You Never Marry the Right Person
Commenting on Relevant Magazine’s excerpt of Timothy Keller’s book The Meaning of Marriage:
As we walk the path to marriage, it is easy to get caught up in finding the “right” person as defined by our own preferences and personal standards. This sets us up to become discouraged and disappointed when we enter relationships only to discover that the other person is, after all, as fallen as we are.
The world would have us move on at this point and keep searching for our elusive soul mate. Christian love, however, calls us to something higher – “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).
We should look for a person whose life demonstrates an active and growing faith – someone who loves God and others, someone who doesn’t practice sin. This is the kind of fallen and imperfect person we can grow with. Searching for something more will only leave us bitter, dissatisfied – and most likely, single.
How Do You Initiate a Relationship in a Godly Manner?
This question was asked by a reader recently. Off the cuff, I shall answer,
- Treat your sister in Christ as a sister; and shortly after you’ve had some friendship with her: confess your godly, intentioned, romantic interest in her & ask her out—for the explicit purpose of discerning y’all’s possibility of marriage.
What Does a Biblical Relationship Look Like? Scott Croft of Boundless writes about this very issue of Christian dating & biblical courtship:
- Motive: to find a spouse.
- Mind-set: selfless, sacrificial service; ”How can I be the one for her?”
- Methods: commitment precedes intimacy.
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For the guys, you need this: A Guy’s Guide to Marrying Well.
For the girls, you should get this: A Girl’s Guide to Marrying Well.
The following from Boundless (Focus on the Family) are also really helpfu:
- Settling
- Biblical Dating: An Introduction
- Biblical Dating: From “Hi” to “I Do” in a Year by Scott Croft
- Biblical Dating: Just Friends
- Biblical Dating: Navigating The Early Stages of a Relationship
- Biblical Dating: Growing in Intimacy
Simple enough? Man up, guys!
When you first fall in love, you think you love the person, but you don’t really. You can’t know who the person is right away. That takes years. You actually love your idea of the person—and that is always, at first, one-dimensional and somewhat mistaken.
But the problem is—and you may be semiconsciously aware of this—the person doesn’t really know you and therefore doesn’t really love you, not yet at least. What you think of as being head over heels in love is in large part a gust of ego gratification, but it’s nothing like the profound satisfaction of being known and loved.
The Vow
- Paige: I vow to help you love life, to always hold you with tenderness, and to have the patience that love demands. To speak when words are needed, and to share the silence when they're not. To agree to disagree on red velvet cake, and to live within the warmth of your heart and always call it home.
- Leo: I vow to fiercely love you in all your forms, now and forever. I promise to never forget that this is a once in a lifetime love. I vow to love you, and no matter what challenges might carry us apart, we will always find a way back to each other.
Source: jheiislove
Why do we say that marriage is the most deeply covenantal relationship? It is because marriage has both strong horizontal and vertical aspects to it. […] To break faith with your spouse is to break faith with God at the same time.
When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now.
Insofar as I learn to love my earthly dearest at the expense of God and instead of God, I shall be moving towards the state in which I shall not love my earthly dearest at all.
When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased.
C. S. Lewis, on how to love your spouse without being an idolator.
Cf. Augustine’s Confessions (XI.29):
He loves Thee too little, who loves anything together with Thee, which he loves not for Thy sake.
Source: thegospelcoalition.org
All people need to be treated gently and respectfully, especially those who have been wounded. They will be unusually sensitive to rough handling. Nevertheless, all people must be challenged to see that their self-centeredness hasn’t been caused by the people who hurt them; it’s only been aggravated by the abuse. And they must do something about it, or they’re going to be miserable forever.
After his viral video hit almost 17 million views in 2 weeks, Jefferson Bethke follows up with a spoken-word poem on Sex, Marriage, & Fairytales.
But the gospel, brought home to your heart by the Spirit, can make you happy enough to be humble, giving you an internal fullness that frees you to be generous with the other even when you are not getting the satisfaction you want out of the relationship. Without the help of the Spirit, without a continual refilling of your soul’s tank with the glory and love of the Lord, such submission to the interests of the other is virtually impossible to accomplish for any length of time without becoming resentful.
10 Online Dating "Don'ts" for Men & Women @BoundlessTeam
Lisa Anderson shares Ten Online Dating “Don’ts” for Men:
- Don’t be lazy.
- Don’t post stupid photos.
- Don’t broadcast unrealistic expectations.
- Don’t be vague.
- Don’t preach, judge, share doctrinal treatises or brag about your perceived spiritual maturity.
- Don’t be a downer.
- Don’t ask her for more pictures.
- Don’t “wink.”
- Don’t be impatient.
- Don’t make a lame exit
Read the details in whole article here! Included in the post are also Ten Online Dating “Don’ts” for Women.
