Outdated: Find Love That Lasts When Dating Has Changed

by Jonathan "JP" Pokluda

don’t even date until marriage is a possibility for you.

if you have issues you need to resolve, so that you are not bringing baggage into marriage, work on those first (and start working on them now).

the average age of marriage today is 28.9 years, compared to 21.5 years in 1960.

If you are not ready and willing to care for your future spouse “in sickness and in health,” or when “for better” becomes “for worse,” then you probably have a fairy-tale misconception of what marriage is really like. You are also likely seeking marriage for purely selfish reasons—wanting to be loved by someone but not to truly love them in return.

the new bride and groom ride off in their carriage while being literally cheered on by a crowd of adoring wedding guests. But that cheering stops as soon as you leave the parking lot. Real marriage starts right where the fairy tale leaves off.

everyone has troubles in life, and in marriage you share the troubles of two people. The goal of life is not to avoid troubles but to glorify God in the way we handle them (1 Cor. 10:31).

However, God chooses to love us—perfectly and forever. In much the same way a married person commits to sacrificially serving their spouse and pursuing oneness with them no matter what they may do (or fail to do) in return, God sticks with us despite our mistakes.

That’s why heaven is described as a wedding feast, and the church is known as the bride of Christ.b Marriage helps us understand heaven, even though being married to an imperfect human may sometimes feel far from being heaven on earth.

Make sure you know the One you’ll be “married” to forever. Find someone else who is already “married” well to Jesus, and then spend this life pursuing him together.