Most of you will get into a dating relationship hoping it will last. But this does not happen always. In any case, these relationships don’t last a term, or a year at their best. And generally, most Christian young people proceed through a number of serial romances before their marriage. This kind of game goes on and on until they end up so heartbroken that they resent marriage or end up in early unplanned miserable marriages. Suppose John and Mary become romantically involved with each other. There will definitely begin to form an emotional bond. And because they will spend so much time and lots of thoughts and imaginations focusing on each other, they increasingly share their hearts with one another. This, quite unconsciously, begins the God-designed process of becoming “one” even if there is virtually no physical relationship. John and Mary will become one heart long before they become “one flesh.”

You may ask what’s wrong with this pattern…

The generally held and accepted perception about a dating relationship is that it does not involve any permanent commitments and that either party is free to break up the romance at any time, for any reason. So, John and Mary, our friends will likely dread the prospect of breaking up and hope that perhaps this is the relationship that will stick. And since the story is the same, they do not have any guarantee that that will happen. When these relationships break the hearts that had begun bonding are ripped apart. Both John and Mary leave the relationship with at least some degree of heartbreak. The result can be varying degrees of emotional devastation or simply toughening of feelings. Either way they both leave the relationship emotionally wounded or scarred. Does this sound familiar? Most of young people, even those of us ‘fine’ Christians, do identify with this once in a while.

From one to the other

Of course, the pain of breaking up is forgotten as soon as one develops a new romance with a different partner. In time, however, this relationship results in another heart-break and more emotional wounds. Repeatedly, one will experience a number of such emotional bonds being cut off. Some of the relationships people get into are so casual that breaking up is hardly painful at all. But others are serious, and therefore the cumulative effect is that the heart is becomes increasingly calloused.

So what really is dating?

Dating is when a boy and girl are in a relationship that exceeds a close friendship and are intimate either physically or emotionally or both. At this time both parties do not consider marriage the end result of that relationship. Bill Gothard of Institute of Bacic Life Principles defines dating as “having a special interest in a person of the opposite gender and cultivating that interest through thoughts, looks, notes, talks or events.”

Why dating is NOT the option for a believer

We will explore here some of the reasons I consider important for not engaging in any romantic relationship until we are ready to marry.

• In scripture marriage seems to be the goal of any romantic relationship

We have said that a dating relationship does not have the intention of marriage. Samson was the strongest man on earth, however because he chose to love a girl of his choice using his own standards, he was led into bondage by the woman he thought he loved (See Judges 16).

From the word go, Jacob was committed to get into a romantic relationship with Rachel for the purpose of marriage. He knew marriage was a serious issue. Their story is recorded in Genesis 29. Read also about Joseph and Mary in Luke 2. Joseph was betrothed to marry Mary and not just enjoy a good time together. As a matter of fact, when Joseph discovered that Mary was pregnant, he sought to divorce her secretly. The commitment was so serious that if there was a separation or a “break up’, it had to be a divorce. The Bible does not give room to any young person to play with the heart of any other young person. The communication we get from all these scriptural heroes is that when people get together in romance it is with marriage as the prime motive.

• Dating robs you the beauty and the benefits of friendship

When you get involved with a boy or girl at an early stage in life, you isolate yourself and spend more time with one person which limits the time you spend with other believers. Spending almost all the time together keeps the other brethren who would love to be your friends away! The other aspect of friendship is between the two parties. When you get hooked up too soon knowing you are not in the relationship for marriage, you will move too close too quickly and get physical before you even become friends.

• The motive is selfish

Most of the time, an intimate relationship that is not intended for marriage, ends up being a time of just being together to satisfy selfish physical and emotional lusts. It is clear that in most if not all such relationship, the motive is clearly not love but lust. The Bible says that true love “…seeketh not her own…” (1 Corinthians 13:5).

• Dating distracts you from spending time to grow as a mature believer

Since dating requires you to engage in one relationship after another, you focus on pleasing the other person and not the Lord. Your attention is taking from developing yourself to be the best to looking good for the other person. Dating robs you the time to serve God in your singlehood and to be given fully to the Lord and His service and also the time to develop yourself as an individual. Maintaining a relationship takes a lot of time and emotional energy. My advice is that you do it when you are ready for it.

• Dating is destructive

When you get involved in romantic relationships before you get the right partner for marriage, the result is that your heart is broken so many times that you only have a piece of it left for that special person that God has in store for you. The other likelihood is that because you never knew true love in those days, your definition of love will be distorted and you most likely will reject love once married. This does not prepare you for marriage but divorce. When things will be hard and rocky in marriage, you will not pursue to stay on but to leave since that is what you know as the solution. You will note that most of the times the reasons people give for getting out of relationships are the ones they give for walking out of marriage.

We see for sure that dating has destructive and many other negative consequences that I have not even mentioned here. The most important point is that when the foundations are wrong right from the time you are in a relationship, you are putting many other generations at risk with your behavior. It is clear now that most people who have the right foundations before marriage end up with firm marriages, and the opposite is also true.

Reference:

Harris, J. (2012). I Kissed Dating Goodbye: A New Attitude Toward Relationships and Romance. Multnomah Pub.