 When God writes you a love story, will you find a date worth keeping, or will you stay not yet married? Before you meet Prince Charming, will you kiss dating goodbye, or will you find out that courtship is in crisis? A lot of us are single, but we don't want to stay that way. We want to get to dating and engaged and married. But the real question is, how do we even do that? If you're anything like me, you have a lot of questions about dating, relationships, boundaries, and the list goes on. Anything advice? Everybody seems to have some of it. Hundreds of podcasts are built on the agenda of dishing out weekly dose of do's and don'ts to reel in your boo thing. I can't believe I said that. There's manly podcasts that focus on the evolutionary aspects of male and female dynamics in order to get you that perfect life. Though different flavors, both men and women, eat up this kind of content centered around relationships because, look, God created us in such a way where relationships and families make the world go round, so of course we're interested in them. But there becomes a distinct divide between Christians and non-Christians, at least in terms of the advice that they give. When you listen to non-Christian sources, it often revolves around how to spice up your intimate life with your boyfriend or girlfriend. But for me, as a Christian, I'm just concerned about how I pursue a relationship in a godly way. Enter the Christian publishing industry. Over the last three decades, hundreds and hundreds of books have been put out on Christian dating, intentional dating, courtship, and the list goes on as a single 20-something year old guy. I feel like these books are targeted mostly at somebody like me, so I figured, hey, let me see if I can read as many of these books as I can. So that's what I did. And today I want to share with you some of what I learned and also a big realization that I'll share with you at the end. In Marshall Segal's 2017 book called Not Yet Married, he talks about the fact that we need to enter the dating space with the proper motivation and expectations. He recalls some of his own experience to make this point. I began each new relationship under the banner of my pursuit of marriage, but much of it was really just my pursuit of me. I love the idea of marriage because I thought marriage would fill and complete me. But because I was looking for love, happiness, and significance, mainly in marriage, singleness turned into a nightmare some days. So Marshall did kind of what the world tells us to do these days to find somebody that makes you happy, that fulfills your needs. And while I think we all can agree that we shouldn't pursue a relationship with someone who makes our blood boil, or that we can't stand to be in the same room with, at the same time we need to have proper expectations of what a relationship really is for. Is it just for all my needs to be met or to make me happy? Because if we're approaching a relationship like that, I can only imagine the kind of nightmare that that would look like. Something I realized in reading some of these books is that our joy is not made complete in our future spells or our current spells. In Matthew 15, we get an understanding of where our joy is finally made complete. It says, as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. Our joy is made complete in Christ in the pursuit of him. Matthew 5 highlights this even better. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. In single dating, engaged, married, I sometimes get those confused, which is not a good thing. Ben Stewart points out the core of the person that we should be looking for. What we are looking for is character and chemistry. You want someone with character, not someone who simply acquiesces to the existence of a deity, but someone who passionately pursues God and the things of God. Some people only want chemistry. They meet someone they think is cute, is funny, and with whom they can talk for hours, but they bypass deep conversations about core values. I think this is a great way to think about it. Character and chemistry. You need both. But I think when it comes to character and chemistry, depending on your background, you might have more of a tendency to sway towards one or the other. So for me, I grew up in more of a conservative space or community, and chemistry was kind of pushed to a corner. It was minimized. It wasn't as important as character. That was the big important thing, but what happens when we minimize chemistry? Well, people began saying things like, well, attraction isn't that important. Do they love Jesus? That's what's really important. And I mean, yeah, that's great that they love Jesus and they're serving him in a meaningful way and they're passionate about evangelism and discipleship. But if you're not attracted to them, why are you pursuing a relationship with them? I think this honestly stems from the idea that attraction is somehow bad or, you know, sex is dirty and we're all scared of these kind of things, right? And so we just kind of focus on, you know, do they have the correct theology and then you can be kind of like co-laborers, you know, in the Lord and that kind of thing, but they kind of miss out on this whole idea of romance and being, you know, one, you know, physically and like, hey, you kind of need attraction to make that happen and like you just miss out on some stuff. So here's my take. Should you even begin to pursue a relationship with somebody you're not attracted to? No, you shouldn't. That's not fair to them. It just doesn't make any sense. But that's not to say that attraction couldn't grow if you have more time to spend with them in like a friend context. Yes, obviously, we shouldn't overvalue the importance of trying to find this like smoke and hot person. Like, yes, of course, we all get all like, you know, beauty fades away. That's not what is primary and most important. You should be attracted to them. Yes, but also we should keep in mind that physical appearance isn't all that contributes to attraction. Maybe you've experienced this like I have. Maybe you're not super attracted to the person initially, but as you begin to see their character and how they serve the Lord, you begin to grow more and more attracted to them based on kind of how they are and what they're like. And so we shouldn't just say, oh, you know, physical beauty is all that is important because that's not true. What is important, though, is that you are attracted to the person. Wait to date until you can marry. Don't don't. This is very controversial. People are not going to be