ba dum tss!). 

These are things I want and things I do not want out of my marriage. I sure as hell do not want to get to a point in marriage where we are looking for practical advice over biblical truth and counsel because therein lies the problem: we do not take the message of the gospel quite seriously enough. If we did, we would not be looking elsewhere for the solution to our problems. Practical advice will only fix a temporary problem; it will not fix my heart. 

I was finishing up The Prodigal God by Tim Keller as I was realizing these things and there were some things that really spoke to me that helped me realize this even more: 

... We must personally appropriate [ the gospel of the grace of God ], making it more and more central to everything we see, think, and feel. That is how we grow spiritually in wisdom, love, joy and peace."

... even after you are converted by the gospel your heart will go back to operating in other principles, unless you deliberately, repeatedly set it to gospel-mode."

     -----> a note on this particular quote that Keller mentioned by Luther. This can be an analogy to romantic relationships: in the beginning, we are doing everything we can to impress the other person. The guy is pursuing the girl, perhaps taking her out on nice dates, asking her questions and caring about her day (vice versa with the girls asking the guys). The longer the two are together, the more used to each other they'll get and he will eventually go back to his old ways. He will no longer feel the need to impress her because he's got her. I remember in the beginning months of dating Aaron, I was more willing to listen and more willing to share, but now because we're engaged and simply put, used to each other, I find myself not working as hard to listen at times and also am more unwilling to share my thoughts immediately.     

Human approval, professional success, power and influence, family and clan identity- all of these things serve as our hearts' functional trust rather than what Christ has done, and as a result we continue to be driven to a great degree of fear, anger, and a lack of self control... [ this is totally me! ]... we can only change permanently as we take the gospel more deeply into our understanding and into our hearts. We must feed on the gospel..."

Paul does not threaten or merely exhort, nor does he left up some shining example to emulate. Instead he vividly portrays the salvation of Jesus as sacrificial, spousal love..."

This last one summarizes it all: how I feel about practical advice in regards to marriage, but in all of life as well. 

Faith in the gospel restructures our motivations, our self-understanding, our identity, and our view of the world. Behavioral compliance to rules without heart change will be superficial and fleeting."

*I write this to share my heart, but mostly to remind myself in times of my selfishness and weakness.