So, twelve to fifteen years ago I worked in downtown Los Angeles, and I went out to lunch with a friend of mine. We were walking down the street just chatting and for some reason we came around to the topic of dating. He told a story that I found pretty distressing. By his late twenties, he was a successful, relatively good-looking dude, over six feet, and with a good income. But what he described about his experience in dating was pretty grim.
He found that in order to get a date, he had to start by making some pretty extravagant plans. Then he had to market those plans whether it was flying somewhere or renting a boat. It had to be something pretty flashy to attract somebody to go on a date with him. He would sort of “market” this opportunity and he asked multiple women to go on this date with him.
He did that like an airline counting on attrition so he might get three or four who would say “Yes,” knowing that they would frequently choose whether or not to attend the date they had committed to very late in the game; maybe even day of, sometimes hours before they would cancel on him.
If he didn’t get his ratio quite right to get it down to one by natural attrition, he would have to cancel on one of them, and make up some lie or excuse as to why he couldn’t go, and then he’d go out on a date with one of the other girls.
He found that these girls were also accepting multiple dates just like him. They would accept multiple dates and pick their best option at the last minute. It was just coldblooded commerce. And it was wrecking this guy. He was so distressed about the whole thing. He felt completely disposable to these women.
He began asking me questions about my experience because he saw that I was happily married. He was a broken man in that conversation. And He wasn’t alone. Many are experiencing dating-app burn out and most users report feeling emotionally exhausted and frustrated by the endless selection process, the ghosting and the shallow interactions. That ideal partner is socially constructed. It’s largely about looks, income, personality, dress and everybody seems to be looking for the same person.
So what is the root cause, the core issue?
Samson is a typical “heroic” guy. His parents get him the wife he wanted. Then he gets into a wager at the wedding, and his new wife tricked him by giving away the answer to his riddle. His anger was aroused and he gave his wife to his companion, his best man.
Samson approached this relationship with a very consumptive attitude that was expressed fairly selfishly. The consequences were death, murder, anger, a broken and failed marriage. Samson pursued what pleased him. He got him a wife through the lust of his eyes and his wife treated him as disposable, as a means to her ends to elevate herself in her community. And Samson did the same thing with Delilah which ended with him being blinded, enslaved and broken (Judges 14: 2-3, 19-21).
I would suggest that the fundamental problem with dating is one of attitude, one of motivation. As long as dating is primarily self-centered, it will be painful at best and an abject failure most of the time.
In the book of Ruth, the fundamental ethic of Boaz and Ruth’s relationship was one of giving, not taking. Why does this ethic work? Because it’s God’s design for the male/female relationship. God describes how this relationship was designed. It was not chaotic or random (Genesis 2:18). Adam is not going to casually “hang out” with Eve to fill up his emotional tank. There’s no hint of experimentation and needing to taste test the menu as they’re working through this blueprint (Genesis 2:24).
From creation God intended romantic relationships to move forward toward the “oneness” of marriage, not as serial, casual encounters. It is a sacred thing. It is to move towards that sacred union of one body and spirit that is dedicated to God. Why that vector, that direction, that energy that is being directed under God’s law?
What’s the Purpose?
“But did He not make them one, Having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one? He seeks godly offspring…” (Malachi 2:15). That’s what the purpose of the male/female relationship is. It is not about growing the church on the earth today, populating the earth with Christians. God is creating children in His own image (1 John 3:2, Romans 8:29). Adam and Eve’s mandate was to “be fruitful and multiply”. All the way to the present shows that marriage is meant to expand God’s family. The union itself is part of that creative process.
Being married is part of our learning, our growth and what it produces is also for that purpose — developing His nature and becoming eternal beings in the image of God, being in the Elohim family. We often treat romantic love as an emotional experience. God defines love as sacrifice (John 3:16, Ephesians 5:25). These sacrifices are descriptive of God’s love.
Stop and think. What is it that Christ gave?
He was physically crucified, a gruesome and horrible death that He willingly submitted to. But I would suggest more than that, He gave up His life, His living life in sacrificing His ego, in sacrificing His lusts, of allowing all of that to be stripped away from Him. He was human as we are and He didn’t give in to any of that. Living for 33 years without sinning would be difficult. That takes a level of discipline and commitment and sacrifice that is just unfathomable. He lived a sinless life. That is the sort of care that Christ gave to the Church.