happy about this at all. But I agree with this. So I've observed two different perspectives in the Christian community on this issue. There are some folks that will let their 14, 15, 16 year old kids date. And they're like, you know, he's got to learn how to treat a lady right. I hear that all the time for some reason. You've got to learn how to treat a lady right. And so he's going to go on dates and he's going to do that. And he's going to learn how to be a gentleman. Like he doesn't need to learn that by going out on dates with people. There's such a thing as being friends with ladies and women. And, you know, knowing how to operate in that friend context, you don't need to send him out on weird dates and get them to play pretend house in order for him to learn that. It's my firm belief that somebody should learn how to be a good friend before they try to be a good boyfriend or girlfriend. OK, but what does this mean for us young adults? What is the principle of waiting to date until you're ready to marry mean for us? Well, I think the first thing is it means evaluating, evaluating what it takes to be ready for marriage. But if you're single, I think you can agree with me when I say that you're never 100 percent ready for marriage. That's not really the point. That's not really what we're saying here. It's really what is your trajectory? So for me personally, because I've been working through this, I'm asking myself a few questions to act as a barometer to see kind of how I'm doing. Am I spiritually ready? Am I pursuing Christ daily? Am I mentally ready? Am I pursuing excellence in my work and developing new skills? Am I financially ready? And this is mainly targeted towards the guys. But am I ready to provide for a family? Am I physically ready? Am I keeping my body in good shape? Am I eating good food to keep my energy up? Now, you may look at this list with anxiety. You're realizing that you're falling short in multiple areas, but I just want you to know that it's not up to us to be perfect, right? Like, that's not the point. We are not perfect. That is exactly why we need God's grace in everything. On our own, we are very, very broken people. And I mean, I can speak first hand that I'm a very broken person that I fall short in a lot of areas. So it's not about trying to be this perfect Chad that, you know, has everything together and then I'm going to get married. Like, because that's not it's not like once I have all this together that I'm going to get married right away. Anyway, it's just about direction rather than perfection in my mind. OK, so financially, you're not ready to support a family. Well, what is your trajectory looks like? How many years or months do you think it will take you to get there? What are your plans? What are your goals? What skills are you developing to help you get there? The reason that I find this helpful to do is if we're falling short in multiple areas, it's not a license to beat yourself up over it and go into self-pity mode. No, it's just to say, OK, maybe I should step back from the dating scene for a little bit to get this stuff sorted out. So then when I am ready to pursue this thing in God's timing, that I'm going to approach it with confidence and not kind of like wallowing in my own inadequacy. OK, a little side note here. What happens when people start dating, when they're really not ready to get married? Well, they end up dating for like nine, 10 years. It's crazy. And you've probably seen this too. But often what happens in those relationships is they often crossed physical boundaries that make the allure of marriage less enticing because they can already access all the marital covenantal benefits in their unmarried state. Now, that whole dynamic becomes very, very complicated, but you can avoid all that by just not entering the sphere, not entering the arena until you're actually ready. That way, when you meet somebody, the timing will be right. You can just go into it and there doesn't need to be that crazy amount of delay that really complicates things. Now, in all the books I read, I was really hoping that they were going to touch on this one concept, but none of them really did. So many of the books did touch on the topic of waiting. Yes, it's very popular topic of waiting for prince charming or waiting for that one that God has for you. But they didn't really acknowledge that God can use the means of our action to bring about his purposes. Yes, of course, God can miraculously bring somebody in your life and you didn't change a thing. You just were strolling on your merry way and all of a sudden God redirected somebody's path to intersect with yours. And you get married and everything's great. Of course, he can do that, but that's not always the case. Here's my point. You deciding to put yourself out there or change something about your life or put yourself in a different friendship circle, go to a social event, that's not you taking things into your own hands. That's just you taking opportunities that God's placed in front of you. Yes, of course, this could become this desperate attempt to get in a relationship and I just want to be loved and I just don't want to be lonely and all this. Yeah, it could become that desperate attempt and taking things into your own hands. But, you know, it doesn't have to be. Say yes to going to a new social gathering. Say yes to greeting new people at church. Say yes to becoming more intentional about becoming more open and approachable. There is, of course, a time to wait. And there is a time to act. Wisdom is knowing the difference. Now, this wouldn't be a complete video on Christian dating if I didn't talk about boundaries. Many debates among Christians have taken place on how far is too far. And while there is consensus among Bible believing Christians that sex outside of marriage is only is wrong and, you know, that's a married people stuff. There is a lot of deliberation and discrepancies among Christians about, you know, what about kissing or what about hugging or side hugging or handholding? No, too far. I make fun of this stuff because I'm kind of exhausted by this conversation. And the reason is a lot of these conversations exist in a realm beyond scripture. Now, that's not to say that there aren't biblical principles that we can apply to these kind of more specific things like kissing, handholding, hugging and so on. But I found people get way too caught up in making broad proclamations about the do's and don'ts of physical affection. This is one of the big problems of what people call purity culture. It reaches beyond the text of