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October 26 - November 13, 2021
there is no magical “one,” and so you are free to break up with (and definitely should break up with) anyone you are dating who proves they would not make a good spouse.
second and third marriages are even more likely to end in divorce.4
Real romance means making a commitment and then, once you are committed, sticking to it.
we are “the one” for each other—not because of some predestined magical or mystical reason but because we choose to be.
If you’re looking for a “soul mate,” what you’re really looking for is Jesus. He actually is perfect, and is the only one who can truly satisfy your soul.
Love Jesus first, with all your heart, and then find someone who loves him just as much and marry that person. Or, if you don’t marry, you’ll still be OK—because you’re not looking for someone else to make you complete.
With a covenant, though, you agree to fulfill the terms even if the other person fails to do what they said they would do. That’s why marriage vows say “for better or worse,” and “until death do us part.”
We may think of beauty as this unchanging ideal standard, but it’s actually a made-up media narrative.
to a large extent, attraction is taught. It’s based on the images you’ve been fed or that you choose to feed yourself.
So be aware of what you’re being told and how you’re being sold. Don’t let society dictate to you what you should find attractive or whether you are beautiful.
If you’re only attracted to a certain unrealistic type, try feeding your eyes a different diet.
We train ourselves to look for physical perfection, even when we don’t live up to those standards ourselves.
What does it mean to fear the Lord? It means following him. It means focusing on eternal things, which are things that truly last. It means striving to see people the way God sees them. In 1 Samuel 16:7, “the LORD said to Samuel, ‘Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.’”
And when it comes to physical attraction, someone who fears the Lord would not be actively trying to sleep with you outside of marriage. When someone does that, they are quite clearly saying, without even having to use words, that they are not scared of God. They don’t really care what he has to say. (Much more on that later.)
If you are attracted to godliness, the person you are with can become more attractive as you grow up and grow old together.
There’s a reason fairy tales get remakes rather than sequels: a sequel would have to show what a love based on looks is really like.
although Presley loved cats, she had no idea how to love cats. She had all these feelings and emotions toward them, and she didn’t know what to do with them.
even though you may say you don’t want drama, in a way you kind of do.
A healthy, godly marriage is not entertaining. It’s amazing; it’s beautiful; it’s an incredible adventure; it’s boring. You wouldn’t want to watch it, but you do want to live it.
The problem with defining love as a feeling—which is the root cause of thinking love is out of your control, is a drug, and is a roller coaster of confusion and drama—is that feelings are not reliable. Feelings change, almost by definition. If they didn’t change, they wouldn’t be feelings; they’d just be who you are.
Feelings are also not a reliable judge of reality. I may feel that something or someone is right for me, but that feeling doesn’t automatically make it true. Facts trump feelings, and the fact is you can feel intensely in love with someone who is incredibly wrong for you.
even if I don’t feel in love with her, I can still actively love her in the things I say and do.
You don’t love her for who she is but just for how she makes you feel? What happens when they can’t make you feel exactly the same way anymore?
If your relationship is based on what they can do for you (or what you can do to them), that’s selfish. It’s self-love. You don’t even love them; you just love yourself. Real love is selfless. It’s about serving, not being served; giving, not getting. And when both people love and give and serve each other selflessly, well, you end up getting quite a lot.
Don’t follow your heart; inform your heart. Teach it where you want to go.
This is what we do in dating. We don’t know what to look for, or we simply look at all the wrong things. And once we figure out we were looking at the wrong things, it is sometimes too late. We’ve already bought. We’re committed. And now the cost to fix what’s wrong may be more than we are willing to pay.
So dating is not about finding someone you’re compatible with. It’s about finding someone you can live with in an understanding way.
some people don’t think they deserve better, so they settle for someone who treats them poorly.
“complement” and “conflict” are two very different things.
How can you tell if someone is following Christ? You can’t just ask them, because they might lie, or they might answer honestly but have a completely different definition of what it means. And you also can’t assume they are because you saw them at church; going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to McDonald’s makes you a hamburger.
Controlled, Responsible, Obedient, Serving, and Steady. Put those together, and you have someone whose life is marked by the CROSS.
You’re not trying to find someone “compatible” with you. You want to be someone who is pursuing Christ with your whole life, and then you’re trying to find someone else pursuing Christ at the same pace—going the same direction you are at the same speed. And if you’re fully yielded to Christ and they’re fully yielded to Christ, you don’t have to pursue each other. You pursue God together, side by side, as one.
People play games in dating any time they say or do something in order to get a particular response from the other person.
If someone claims to be one thing but their actions soon contradict those claims, believe their actions over their words. People may fail to do what they say, but they rarely fail to do what they believe.
It’s entirely possible to marry someone and not know who they truly are; I’ve heard that story many times. So now what? Are you going to just continue playing games, hiding your true motives, and manipulating each other for the next seventy years? That sounds absolutely exhausting, if it is even possible. And you will never experience the true oneness God designed for marriage, because you’re not truly being yourself. Usually, such a marriage ends in divorce, which is one reason the divorce rate is so high.
If you are a game player, here’s the truth: you don’t realize it, but playing games is what has made you the insecure person you are; you’ve taught yourself to believe people won’t be attracted to your true self.
This desire to “help” God with his timetable by taking matters into our own hands is often a reflection of us not trusting that God is faithful to keep his promises, and, ladies, that you may not trust a guy to step up and lead you.
If a man’s not willing to take initiative, and doesn’t see you as being valuable enough to be worth pursuing in dating, then he is not the kind of man you really want to yoke yourself to.
You can serve them well by providing clarity. Let them know what you are thinking, where they stand with you, and how you think things are going. Avoid massive surprises.
I thought I had gotten away with it. I thought I had escaped all the consequences of my sexual past. Well, I was wrong.
Through God’s grace, and with a lot of hard work and forgiveness by both my wife and me, we were able to change and heal and build a marriage that is honestly great today.
Pornography use has become so common that it’s just kind of assumed for men but is also regularly consumed by at least a third of all women.6
Scientifically, sex releases hormones that are designed to “rewire” the brain, creating a lasting bond with the person you are with.
the actual evidence shows that people who wait until marriage to have sex end up with more stable marriages, are more satisfied with the relationship, and are happier with the quality of sex after marriage.13)
Therefore, just to make sure it is clear: the Bible does say that premarital sex is a sin. Besides the whole “worthy of a stoning” thing in the Old Testament, the New Testament is full of warnings against “sexual immorality” (sometimes translated “fornication”). Sexual immorality is different than “adultery,” or having sex with someone else after marriage, because both are listed as separate sins in 1 Corinthians 6:9. And in the next chapter, while continuing that discussion, the apostle Paul says that a logical way to avoid giving in to the temptation of “sexual immorality” is to get married
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studies show that pornography leads to addiction, lower sexual satisfaction, increased loneliness, increased infidelity,15 and increased divorce.16
Instead of getting as close as you can to sin, get as close as you can to holiness.
no two people are truly compatible. In marriage, you have to learn how to work together and selflessly serve each other. With God’s Spirit in them,h any two people can choose to do this, and it’s that (and only that) which can make you compatible, whether in the bedroom or outside of it.
sex is about far more than just what happens between the sheets.
Based on estimates for how often married people have sex and how long those encounters probably last, the average married couple spends somewhere around 0.625 percent of their time having sex.18 Which means you spend 99.375 percent of your time together in marriage doing other things.
