Dating: An Opportunity to Grow

How we interact with members of the opposite sex
impacts our state of mind now—as well as our future relationships.

• How would you characterize most of the dating relationships among your friends? Positive? Negative? Healthy? Hurtful?
  
• What has been your experience with dating so far?
  
• What’s the most important thing to learn from being with members of the opposite sex?

Dating can be a wonderful opportunity to interact with the opposite sex. We can learn to communicate better; we can experience careful and appropriate levels of affection; we can discover the characteristics we would like to find in a marriage partner and develop these characteristics in ourselves.

However, dating can be a horrible way to interact with the opposite sex. We can get caught up in a possessive and jealous relationship; we can lose our ignorance by becoming too physical; we can obsess about the opposite sex and lose out friendships and activities.

I read a book which gave me the idea of what things are to be considered before dating someone.

• You are not abnormal or weird for choosing to wait to date. You have the rest of you life to be with someone. In Ecclesiastes 3:1, Solomon said: “There is a time for everything, and everything on earth has its special season.”

• Your best preparation for a future relationship is how you communicate with members of the opposite sex now. If your dating patters are not based on positive models of communication—listening, sharing, mutual encouragement, problem solving—we are better off just being friends. “Do not stir up nor awaken love until it pleases” (Song of Solomon 8:4).
  
• We need to honor God with all of ourselves, including our relationships. One of the most important elements of any relationship is respecting and valuing what is important to that person. If the person you want to date doesn’t value your relationship with God, that’s a pretty good indicator that the relationship is not going to honor God or help you grow closer to Him. “You are not the same as those who do not believe. So do not join to them” (2 Corinthians 6:14).
  
• Don’t forget your parents. Even though your parents are asking you to make more and more of your own decisions, don’t leave them out of what you’re thinking and feeling. Ask them questions. “Honor your father and your mother” (Exodus 20:12)
  

God has a wonderful plan for our lives. Let’s not try to rush it when we feel the surge of emotions from someone we are attracted to. The right person will appear to us—at the right time.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your path.” Proverbs 3: 5-6