scripture to dictate additional rules and protocols in the relationship space. Now, aside from that, in all the books that I read, they usually mention something to the effect of the less you do before your marriage night or your wedding night or whatever you want to call it. I don't know, I'm not married. I don't know what that's got. The better, okay? That's kind of the principle that they lay out. And also by not opening doors of physical intimacy before marriage, avoiding temptation becomes that much easier. We definitely need to be careful though to keep Christ's redemption at the forefront of our view. The fact is that we have all sinned sexually. None of us are perfectly pure. So this idea that there are some pure ones and there are some unpure ones that have fallen and they're kind of like worse Christians and the pure ones are like the good, yeah and God loves them more kind of thing, that just doesn't happen. If you've fallen into sexual sin, that doesn't mean that your future relationships are destined for failure. That just isn't true. Yes, theoretically it'll offer additional challenges but that's nothing for the powerful, sovereign God of the universe. He brings about healing and restoration by his power. Nothing is impossible for him. If you want to get into the nitty gritty of this kind of physical boundaries conversation, people often get consumed with like the details right. Should you kiss or should you hold hands or when should you do that within the context of a relationship or is frontal hugging okay or is it a side hug? Especially us in the homeschool community, we love our side hugs. But at the same time, I think a lot of it is gonna be having a conversation with your future partner or your current partner. Where are their temptations? What's gonna get them in, we get them fallen into sin really. It's like, okay, does this tempt you when I do this? Let's not do that. Let's stay as far away from the line as we can. We wanna make sure we're pursuing the Lord in the midst of this. And so there's some things that just don't align with that, at least in my estimation and what I've decided. Things like making out. I just don't see that aligning with honoring the Lord in a relationship. And you can disagree. I mean, you're accountable before him, but for my conscience, that just doesn't work out. Although physical boundaries tend to take up the majority of our conversations on relationships, especially in the Christian community, it's always like physical boundaries, physical boundaries, don't cross them, be careful. I think there's a great book that I really love. It's called Boundaries in Dating. And it really highlights the other boundaries that are really important to keep in dating and relationships that you don't often think about because we're so focused on the physical. We're not thinking so much on the spiritual or emotional. So that book does a really good job at highlighting some of those things. So, very recommend that book. Very recommend. That doesn't even make any sense. I recommend that book. This was quite a challenge for me. Reading so many books on Christian dating, Christian courtship, intentional dating, whatever you want to call it, it was a challenge. But I've come to a huge realization. And I actually came to this realization about four books into this challenge. I realized that these books weren't gonna be nearly as helpful as I might've hoped. Yes, there are sure some good gold nuggets in there, but for a Christian guy who's grown up in the Christian space, I've been a part of a lot of these conversations on relationships before. So it wasn't a lot of new stuff. One primary reason that I didn't find the majority of these books that helpful is that all relationships are so unique. You think about it, one person can have a million likes, dislikes, beliefs, experiences, quirks, and so on. And then you have two of those people come together to have like a close relationship and you're supposed to give insight and knowledge and advice into that very unique context. It's a challenging thing to do. And it becomes evidently clear that no blanket statement from a book from 2017 can properly serve this couple. And honestly, that's okay. I mean, I tend to put a lot of weight into books and what they can do for us and the power they have to bring insight into a situation. And maybe you're in that way too, but we often minimize the mentors and people we have in our life that actually know us and love us and know the Lord and love the Lord that can speak directly into our situation. We overvalue famous pastors and speakers and writers and undervalue the wisdom of people in our family or people in our church or our pastor or our friends. I think this is why the Bible speaks so much about surrounding yourself with good people, people that are gonna build you up and not tear you down and lead you closer to Lord, not further away from the Lord. Because in circumstances like this, when you're entering this new space, this confusing time where you have so many questions and all these different little things you wanna get help and you wanna do it right, you wanna be ready to have those people around you that you can ask those questions to and you trust them. One of the key things that I've needed to address as I'm seeking to pursue a relationship is that I wanna do it right. I have this real huge desire with me. I wanna do this right, I wanna do it by the rule, but the Bible doesn't give you kind of a step-by-step thing. That's why it's so frustrating. And I often can get filled with so much anxiety because I just don't wanna mess up. My goal is to submit this process to him, to trust in him because he will make my paths straight. That's what it says in Proverbs 3-6. It says, in all your ways, acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths. That's my hope because I know I'm gonna screw this up. I know I'm gonna make mistakes, but I'm gonna cling to Christ, submit this whole process to him and I'm gonna trust him that his purpose, his timing will come out on the end because he is sovereign over all of this and he is trustworthy. This video was brought to you by my patrons on Patreon. It is only because of your support that I continue to make this content. Huge shout out to everyone on there if you wanna help support what I'm doing and helping people follow Jesus daily. Head to the link in my description and support today. If you enjoyed this video, give it a like and subscribe because I'm putting out new videos like this all the time. Thanks so much for watching, guys and I'll see you next time. God bless.