In the previous blog I laid some foundation for how to think about dating and romance. I now want to build on that foundation and discuss practice. Which practices help produce a healthy dating relationship?
So here we go.
Keep Christ first
Marriage is merely a picture. Your relationship with Jesus is the reality that marriage portrays. Dating is just a preliminary to the picture of the reality. Why would you sacrifice the reality in order to gain a preliminary step to a picture of that reality? Maintain your relationship with Christ throughout the romance. If the romance causes you to lose sight of Christ, you need to make some serious changes in the relationship or dump the romance. If the romance causes you to compromise Biblical ethics or faith, you need to repent and make some changes in the relationship or end it. Your relationship with Christ is a trillion times more important than your relationship with this guy or girl.
Keeping Christ first is the one thing you can do that will most help you in the dating relationship. It keeps your priorities in order. It provides you guidance as you walk. It helps you think long term. It steadies your emotions and gives them perspective. It makes you kinder, humbler, more patient, more loving. Faith in Christ provides an anchor in the midst of powerful emotional waves that can push you against the rocks, and it provides a rudder that will help you navigate the reefs of the sea.
If you keep Christ first, many of the other principles I mention will happen naturally. If you do not keep Christ first, many of the principles I mention will seem crazy to you.
Be willing to let go of the relationship
If Christ is first, then this relationship is not. You want God’s best for you. That may be marriage or it may not be. Your feelings will push for marriage, but you must be willing to let go of marriage if it is not God’s best. You may need to say “no” to what you want because it is not what God wants.
Pray about everything in the relationship
This is part of keeping Christ first. You want His will for you, His will for the other person, and His will for this relationship. You want His blessing on the both of you, His direction, His presence. Prayer does this. It acknowledges that God is in charge, not you, and it seeks God’s desires and presence in the matter.
Don’t let the relationship become your life
When men and women date, the temptation is to be with one another all the time, to spend their waking hours thinking on one another, being with one another, talking to one another. This is the direction that romance pushes us toward, but it is not healthy. You need time for God, time for rest, time for friends, time for ministry, time to read or watch a soccer match, time for the rest of your life. Now obviously, when you date, you need some time together. That’s part of the point of dating. But you also need time apart. That time apart gives you a break from the other person, and that break can help give perspective. It allows your friends to let you know what they think about the relationship, for they will see things you will miss. It allows you to be more real, for if you marry, you will find that you will go right back to doing all these other activities anyway. Time for the rest of your life allows the other person to see something about the rest of your life, and that’s part of the process. The more the relationship becomes your life, the more blind you will be to the relationship itself. You won’t see anything except what your starry eyes want you to see.
Dates are dog and pony shows
When a man and woman go on a date, they tend to put their best face forward. They are more polite than usual, more considerate than usual, prettier than usual. This means that when you go on a date, you are not necessarily seeing the real person. You are often seeing a show. Understand this. This fact doesn’t mean you can never go to dinner together, but it does mean that you need to evaluate whether you are seeing the real person, and it also means . . .
When dating, do things with groups
Time with groups allows you to see the other person in a more natural setting. On dates, people tend to be phonier, but when others are around, people tend to be more themselves. If you spend all your time alone with one another, you are probably going to be fooled by the dog and pony show. But if you spend time with his friends, you get to see how he treats his friends and how his friends treat you. And he is usually less careful about putting on a show and more likely to be himself. Groups provide a serious opportunity to see the real person.
Groups also provide friends and family the opportunity to see the two of you together. This puts many sets of eyes on your relationship. You want this. It allows people whom you respect to speak into this relationship and to do so intelligently. They will see how the two of you act together, and they will see things you won’t. I would recommend that most of your time together be in a group context.
Remain within the body of Christ
This is part of walking with God. But this deals with God’s people. Remain in community with God’s people. Don’t pull away from them. This is a normal part of spiritual growth, so if you cut yourself off from God’s people, you hurt your growth with God. In addition, ongoing and meaningful relationship with the body of Christ will help you discern what to do within a relationship. You want godly people to see your relationship with this person.
