Caution: Up To Date is designed to be read in a linear fashion, as each chapter builds on principles established in the previous chapters. For your best relationship success, begin with the introduction and progress chapter by chapter.
Chapter Six
The Real Reason?
"Why trimmest thou thy way to seek love" (Jeremiah 2:33)?
"Infantile love follows the principle: 'I love because I am loved.'
Mature love follows the principle: 'I am loved because I love.'
Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.'
Mature love says: 'I need you because I love you."
God desires that men and women create unions whose combined characteristics emulate God and demonstrate His character to families, the church, community, and the world. He planned for the family to provide the emotional wants and needs of children until they were old enough to marry, thereby leaving no gaps from singleness right up to, and including, marriage. When someone is emotionally filled before they seek a relationship, they are less likely to make dysfunctional decisions that lead to unstable and unhappy relationships. Yet, with broken homes and rampant abuse, many don’t understand or know how to express healthy, pure love even after maturing into adulthood.
"What you win them with, you win them to."
Often a young lady falls for a guy because he is handsome or has simply shown her a little attention. She does anything to woo him, including offering her body to various degrees. What you win them with, you win them to, and she may experience short-term affection, but this only reinforces the unhealthy "love" that destroys and debilitates.
When a guy is won with physical allurements, he often says, "She is a good kisser, but she is not girlfriend or wife material." He is duly entertained and expects that when he is ready to settle down with a virtuous woman, she will want to marry a guy who has taken advantage of affection-starved girls for his own enjoyment. Again, this is a misunderstanding of healthy love - on both sides.
Creating solid emotional foundations requires an evaluation of emotional health and motives before dating no matter your upbringing, but how does an individual know if they are emotionally fulfilled or unfulfilled, emotionally healthy or not? Answer the following question for yourself, and then ask an older friend or two how they would answer for you.
If the last phrase of each question applies, you may need to experience pure love before seeking true love. This lack may not be of your own making, but it is your challenge to pursue. No one else can do it for you.
Since God is the Author of love, pure love is learned by first seeking God’s way to fill that void, in the family environment as God intended. It is possible that you may not find the answer with your own family. Instead, you may need to with a godly couple whose relationship you admire and who has children at least your age or older, if possible. Bear in mind that, though you may connect with the "kids" in this family, the point is to connect with the patriarch and matriarch. Ask their permission to hang out with the family. It is certainly OK to explain your motive. If this family is emotionally healthy with a godly love, they will appreciate your efforts. This doesn’t mean that you’ll move in with them, be dependent on them, or monopolize their resources or time. Rather, spend consistent, quality time, opening your heart and mind to their leading on a spiritual and social level—to love and be loved. Be sure to allow them some time alone with their own family, as well, and God will bless such teamwork.
Some people choose to see a counselor for this love-adjustment and that’s OK, but you cannot experience what you need at an appointment. You must see and feel first-hand a godly, healthy environment that you can later emulate in your own home.
From babes we are wrapped up in ourselves and our own personal desires. In the next eighteen-plus years we begin to find life outside of ourselves intellectually and emotionally. So as not to choose a life partner based on personal needs or emotions over steady character, we must each develop an uncompromising ideal from within that says: "this is a once in a lifetime commitment. I will use my brains first."
The truest dating motive is demonstrated when you overflow with so much pure love that you can’t help but share it, by the grace of God, not only with your date, but with parents, siblings, and anyone else with whom you come in contact. Our maturity is demonstrated when we act with the motive of pure love, seek with practical and intellectual skills, and win only with pure and holy virtue.
During those formative years we learn about, and experience, different kinds of love in either the most precious or the most trying ways. Different types of love can be difficult to identify, so we devote an entire chapter to them. Experiencing pure love is a prerequisite to meaningful dating, but feelings can be so complicated. How does one sort them out? What variations of love do we experience and how does one discern the difference? The answer is easier than you think . . . and more difficult than you can imagine.
The Real Reason?
"Why trimmest thou thy way to seek love" (Jeremiah 2:33)?
"Infantile love follows the principle: 'I love because I am loved.'
Mature love follows the principle: 'I am loved because I love.'
Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.'
Mature love says: 'I need you because I love you."
God desires that men and women create unions whose combined characteristics emulate God and demonstrate His character to families, the church, community, and the world. He planned for the family to provide the emotional wants and needs of children until they were old enough to marry, thereby leaving no gaps from singleness right up to, and including, marriage. When someone is emotionally filled before they seek a relationship, they are less likely to make dysfunctional decisions that lead to unstable and unhappy relationships. Yet, with broken homes and rampant abuse, many don’t understand or know how to express healthy, pure love even after maturing into adulthood.
"What you win them with, you win them to."
Often a young lady falls for a guy because he is handsome or has simply shown her a little attention. She does anything to woo him, including offering her body to various degrees. What you win them with, you win them to, and she may experience short-term affection, but this only reinforces the unhealthy "love" that destroys and debilitates.
When a guy is won with physical allurements, he often says, "She is a good kisser, but she is not girlfriend or wife material." He is duly entertained and expects that when he is ready to settle down with a virtuous woman, she will want to marry a guy who has taken advantage of affection-starved girls for his own enjoyment. Again, this is a misunderstanding of healthy love - on both sides.
Creating solid emotional foundations requires an evaluation of emotional health and motives before dating no matter your upbringing, but how does an individual know if they are emotionally fulfilled or unfulfilled, emotionally healthy or not? Answer the following question for yourself, and then ask an older friend or two how they would answer for you.
- Do you tend to love most everyone you come in contact with, or are you annoyed by a lot of people?
- Are you OK outside of a dating relationship, or do you feel insecure unless in one?
- Do varied subjects monopolize your quiet time and conversation, or is the opposite gender one of your predominate themes?
- Do you ask intellectual questions about whom to date, or are you inclined to date anyone good looking or attentive to you?
- Do you woo others with humble solicitude or woo with physical attraction?
- Is your decorum reserved, or do you flirt with people you are not currently dating?
- Are you happy when alone, or are you lonely even with people around?
- Do you seek to make others feel valued, or do you seek attention?
If the last phrase of each question applies, you may need to experience pure love before seeking true love. This lack may not be of your own making, but it is your challenge to pursue. No one else can do it for you.
Since God is the Author of love, pure love is learned by first seeking God’s way to fill that void, in the family environment as God intended. It is possible that you may not find the answer with your own family. Instead, you may need to with a godly couple whose relationship you admire and who has children at least your age or older, if possible. Bear in mind that, though you may connect with the "kids" in this family, the point is to connect with the patriarch and matriarch. Ask their permission to hang out with the family. It is certainly OK to explain your motive. If this family is emotionally healthy with a godly love, they will appreciate your efforts. This doesn’t mean that you’ll move in with them, be dependent on them, or monopolize their resources or time. Rather, spend consistent, quality time, opening your heart and mind to their leading on a spiritual and social level—to love and be loved. Be sure to allow them some time alone with their own family, as well, and God will bless such teamwork.
Some people choose to see a counselor for this love-adjustment and that’s OK, but you cannot experience what you need at an appointment. You must see and feel first-hand a godly, healthy environment that you can later emulate in your own home.
From babes we are wrapped up in ourselves and our own personal desires. In the next eighteen-plus years we begin to find life outside of ourselves intellectually and emotionally. So as not to choose a life partner based on personal needs or emotions over steady character, we must each develop an uncompromising ideal from within that says: "this is a once in a lifetime commitment. I will use my brains first."
The truest dating motive is demonstrated when you overflow with so much pure love that you can’t help but share it, by the grace of God, not only with your date, but with parents, siblings, and anyone else with whom you come in contact. Our maturity is demonstrated when we act with the motive of pure love, seek with practical and intellectual skills, and win only with pure and holy virtue.
During those formative years we learn about, and experience, different kinds of love in either the most precious or the most trying ways. Different types of love can be difficult to identify, so we devote an entire chapter to them. Experiencing pure love is a prerequisite to meaningful dating, but feelings can be so complicated. How does one sort them out? What variations of love do we experience and how does one discern the difference? The answer is easier than you think . . . and more difficult than you can imagine.
