Since I'm in the season now so I want to share about something that closed in my life for this moment. It's dating life.Being able to experience dating life is something that I always grateful for. It's so hard to turn the crush to a friend than to lover.It's never easy. My friends and colleagues have proof how hard and funny this for me. It's an unexpected event, you can't really predict what will happen. When I think back of this, I just laugh at myself and I can't believe what happens in my life now. I'm grateful my crush become my lover.
As a youth, I curious about dating life, how to have a dating life that have purpose.And, I found the answer when I read my plan on Youversion Bible so, I want to share it with you guys. I know, it's just copy and paste because I don't want to missed any point. I hope this can give guide for you.
First, to know the purpose, you need to know what's is dating.
What is dating?
Dating is a stage of romantic or sexual relationships in humans whereby two or more people meet socially, possibly as friends or with the aim of each assessing the other's suitability as a prospective partner in a more committed intimate relationship or marriage .[1].
Part 1: What’s the Point?
Does your dating have a purpose?
In Matthew 22, Jesus makes it clear that, at the resurrection, people will not be married.
What? There’s no marriage in heaven? But I thought that eternity with the one you love would be the ultimate ending to true romance. Well, I suppose it is—but not in the way we assume.
Ultimate Oneness
On the last day when Christ comes back for his bride, the Church, we will all be joined with him in heaven in perfect oneness. I guess you could say we’re all engaged to our Savior. And when he comes, implies Jesus’ response, we won’t need marriage to fill our aloneness because the power and presence of God will fulfill our every longing. We will experience ultimate oneness with the One who created us and live happily ever after.
Do you remember being in kindergarten and going on a field trip?
To keep you from getting lost the teacher had you travel in a group or paired you up with a friend and told you to hold hands and stick together. God has pretty much done the same thing for us.
We are on the field trip of life. We’ve left the safety of the classroom, but we haven’t arrived at the destination yet. When Jesus comes we will have arrived, but until then, we’re still vulnerable. To help us not get lost, he’s created two groups to help us find our way. The first is the church. Here we look after one another, whether single or married, a child or adult, and encourage one another as we see the day approaching (Hebrews 10:25). Others of us get paired with a spouse—a spiritual traveling buddy, if you will—with whom we walk toward Christ.
Marriage to a person in this life is not our ultimate destination; being “wed” to our Lord is. Single people need that perspective so they won’t over-value getting married; married people so they won’t lose sight of their purpose in being together; and dating people so they will date with the purpose of finding someone who can become their spiritual buddy during the field trip of life and ultimately usher them to the arms of their Saviour.
If your current habits and purposes for dating don’t pass this smell test, you may need to push pause on dating. This is not a game.
In dating you are looking for a companion with whom you can move through life toward your final destination. Ultimately, that purpose should guide your dating decisions.
Part 2: Are You Ready to Date?
Are you emotionally ready to date?
Let’s give consideration to one aspect of emotional readiness for dating.
Relax in Your Aloneness
God made us be relational beings. Without a companion, we will feel lonely. Not recognizing this will place blinders around your eyes. Indeed, loneliness might be one of the strongest causes of poor dating. So what can you do?
Relax in your aloneness. Learn to trust God with your loneliness, face it head-on, and manage it responsibly. Talk to God about it, spend time with friends, and refuse to let the fear of loneliness dictate your dating decisions.
To cope with a breakup, many jumps into a rebound relationship, but that just masks the pain. To move out of your pain, well, you must first sit in it. You can’t sidestep the pit. You must recognize your hurt, your loneliness, your despair and call out to God for help as you walk through it.
By contrast, how will you know when you are relaxing in your aloneness?
When you recognize your loneliness, but don’t need to find another person to resolve the feeling; when you aren’t overwhelmed by a profound sense of failure, inadequacy, or being unwanted; and when fear, guilt, and discontent don’t control your decisions or push you to search for a partner.
Trust God
Essentially, relaxing in your aloneness is about trusting God. Now, many singles say they are trusting God with who and how they date, but really they are trusting God to give them what they want (a “soul mate”), when they want (“soon!”).
In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus models that our prayers should invite God’s Kingdom to come to the world and his will to be done. The implication is that we should submit to God’s rule and reign in our life and trust him with whatever he wills and wherever he leads. So, perhaps the Dater’s Prayer should sound like this:
Lord, work out your kingdom agenda in me. I am yours. Let me be a living sacrifice, salt, and light. If you bring someone into my life who submits to your will and will help me to love you more, then let that person be evident to me; let me not miss your provision. And if not, let me be content with your provision and at ease in my singleness as I seek first the kingdom of heaven. --Amen
Part 3: The Big Lie
I’ve jokingly referred to dating as “The BIG Lie.” Each person puts their best foot forward in an attempt to be liked by the other.
Please understand it’s not that these people are really trying to deceive each other. They just want the other person to like them and so they present themselves in the best manner possible. Because everyone is on their best behavior, love is natural, invigorating, energizing, and hope producing. It comes easy and requires little in the way of emotional trust, vulnerability, or an intermingling of one another’s lives.