Don’t date someone you know you can’t marry
This is plain common sense. If the purpose of dating is to determine marriage, and you already know you can’t marry this person, then don’t go down that path. If you date in this situation, you’re playing with fire. Dating can lead to marriage even if you enter it knowing you shouldn’t marry. Romance can take over, and when it does you may no longer be thinking straight. You may find yourself five years down the road married to someone and wishing you could get out. But you could have gotten out in the beginning when you knew. All you had to do was not get in; and in the beginning, it is fairly easy not to get in.
The further you go in a relationship, the harder it is to get out.
I am not talking here purely about time, though time certainly is a factor. In general, the more time you spend in a relationship, the harder it is to get out. However, you can move quite far in a relationship quickly. You do so by how you touch each other, by saying words like “I love you,” by forsaking other activities to spend time with each other, by the gifts you give, by flowers or notes, by talking about marriage, by becoming sexually involved, by living together, and by a thousand other words, gestures, and commitments. Some of these may be appropriate, others are not; but they all serve to bind the couple together. They make it more painful to end the relationship. The more powerful your feelings are for each other, the more difficult it will be if you must end the relationship.
Therefore, if you ever realize that this person is not someone to marry, end the dating relationship immediately. Don’t wait. The longer you wait, the harder it gets. It may be a painful discussion, but you will show more compassion by cutting things off now.
In addition, be wise in moving the relationship forward. It may be God’s desire to move a relationship forward. There’s a time to say, “I love you,” a time to give flowers, a time to write notes, a time to talk about marriage. But understand that each of those moves increases the emotional capital in the relationship. Pray about those moves before you make them.
If you are a Christian, look for spiritual maturity in Christ
If this relationship ends in marriage, then the two of you will be united in intimacy for life. You want a partner who seeks Jesus first. If you are to walk with Christ within your marriage, you will find that you will do so better with a partner who also walks with Christ. This means that you are looking for someone who spends daily time with God, who serves his church and shares his faith, who gives of her income to the kingdom, who does not compromise ethically. You want a person who has a right heart and a right faith. Don’t settle for something less.
Having said this, I also need to acknowledge that we live in a fallen world. The person you marry will still be sinful. There is no getting around that. So when I say to look for spiritual maturity, I am not saying to look for perfection. You may see some sin in this person, but the question to ask is how he responds to that sin. Is he willing to acknowledge it? Does she want to change? Does he have a soft heart toward his sin? A person’s response to his or her sin tells you more than the actual sin does. Look for someone who handles his or her own sin in a mature way.
Trust God for the relationship
One of the themes of Song of Solomon is this verse: “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, not to awaken or stir up love until it pleases” (8:4). The idea is that you should not force the relationship. Let it develop naturally. Imagine trying to force a rose to grow. If you were to interfere with its natural process, you would mess it up. Dating relationships are like this. Everyone wants the relationship to blossom on his or her time table, but God’s time table is not always ours. If God is moving more slowly than you would like, let Him.
I have seen girls try to force guys to a greater commitment by getting more sexual. I have seen guys try to push a girl to a greater commitment by spending money on her or by asking her to live together.
Be content where you are. In Christ you don’t need this relationship. It may be a blessing God has for you, but if you force it, you may turn His blessing into something much less.
If you trust God for the relationship, He will provide you with appropriate times and ways to move the relationship forward, but if you simply take matters into your own hand, you will not like the results in the end.
Look at the other person’s friends
People do not choose their family, but they do choose their friends, and quality people tend to have quality friends. That’s a generalization, but as a generalization it is true. If you see that this other person has godly friends and strong friendships, that’s a good sign. It doesn’t mean you end the relationship because you don’t like one of his or her friends. But the nature of this person’s friendships suggests something. I emphasize the word suggests. It doesn’t prove anything. This girl could have godly friends and be the wrong person for you, or this guy could have bad friendships and yet be the right guy. But these friendships are still good information.
Fit the pace of the relationship to reality
In a dating relationship, there is a time to move forward, a time to wait, and a time to end the relationship. When it is time to move, move. When it is time to wait, wait. If it is time to end the relationship, end it. I’ve seen damaged relationships when people needed to move forward but they waited. I’ve seen damaged relationships when people needed to wait, but they moved. And I’ve seen disaster when people needed to end a relationship but they didn’t.
