The Christian Guy's Life
  • Home
  • About
  • Salvation
  • Blog
  • Finding Love
  • Fitness
  • Contact
    • Write For Us

A Belated Introduction

7/3/2016

7 Comments

 
Picture
So, after the last post and reading some comments, I realize that I sort of put the cart before the horse. This new section just popped up and a new post was immediately added about surviving a breakup. Yeah, not exactly finding much love there, huh?
 
I had a lot more in mind for this section than that one post. I skipped the introduction and just wrote what was on my heart at the moment probably because I needed to. I have never been good at breakups. I despise them. I have had 3 real relationships in 23 years that lasted a collective total of maybe 7 months because I have been trying to avoid the heart wrenching breakups. Obviously, this time it was unavoidable.
 
There seems to be a lot of interest in this topic of “finding love” though, as expected. We all want it. Honestly, most of us have a real, bona fide need for true love (the romantic kind). God made us that way, so, of course we are interested in the topic! We want to understand it! We want to know what we need to do to find it!
 
This new section isn’t so much about finding love as it is about discovering God’s way to find love. I know this introduction is a bit late. Hopefully, you will all understand that circumstances dictated this backwards posting strategy. Part of discovering God’s plan for love is discussing how we handle finding out who we aren’t meant to be with. Typically, I wouldn’t have done that first but I was in that moment, that situation. I was hurting. I still am, though it has gotten better with time and thought and prayer. But what better time to write about the battle than when you are in the thick of it?
 
Anyway, what I really want to do is find how romance is supposed to work Biblically. I have read the Christian books about courting and dating and such but I don’t feel they offer the right solution. Not that they are necessarily wrong, or even that they don’t work great for some people! I am sure they do! But every person and situation is different. The world is different than it used to be.
 
I am not suggesting that a Christian should let the world dictate how they handle things but we do have to be practical. Just because the automobile is an invention of the world doesn’t mean I don’t use one to get to work. Besides, the Bible doesn’t offer much in the way of premarital relationship logistics. There is plenty to glean from Scripture about how we are to conduct ourselves pre-marriage and such but there isn’t a guide for how the other parts work.
 
Heck, back in the Bible days arranged marriages and polygamy were common. Polygamy may not have ever been condoned by God but arranged marriages were. Obviously, we aren’t lining up for an arranged marriage (though I wouldn’t be opposed if God arranged my marriage kind of like He did with Isaac and Rebekah). Equally obvious is the fact that marriage is regarded as good by God (Proverbs 18:22). So, then, how do we get to marriage?
 
It isn’t as simple as courting vs dating. What I want to know is how we are supposed to meet someone in this day and age. How do you meet someone when you aren’t active in many Christian social circles? Guys, you know what I am talking about (as do many of the ladies reading this). We spend a lot of our time working our secular job and when we aren’t there we are probably trying to spend time with our families. There is church but we don’t all go to large churches with other people our age.
 
Fast forward to the point where you have actually met someone. What now? What boundaries do you set? How long do you date? Do you hold your heart back or go all in? There are tons and tons of questions we all ask, I think.
 
These questions and others are the ones I want to find the answers to. As much as I long to meet and be with my life partner, I want to please God more. That means pleasing Him before we meet, when we date, and when we are married.
 
If you are having the same thoughts and questions, if you aren’t content with the ideals and such of others, then please join me in seeking God’s plan for love!

7 Comments
T.
7/4/2016 11:46:41 pm

You might want to try getting around to other churches. There's nothing wrong with attending a new church for a few weeks. I've often discovered that a change of scenery can bolster the spirit and strengthen the resolve of the heart. You get to meet new people (ie. prospective wives) and can get a better "lay of the land" in as far as what you want out of a lifemate.
Discovering what you want out of the person you plan on spending the next 60 years or so with can be very enlightening. I myself found that the woman I ended up marrying was vastly different from how I pictured my future wife to be. I had to take a different stance in deciding what measure I was going to use to determine who 'Mrs. Right' was going to be before I was able to clearly see what it was I actually needed out of a partner.
The Bible really doesn't give much advice in this, other than stating a few simple rules regarding believers in God's way (2 Cor. 6:14,15). I found that I had to look at my own weaknesses (and be brutal in my assessment of myself) in order to learn what aspects a potential wife would have in order to make me a better person overall.
I don't know if any of this reveals anything you didn't already realize, but it was something I had to come to terms with before I could be the kind of person I needed to be. A good wife will make you a good husband.

Reply
Dakota Edward
7/5/2016 01:31:24 am

Thanks T!

