Bringing It All Together 20: On Dating

Jim and I have a very unique and quite messy dating story that is worth telling. It's a story full of intrigue, mess, trauma, hormones, joy, pain, agony, fear, and delight. Not in that particular order. And certainly NOT a Cinderella story. And yet, it is our story.

Because of our experience (and yes, I realize that I'm brushing past the story!) I have some strong opinions about dating, engagement, and getting married. I thought these were just based on my story. And yet, when we spent some time in Marriage & Family talking about dating this year, it helped me articulate better WHY I had these opinions. So you want to hear them?

Shortly after we got married, the whole "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" (i.e. the "courting" movement) took off. In this view, (as I understand it) dating is taken off the table. Why would you want to open yourself up to the pain of letting someone into your heart only to break if off later? Commitment is front loaded-- let's just go ahead and get married, and we will get to know each other once there is a life-long commitment in place. It didn't sit right with me. I thought to myself, "If Jim had that view, we never would have gotten married!" There are some big potential pitfalls with this view:

When a relationship is moving towards marriage, (see this perspective explained more thoroughly in Holding Hands, Holding Hearts), there are 3 things that are simultaneously growing.

1) intimacy- growing knowledge of each other
2) interdependence- growing in sharing your life with another
3) commitment- growing promise of commitment to the other

The three factors grow progressively in a relationship. The more you sense that you know another, and share your life with another, the more your heart grows in ability to commit to that person. In a healthy relationship both are testing how these three fit together and whether the relationship should continue.

But what the courting movement suggests is that you should single out the "commitment" piece without a sense of growing intimacy or interdependence. Rather than meeting and continuing to explore relating to each other, you commit on the front end and figure out the rest later. Why do this? To avoid risk and pain and make the relationship safe. But unfortunately, the heart doesn't work this way. In order to do this (make a commitment with no sense of intimacy), you have to shut down your questions and hesitancies. A premature commitment cuts off awareness of your own heart.

In the wake of a growing divorce rate (which is no better for Christians than non-Christians), courtship counters with an high view of marital commitment and an emphasis away from a touchie-feelie evaluation of 'compatibility'. Reacting against a culture that decides "let's live together and see if we are sexually compatible," courtship rightly values the emotional safety of physical intimacy inside the marriage commitment. As well it should be!

And yet, an early commitment without TIME experiencing the other person does not encourage either one to pay attention to what is going on in their hearts. It is system that says "trust God to show you the right person" so that you can avoid pain. But is this the gospel? Trusting God to tell us WHO to marry, but not taking your fears to God and being SECURE in Him when there is pain involved?

And yet, if you aren't in the habit of looking at your heart, you will be pulled towards a system that someone tells you is the "right" way, even if you have no idea what is going on inside of you.

The truth is that all relationships (especially marriage) involve risk-- carrying the possibility of both great delight and immense pain. God does not spare us from pain, but meets us in pain. A dating relationship provides an opportunity to walk with the Lord in a risky faith journey where you don't know how it's going to end up and there are no guarantees. Is God's presence with you in that journey enough?