Of course, the key is to know when to take a step and when not to, and there is no single answer to knowing that. Different people find themselves in different situations with different personalities and expectations, and it would be nice if I could give you a flat timeline that you could apply to every relationship. I can’t. What will help you in this process is keeping Christ first and seeking Him along the way. What will help you is listening well to the other person. What will help you is the counsel of godly people.
Don’t get caught up in getting everything perfect. You won’t get it perfect. But pay attention to what needs to happen at the particular stage you are in, and as best you can, do that.
To the man:
Lead in the dating relationship. Dating is preliminary to marriage. In marriage, the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church (Eph 5:22-24, 31-2)[1]. If you are not leading in a healthy way in the dating relationship, it will be difficult to do so after you are married. You can’t just flip a switch and begin to relate to one another in a new way just because you said, “I do.” Therefore, take the lead now. Practice healthy leadership while you date, and if you do end up in marriage, you will already have healthy habits in place.
Understand that your leadership must be like that of Christ for His church. The Biblical leadership model is not domination. Nor is it American entrepreneurialism. This isn’t like running a business. You will serve the girl as Christ served His church. You will put her needs above your own. Such is part of Biblical leadership. But it also means that you lead. You ask her out, not she asks you out. You propose marriage when the time comes. You seek her. You initiate praying together, going to church together or serving together. You are the leader. So lead.
And because God intends the husband to be the head of the wife, that reality should inform what you are looking for in a woman. I remember before Leanne ever knew I was interested in her, she and I were talking about something, and she made a throwaway comment about male headship in the home in a way that showed me she took it seriously. That comment excited me, not because I desire some sort of power play but because I saw an attractive woman who took Scripture seriously on marriage. It increased my desire to pursue her.
Everyone is sinful. You are and she is. Sometimes her sin may involve her wanting to usurp your lead. By itself that doesn’t mean you should end the relationship, but it is a red flag. And if her desire to run the show in your relationship is ingrained in her, you will be better off without her than stuck to her for life. A woman who honors what Scripture says about marriage shows maturity. At least on that issue.
To the woman:
Let the man lead. This is tricky. Male headship within the home doesn’t mean the woman is a doormat. Good leaders do not fear initiative in their people, and a good man won’t fear healthy initiative in you. If he does, that is a red flag to you. Thus, talk openly about whatever God lays on your heart to talk openly about. Don’t be afraid to suggest that the two of you go to such and such party or that he makes a change in his ministry, or that you attend a conference together or that you pray together about something. Don’t be afraid to plan an outing together or offer that you read a book together. These are all initiatives that a godly leader will welcome, and they in no way usurp leadership from him. Of course, you want him to be doing these same sorts of things too. If all the initiating is on your side, that’s a problem.
Confine the man’s leadership to the relationship. When you date, you are not married. He is, thus, not your husband and has no authority over you on any issue. You don’t have to submit to him if he asks you to change your work, move to a new neighborhood, dress differently, buy a car, or whatever.
Within the relationship, you are looking for a man who will lead you in Christ and serve you with his life. Does he take responsibility for moving the relationship forward? And does he take seriously leading the spiritual component of the relationship? Let him lead on the big steps – beginning to date, proposing for marriage – and let him lead on those issues that deal purely with the relationship itself. This doesn’t mean you can’t talk about marriage or about when you should meet his parents or he your parents. It doesn’t mean you can’t initiate those conversations, but it does mean to let him lead on those issues. Speak your mind, but let him lead.
Do not follow his lead if he leads in an unbiblical way – he asks you to lie, he makes sexual advances, he pulls away from church. He loses his leadership in such cases.
These principles are incomplete and brief, but I pray they help. I do want to talk about two other principles, but they involve a more lengthy discussion. These deal with being unequally yoked and with sexual boundaries. They will be separate blogs on their own.
[1] I don’t have time to flesh out what male leadership in marriage does and does not look like, but I have done that in previous blogs. For more discussion on this topic, go here, here, and here.
