"when I was fifteen I blindly followed the pattern my culture placed before me: I entered by first boyfriend-girlfriend relationship. Cathy and I first met sometime late in the fall of our sophomore year in high school. We talked together and soon found we enjoyed each other's company….And then one night our relationship changed. We had gone to a meeting held in a farmhouse at the top of a hill. The meeting broke up late. My mother was waiting to drive us home. She was parked on the street at the bottom of the hill. The driveway meandered a long way around before it reached the street, so Cathy and I decided to take the shortcut-straight down the hill. Rocks and weeds dotted the path, it was dark out, and I didn't want Cathy to fall, so I reached out and grabbed her hand as we began our descent….We reached the bottom of the hill, began to walk, and neither one of us let go! Suddenly I realized something I had not been sure about before: Cathy liked me. No, she loved me. She loved me! I was loved! I was in love…Oh! The feelings I had as my mom drove us home that night! Cathy and I had launched out into the shining sea of boyfriend-girlfriend relationships. It was the beginning of something glorious, a great adventure…It lasted nine months. And then it was over. Unexpectedly, will shell-shocked devastation, I heard Cathy say, 'I want to break up with you. I can't take it anymore.' The result was, Cathy and I were 'through' and our 'endless love' had led to something other than lifelong wedded bliss…I began to look around at the relationships my friends were involved in and soon discovered that my experiences were not unusual…When his girlfriend broke up with him, one of the guys at my high school bawled his eyes out in the middle of the school hallway; you could hear him crying from twenty yards away. Another girl I knew was virtually paralyzed with grief for five weeks after her 'one-and-only' broke up with her. She spent most of her time lying in bed, reading old love letters, and crying uncontrollably…Some threatened suicide when told their love ones wanted to leave. Others simply bore their pain in silence" (Dating With Integrity, John Holzmann, pp. 4-6).
Accounts like the above could fill volumes. In this series of lessons I want to ask some questions and try to find some answers: 1. When it comes to dating, are Christians blindly following and accepting a method that really needs a serious overhaul? 2. Can't there be a better way of getting to know the opposite sex, establishing friendships, having fun and finally finding someone to marry? 3. Shouldn't we be able to offer to our teenagers more than just what is and what isn't fornication? 4. Isn't there a much higher purpose to dating than simply a superficial romance?
Are We Expecting Too Much Of Them?
One of the reasons that I decided to preach this series from the pulpit, is because parents, including myself, may have never been taught how a Christian should approach the dating years. As I struggle to find practical advice and biblical truths I want to share that information. This is a topic that not a whole lot, especially when it comes to practical application has been written upon-even in the denominational world. In addition, parents and well-meaning but misinformed relatives can sometimes get in the way of such teaching. It is easy to excuse our teenagers and say, "When you are that age, you are just too immature to be able to tell the difference between love and infatuation", or, "It is unreasonable to expect that our teenagers will be able to resist all the temptations which surround modern dating practices". But if a teenager is mature enough to be baptized, then certainly they are mature enough to treat the opposite sex in a righteous and godly manner. Look at what God demands of all Christians, including young Christians: "If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me" (Luke 9:23); "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate…yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple" (Luke 14:26); "No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, if fit for the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:62); "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you" (Matthew 6:33); "Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life" (Revelation 2:10). Instead of thinking what we expect of our teenagers, we need to make sure that we are expecting the same thing that God expects of them. God expected a 17 year-old Joseph to resist sexual temptation (Genesis 39:9). God expected a very young Daniel to keep the laws of God, even when he was in a foreign land that didn't recognized God's standard of purity, morality, right and wrong (Daniel 1:8). God expected Daniel's three friends to chose death instead of compromising to the demands of false religion (Daniel 3:16-18). And let us be impressed that God's attitude concerning all such things and similar things hasn't changed, "Now these things happened to them as an example and they were written for our instruction…."1 Corinthians 10:12; Romans 15:4).
My Brother and Sister's Keeper
"If one of my sisters (in Christ) had a good date with another brother, I was as thrilled as she was. If the guy she'd gone out with was a bore, I was just as disappointed or angry, often even more than she was ("Him thinking he could treat my sister like that!")" (Holzmann p. 55). We tend to forget that the other person we are dating is a human being, someone created in the image of God, someone that God wants saved or that God wants to remain saved (2 Peter 3:9). If our date is a Christian, they are a brother or sister in Christ. Points To Note: 1. God takes it personal when we lie about, mislead, mistreat or try to entice one of His children, "to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me" (Matthew 25:40; Acts 9:4). 2. All the passages that talk about the need to unselfishly and righteously place the best spiritual interest of the other person ahead of our own perceived needs also applies when we are dating another Christian: "…that you love one another, even as I have loved you….By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:34-35); "Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself" (Philippians 2:3); "we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren" (1 John 3:16); "If someone says, 'I love God', and hates his brother he is a liar" (1 John 4:20); "first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering" (Matthew 5:24). 3. In view of such passages how can we say that the typical teenage breakup with resentment, hard-feelings, feelings of hate and betrayal is an innocent occurrence? Shouldn't two professed Christians be able to spend time with each other without ending up hating each other? 4. "Dating relationships are not successful merely because you and your friends have enjoyed yourselves and remained free from pregnancy….and the pain of breaking up….God wants you to judge your relationships by higher standards than these. He's not merely interested in what things you'll avoid but in what things you'll do: how well…you'll lead them to faith and obedience; how upright your speech will be; how loving your actions" (Holzmann p. 23).
Getting Your Mind Off Yourself
As a parent it is so easy to pamper our children. We might reason, "They have so much homework, and then there are practices, etc….I don't think I will give them any more responsibilities". But such isn't doing them any favors, for the real world places many responsibilities on people who are already busy. God expects all Christians to serve, "but through love serve one another" (Galatians 5:13); "encourage one another, and build up one another" (1 Thess. 5:11); "let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds" (Hebrews 10:24). If fact, the second great commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself, and to treat others in the manner that you would like to be treated (Matthew 7:12). "For several years I made it my habit not to write to the 'woman of my dreams' (whoever she happened to be) unless I had first written to some of my other friends. This discipline encouraged me to love my friends better than I would have loved them otherwise, and it enabled me to avoid the temptation of 'over-loving' (being in love with being in love) the woman who made my heart throb" (Holzmann p. 38).
Lessons I Wish Someone Had Taught Me: