As time passes, Jack spends more and more time with Emma. He hopes that by the end of the summer they will be in a committed relationship. But Jack has learned a few things about a woman’s heart along the way. After a couple of awkward and painful conversations with Lucy, he realizes he needs to be more careful to not get so close in a platonic friendship. His attachment to Lucy is more like that of a brother, but he knows it hurts her now that he is spending more time with Emma and less time with her. He feels bad about hurting her and misses her too, but he can’t spend as much time with her as before and still have time to pursue Emma. He is excited to get to know Emma better, and he also wants to protect both their hearts from getting too close too soon. How can he do this?
Before You Start to Date
Recently a young friend of mine shared with me about a guy she was interested in. She wanted to know my opinion, so I went through a few of what I consider my “yellow-flag” questions. Yellow-flag questions simply help us slow down and consider before diving too deeply into a relationship. Our answers may indicate a need to slow down and proceed with caution in any relationship. It is a good idea to answer these questions before becoming attached to someone.
Christian fellowship groups on campus or small groups at church are great places to get to know a potential boyfriend or girlfriend. Get around this person of interest in a group setting, and try to get any yellow flags answered early on in the relationship or before dating. (These questions are relevant in dating relationships where marriage is the end goal.)
You might not know the answers yet, and that is okay. The person you’re interested in might not know the answers either. But the answers are things that will make a big impact on your future lifestyle and are worth thinking about.
Some possible questions are:
- Is this person pursuing Christ? (This is really more of a red flag—if someone isn’t a committed Christian and you are, it is unbiblical and unwise for you to date him or her.) How do you know?
- How do they treat you and their family members? (When I was dating my husband, I was impressed by how respectfully he talked about his mom and his sister. I knew this was a good indication of how he would treat me.)
- Does this person want to live in the United States or overseas? In a big city or out in the country?
- Does this person want to go into vocational ministry or serve God in the workplace?
- Does this person want to be a parent someday? If so, does he or she want a small or big family? Does he or she want to have one parent stay home and raise the kids? Which one? Or does he or she think both parents should work outside the home?
If you’re in a relationship where these questions seem too serious, that’s a good sign that the relationship isn’t serious and you should be cautious of too much intimacy.
When You Start to Date
Dating is fun and exciting. Enjoying a budding romance is a beautiful example of how God designed us to connect intimately with Him and others. The 5 Conversation Categories help us skillfully and intentionally develop a relationship. Don’t be afraid to open up to each other; do it intentionally and honestly. Maintain a level of intimacy that matches the level of commitment. As the commitment grows, so can the conversational intimacy. Most importantly, surrender the relationship to God for Him to guide. He often does this through the wise counsel of a trusted mentor.
Some of us might be afraid to share our hearts because of past broken relationships. This was true for me when I started dating my husband. I was “gun-shy” from a past breakup that had been very close to engagement. I had to force myself to prayerfully open my heart to Jeff as I felt God leading me. If this is true for you, too, ask God to heal those hurts and speak truth to any lies you might believe from that experience (e.g., “no woman is trustworthy” or “all men are jerks”).
In order to move forward, we also have to surrender our hearts to God. By acknowledging that our hearts belong to Him, to guard or give away as He sees fit, we will start to trust Him and this other person. This doesn’t guarantee we won’t get hurt again. Unfortunately, there are no earthly relationships without some level of risk. But it is an important step toward finding freedom and moving forward.
Emotional Purity and Physical Purity Are Connected
As a single person, I had no idea how much my sexuality and emotions were connected. I wish I had known then! As a married woman, I’ve noticed a direct correlation between my emotional closeness to my husband and my desire for physical connection. This is because God intentionally created women to have the two intertwined. Emotions are tied up with their sexuality. The more a woman shares her heart with a man, the more she wants to share the rest of herself as well. In Sex and the Soul of a Woman, Paula Rinehart shares, “Vulnerability of the heart is always supposed to precede, by a long shot, vulnerability of the body, which is another euphemism for sex.”[5] This emotional and physical vulnerability is a beautiful thing within the protective boundaries of marriage. So whether you are single or married, practicing emotional purity is key to practicing physical purity. Men can use this knowledge about women to help protect purity both physically and emotionally. I’m using generalizations here because I think women’s emotional purity affects their physical purity more than it does for men. However, there are certainly exceptions to this, and men should also be on alert—especially if they are struggling with physical purity in a relationship.
Somebody once said that the more we undress emotionally, the easier it is to undress physically. By intentionally not going too deep too fast emotionally, we can avoid the temptation to go too far physically before marriage.