In this environment, everyone is ready for love and is quickly captivated by it.
Here’s the point: most people during the pre-dating and early dating stages are focused on finding the right person and then impressing their socks off when what they ought to focus on is being authentic.
Of course you want to make a good first impression. But you need to get past that pretty quickly. In other words, get real about who you are. Yes, that creates a vulnerable feeling and, perhaps, a fear that your real self might push them away, but transparency helps your relationship become founded on the truth, not a lie. Hey, if they don’t like the real you, you shouldn’t be dating. (And if you don’t like who they are or who you are together, you should move on.) Now you can see why resting in your aloneness is so critical; if you fear it, you won’t get real in your dating relationships. You’ll just perpetuate the lie so you can avoid the possibility of being alone.
Let Time Be Your Friend
To help you get real in dating, let time be your friend. Time will help you to see whether you and the other person are a fit, not just on the surface, but to the core. Time will make known transparency or hiding, authenticity or façade, integrity or falsehood. Time will reveal what you don’t like about each other and whether you can problem-solve through it. Time will reveal whether your extended families can merge or if cohesiveness is unlikely. And if both of you are parents, time helps reveal whether your parenting styles will complement or compete.
Don’t dismiss time; she is trying to help you get past The Big Lie. Listen to her.
Part 4: Choosing God’s Best for Your Relationship
Choose God’s best for you. Choose to trust that God is trying to protect your heart from unnecessary pain. Date with intentionality, separate and apart from the confusion of sex and cohabitation, and your dating decisions will have much more clarity and wisdom.
Part 5: Managing Sexual Pressures
Before marriage, love is blind and sex is a blindfold.
God knows what a powerful force sexuality is in our lives. After all, he designed it. And because God is invested in your sexual health, he placed boundaries around sex because he knows it can be used in the right way for our benefit or in the wrong manner for our demise. Sex before marriage, like a blindfold, blinds you into thinking you have more in the bank with each other than you really do. By declaring sexuality before marriage a sin, God is not being a simpleton or killjoy; he is trying to protect you from a shallow relationship and personal pain. The only question is, do you trust his motives and his insight?
Practical Strategies for Managing Sexual Temptation
1. Get accountable. You must invite others to help you stay accountable to your goal of sexual purity. Giving someone you trust permission to randomly ask both of you about your behavior.
2. Let God define “sex.” When someone says “Did you have sex?” what we hear is “Did you have intercourse?” That’s unfortunate for many reasons. First, it implies that we can engage in all other forms of sexual touch (including oral sex and manual stimulation to orgasm) and think we haven’t “had sex.” But Ephesians 4:19 clarifies that the definition of sex includes sensual behavior (a broad range of sexual behaviors and lust). The issue here is not “Can we touch here or there?” The issue is keeping sexuality in its proper place. Second, it lulls us to sleep about how far we can go and still be safe (see item 4 below). And third, it turns sexuality into a legalistic game of avoiding sin rather than a spiritual matter of trust and discipleship.
3. Understand that there’s no reverse in sex. Have you noticed that sex only has a forward gear? Once you break a certain touch barrier, you’ll quickly return to it and will never be satisfied backing up.
4. Date in public. Being in a private place (e.g., home, hotel, or apartment) explodes sexual temptation because no one is watching.
5. Date in a group. Being with other couples adds accountability, but it also offers objectivity as you consider this person through the eyes of others you trust.
6. Agree to a Purity Covenant. Couples who can’t talk about their sexual temptations are destined to fall prey to them. But don’t just acknowledge them, discuss the values behind purity and agree to a plan. Consider drafting a written purity covenant that details your values and plan.
Part 6: Decision About Marriage
“So, how do we know if we should get married?”
That is a question I hear often. In general, what you are looking for is:
- Confidence in your relationship
- Conviction that you are willing to give your life away in the loving service of the other (commitment)
- Trust that your partner is willing to do the same for you.
Confidence
If you are lacking confidence, give full consideration as to why and don’t get engaged until your confidence rises. When your confidence is high, make a decision for marriage; until then, keep dating and resolve your concerns or gracefully bow out of the relationship if you can’t.
Commitment
To experience love and intimacy in marriage, we must do the hard work of confronting and sacrificing our selfishness. Commitment creates a climate where both persons can work together on putting off their selfishness. Without this permanence most people won’t subject themselves to the process of maturation and discipleship that marriage brings; instead, they wiggle out when the going gets tough.
Yeah, But How Do I Know?
Now, having said all that, let me state the obvious: even if your confidence and commitment is high, you still may not know beyond a shadow of doubt that you should get married. At some level when you get right down to it, marriage is a leap of faith. There are no guarantees. The decision then is yours: Are you willing to take the leap?
TRY THIS
1. Rate your current level of confidence in your relationship on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being the highest).
2. Rate your level of commitment.
3. Now, rate how you think your dating partner would respond to each of the above.
Sources:
All above taken from www.youversion.com/datingwithpurpose
What's your opinion?
Please share your thoughts.