And most men would say they were willing to take a bullet for their wives. But will you allow your ego to die?
1 Corinthians 13 pictures a very sharp contrast to what you might see about dating and love to what the media has presented to us: The “meet cutes”, the romance movies, the attitudes that are portrayed to us so completely opposite to the attitudes that God requests of us. Love does not seek its own, love is patient and kind, love is not envious or proud. None of the traits in Chapter 13 happen with the flip of a light switch when you get married.
What you do in marriage comes from what you bring in to marriage. Dating is a process of practicing all of these skills that are necessary in marriage. You’re preparing from childhood. It’s quite possible to be selfish, abusive, and unfaithful before you’ve even met the person you’re going to marry.
Are you seeking to get Mr. or Ms. Right? Or are you trying to be Mr. or Ms. Right? I’d suggest the latter is maybe the better focus.
Dating the “give way” asks the question: “How can I become the best possible gift to my spouse one day?” There are a lot of different things. I suggest practicing faithfulness, developing life competencies, and maturing spiritually.
Practicing Faithfulness
Faithfulness starts before you meet. It’s not triggered at the point of making your vows. It is a life of faithfulness that is given at marriage. It is a muscle that has to be trained. Stewarding that faithfulness to the person to whom it is owed, to the person who will possess it, is a skill that has to be flexed, that has to be developed. We all make mistakes. We grow and we change.
We are to be married to Christ. But in the mean time we don’t get to stomp all over that future relationship by slaking our feral urges in whatever way occurs to us. We are preparing for that ultimate marriage to Christ. It’s the same thing with physical marriage. Pre-marriage is preparation for marriage. A dissolute lifestyle in any one of these aspects is what you’re bringing – sex, drugs, physical neglect, neglecting your personal development, that is unfaithful. So practice faithfulness early. Think about what you’re bringing and what you’re giving.
Developing Life Competencies
Competency is about how else you might be preparing for marriage. It is about developing life skills and disciplines. A lot of marriage is just doing the stuff that life requires. It isn’t easy. You need valuable and marketable skills. There is a household to be kept. That takes its own set of skills, making things, maintaining things, fixing things. It’s an endless to do list.
The Proverbs 31 woman is not praised in Proverbs as a virginal princess sitting in a corner reading her Bible and emoting. Think about how she is described in that book and what she’s praised for. She’s wildly competent. She’s enterprising, productive. She’s passionate, she’s aware. She’s seeing her community. She’s responding to it. She’s managing people and resources to meet ends.
Ask yourself, are you a net producer, or a net consumer? Competency is a very attractive feature. And it is a key tool for life success and success in marriage. Like faithfulness, it has to be developed.
Maturing Spiritually
So while one is dating, (preparing for marriage), we should be establishing spiritual maturity as the core. The first thing we have to get done, the first thing we should be focused on is our spiritual relationship with God. You don’t add that after you’ve found somebody. I think that’s often our approach, particularly as Church kids. You get serious about God when you realize that you’re serious about a person. That’s part of the natural course, but ideally we should be focused on God first:
“For after all these things the Gentiles seek (food, shelter, etc.). For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Matthew 6:32-33). Your relationship with God is core to what you will bring to any relationship with a potential mate. It’s important that we reflect on God’s purpose, and that is redemption. None of us is perfect. You will have to develop the same capacity as God to provide grace, to be patient, to be merciful, and to forgive. God is committed to us despite all of our failures, all of the mess, all of the foolish things we do.
God can and will sanctify us – emotionally and spiritually. He will clean, heal and rebuild from whatever point we choose to start on that process (Hosea 14:4). We each need that. So will our significant other.
So, dating is hard. The modern world is making a catastrophic mess of it. The fundamental problem I see in all of the anxiety is selfishness. People are looking to use other people for their own benefit. For the satisfaction of their own ambition, as a device of consumption, and it’s just a wasteful and destructive environment.
God gave us the wonder of male–female relationship in order to reveal to us, and to develop in us, His character. That character is one that gives. It is part of His greater creative plan.
So successful dating starts not with finding the right person, but being the right person. And that’s where our energy should be focused.
Rise above the dating game by practicing faithfulness, developing life’s competencies, and cultivating spiritual maturity.
Staff