can't help but think if I married a pretty girl that I would be excessively lustful at times and I would imagine justifying this under the pretense of marriage, which God approves of.
Yes, 1 Thessalonians 4:5 says >
"not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God." (1 Thessalonians 2:5)
For some time, I have trusted that lust has no place in marriage. And I tested a pastor with this, and he said something like, People can abuse marriage.
And so, I would think lust should not be a reason to get married. But our Apostle Paul does say it is better to marry, than to burn. And ones understand this to mean to burn with passion. So, it could be Paul understands that even if we are with someone we belong with, we are not perfect, yet
But > what I understand as someone who has never been married > so we are welcome to take this with a grain of salt > lust is a dominating drive or a nagging drag for pleasure. And so, lust will likely push you to go after a pleasure which is nice feeling and easy to get and very intense. But the focus is not loving the person, but moreso using someone to get what you want, plus you can likely be not nice about getting no for an answer or not getting the pleasure the way you expected and are dictating.
Lust is dictatorial, then, nagging, won't take no for an answer. It does not believe in free will, then
But God's love does not have us only using anyone. And we seek to not be controlling other people > 1 Peter 5:3, Ephesians 4:2. We are more and more sweetly sensitive >
"submitting to one another in the fear of God." (Ephesians 5:21)
Ephesians 4:31-32
And more and more we enjoy how God corrects us and matures us in real loving which is so more interesting and pleasant and enjoyable than any human physical pleasures. Learning how to relate in a close relationship is one of the really worthwhile challenges and part of the best education we can get. Learning how to love is much more interesting, social, and enjoyable than all the pleasures and adrenaline rush things people are driven to in their lust which never really satisfies. The excitement dies, then we are back to stuff which is a drag, plus the weakness for the pleasure drives is also weakness for continuing pain and unforgiveness.
But God's love makes us strong in caring and ability to feel for others and freely stay clear of "complaining and disputing" > see Philippians 2:13-16 which I now understand means how as we stop our arguing and complaining we can become more and more real in God's way of sharing in love with our special people and we can be ready with such good example with ones who do not know how to love.
So, lust is contrary to this, bringing us to weakness which multi-tasks in pain and frustration and burn-out and nasty raging anger and other isolating things. Marriage is not an isolation, but a laboratory for making breakthrough discoveries in how to relate in close family caring and sharing, so we can do this also with our various Jesus family people, while we do stay faithful with our special someone
