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Decide on Your Standards  

Have you ever searched the Bible for the word “dating”? If you have, you might be surprised at what you find—nothing. 

There’s not a single verse with the word “dating” in it. Pretty crazy, right?

There is, however, something else the Bible talks a lot about: Becoming and finding the right person. 

God loves you. He’s crazy about you. And because God loves you, He wants the best for you. The same is true when it comes to your boyfriend or girlfriend. The person God wants for you is someone who will bring you closer to Him. 

So, before you start dating, there are three things you need to decide:

1.) Who am I going to date? 

You may think you already have this part figured out. There’s that guy in your Spanish class you’re daydreaming about, or maybe there’s that girl whose locker is next to yours that you’ve been trying to work up the nerve to ask out.  

It goes deeper than that, though. What kind of person are you going to date? Often, we become like the people we spend the most time with. Is the person you want to date going to make you better or make you bitter? 

Proverbs 13:20 NLT says it clearly: “Walk with the wise and become wise; associate with fools and get in trouble.”

2.) What are we going to do?

Have you ever been driving on the highway and noticed the guardrails on the side of the road? Guardrails are there to prevent a major accident from happening if your car goes too far off the road. 

Guardrails are never where the danger is. Guardrails are always right before things get dangerous. 

What are the guardrails, or boundaries, you’re going to set while you date to make sure you don’t go off-road?

3.)  How do I want to be treated? 

It’s possible you’ve never thought about this before—you’ve always just assumed all guys are mean to their girlfriends or all girls criticize their boyfriends. 

So, you’ve accepted it. Remember how earlier we talked about how God wants His best for you? That’s true here, too. God doesn’t want you to be treated poorly. He loves you. 

Before you start dating, you need to ask yourself: what behavior is actually okay, and what’s not? 

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about the first thing you need to do before dating: become the person you’re looking for.