Christian Living
All my life I wondered how people fell in love. On TV or in the movies, it was either a magical fantasy or a strategic battle plan, and it always worked. In real life, nothing seemed to work. My first date as a Christian let me glimpse the truth, but it took me 12 years to understand it.
No doubt about it, the world wants love. We orate, sing, write, and film about it. The world chokes on examples of how to get it, and all of them claim to work… for somebody. Single Christians have all these methods and systems to choose from, with restrictions. Since we have moral standards to adhere to, many of the popular dating systems are off limits to us, or should be. The most trying issue in single Christian dating is not “who is it, Lord?”, but “what’s the purpose?”
The problem with Christian dating today is that our goal is basically the same as the rest of the world. Our goal is to find our soul mate. Why is that a problem? We spend all the time looking for The One when God already has them picked out and waiting for us to be The One for them.
The story of Jacob gives us a warning about the dangers of self-centered love seeking. If anyone was ever a fool for love, it was him. Surely after seven years of labor for the hand of the younger daughter he should have known the cultural mores of the clan. The older daughter marries first, period. His outrage at being fooled by his uncle is naïve at best, and a lesson about going after what you want at all costs. He found The One for himself, but he blinded himself to the consequences of his desires. He played a game with his uncle and lost.
I played the same game with God. I learned the hard way, twelve years in the single dating world that God does not play back. Like Jacob, I tried to skirt around the rules God set up. I dated to satisfy my own longings and rarely thought about the woman I was with. If she was pretty, then I could dream about being with her. If she was not, I could use the date as leverage to show how “spiritual” I was for being willing to go on a date with any of the women in my church. I failed at the first rule of Christian dating. It’s about the other person, not you.
Isaac’s story turned my world around. I complained about all my dating woes to a good friend and he challenged me to stop complaining and find out how dating was handled in the Bible. Since dating is a more modern form of finding love, I did the next best thing. I searched how Bible men got their wives. I read Genesis 24, the whole chapter, several times, and grew very frustrated. The whole chapter was about how he got his wife and he was barely even mentioned. Then God smacked me over the head. Being a Jacob, I did what everyone else does in the dating world. I played the hunter and women were the prey. There are women who do the same to be sure, but the spirit of Jacob was in me. I dated to get the one I wanted. Isaac sat back and let God hand him who He wanted. What was Issac doing all that time? He was too busy trying to become The One for his wife instead of spending his time trying to hunt down and get The One for him.
When I stopped pursuing The One and started becoming him, God transformed my whole life.
Practically, that means that you go on a date with any single Christian that will go with you, and not to score points with someone else. You do it for them.
My first date as a Christian was just like that. I was certainly not this woman’s type by any means. Her goal, though, was to have a good time with me; no strings attached, and show me how cool dating Christian women could be. I left uplifted and inspired to do it again. If you asked your last date how he or she felt after, could they say that? If you date to give to the other person, the date is a success, no matter what circumstances. Whatever comes after, God’s spark of love, or just the shared belief in Christ, is worth it.
The sad state of worldly dating does not have to be the norm for Christians. God needs His single children to care about each other more than their own desires. Spiritual dating can help erase so many other problems and temptations that singles have. God wants single men and women on a life adventure that lasts way beyond singlehood; an adventure that will last to eternity itself.
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