Reply
Tom Wender
7/11/2016 07:39:13 pm

As a 20 something guy, who has been broken up with, done the breaking up, and is currently waiting for my future wife, I will have to say I disagree with you T. I believe, that to find a godly woman, I first and foremost need to make myself as godly of a guy that I can. I don't want to be looking for a wife that will 'make me a good husband'. I want to have already have tried to ready myself to be the best husband I can be BEFORE I get married and before I even consider looking for my future wife. Granted, a good godly wife will make you want to be a better person, and should be a biblical help meet to encourage me to be a better man, but we should not be looking for a woman to make us do that. We should already have that mindset. And because we are striving to be the best future husband we can, that will change our mindset and our 'wife radar' as I like to call it, to be able to spot a godly woman. And I use Proverbs 31 as a guideline in what I would want in a wife, which is, in fact, just one passage of many that gives you biblical guidelines of what men should be looking for in a woman. And I don't agree about going 'searching' around to other churches to get a 'lay of the land'. I don't know if you are a member of a local church, but I take me church membership very seriously. I am there as often as I can be, whenever the doors are open and I am not having to work. I personally find it immature that anyone would need to go to 'church hopping' to look for woman. Why are you not trusting God that he will send the right woman to you when you are ready? Also, if I felt I needed to visit another church to 'bolster my spirit', I would seriously look and see why I was even a member at that church. Isn't your spirit supposed to be already be getting strengthened when you attend church? I have accountability partners who encourage, and godly friends who are there to help me in my walk with Christ. At least, that is my experience. I have been immature in my 'search for a wife' and my spiritual walk in my past, and I have since repented of my immaturity and lack of trust in God and started on a track of living the best God fearing life I can. I am currently trusting God that He will bring the right woman to me when I am READY. I may have misunderstood your statement, and if so, sorry, (not really) and hope this helps. My final advice... strive for godliness. Nothing more. If you are having such strong feelings and have such a need to be a husband, perhaps your priorities, as a Christian, are not in the right place.

Dakota
7/11/2016 07:45:11 pm

Tom Im not sure who you were addressing through that whole thing but I like your comment! Lol

T.
7/13/2016 05:38:54 pm

Hey Tom.
I appreciate the feedback on my previous comment, and perhaps I need to elaborate a bit.

When I say a good wife will make you a good husband, what I mean is that she will provide the strength you lack in your weakest areas (we are all given to weakness and sin). If you simply go looking for a woman of faith, without consideration of what your own shortcomings are, then you open the door to invite in discord and frustration. This isn't something I'm just philosophizing about; I didn't find the right woman until I realized what qualities I needed that I didn't possess. Too often, I've seen young men marry a young lady with only a few weeks courtship between them. It has never worked out. They seem to believe that if they attend the same church (or denomination) that everything will work out fine. What if both of them are horrible with balancing a budget? That will lead to financial troubles and undue stress in the marriage. Or if one is irresponsible when it comes to housekeeping, foisting the entire workload off on the other? It has nothing to do with their faith, but it has the potential to cause a lot of strife in the household. One needs to look for more than just godliness in a potential mate.
On the idea of "church hopping", we should encourage ourselves, as well as others to visit other congregations. That you have a strong connection to yours is wonderful Tom, but would it really be so bad to 'visit the neighbors', so to speak? You never know who you may encounter, be they potential wife, friend, or even pastor. It's said the Lord moves in mysterious ways, and I like to think He would be made happy by our willingness to explore new relationships outside our 'safe place'.
I agree that God should come first in determining who we should marry, but sitting and waiting seems to go against the idea of Matthew 7:7-8. We're supposed to seek, not wait for God to drop her a wife into our lap.

Respectfully, I have to say, that where you're coming from sounds like a rather naive preconceived notion of how to go about gaining a life-mate. I sought mine out after a lot of soul searching and realizing just what kind of wretch I truly was. My wife filled in the holes that were in my day to day life. God's word is powerful and very comforting, but there are times (as I'm sure you've felt) when God feels so far away. It's a true blessing to have someone help me feel His grace when I'm lacking the strength to do it myself.
In short, I speak from experience on what I had to do to find the right woman, not just the godly woman.

Reply
Garrett Johnson
7/31/2016 08:12:43 pm

When's the next step coming

Reply
Dakota Dalsing
8/1/2016 01:32:02 am

Not sure yet! Hang in there!

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Join Us

    Follow us on Facebook for all the latest!

    Archives

    April 2017
    September 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016

    Categories

    All
    Commitment
    Dating
    Finding Dates
    Intro
    Leading To Relationship

    RSS Feed

Home

About

Salvation

Blog

Contact

Copyright © 2015
  • Home
  • About
  • Salvation
  • Blog
  • Finding Love
  • Fitness
  • Contact
    • Write For Us