Getting Dating RightSample

Dating Intentionally

The greatest calling of our lives is not who we date, who we marry, or even that we get married. The greatest calling of our lives is who we become—people who love God with all that we are and love others the same way Jesus loves us. It’s to become people who are holy, like our Heavenly Father is holy.

Yesterday, we saw how our call to holiness (to be set apart, special, and absolutely pure) is deeply connected to our sexuality. And, while that might make you uncomfortable, the truth is that God cares about your sexuality, because He cares about you. He cares about you so much that He has a plan to deal with your sin and shame from the past—and it’s not to berate you or label you as less than. It’s to heal you and remove your sin and shame so far from you that it’s not recognizable as yours anymore. It’s to nail it to the cross of Jesus Christ, putting it to death, so that you can freely and fully become who you were meant to be. That’s the gospel.

When Jesus saves us, He also fills us with His Spirit, who gives us new desires and the power to do what pleases God. He gives us access to a whole new way of living and loving. Peter, one of Jesus’ first followers, helps us connect the dots when he says:

So you must live as God’s obedient children.Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then. But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. 1 Peter 1:14-15 NLT

After explaining the hope and power that come from the gospel, Peter writes this to the early church. He encourages them to live in light of their salvation by reminding them they are part of a family and that they don’t live for themselves anymore.

Believe it or not, this is a great setup to talk about dating! So, keep reading.

Dating has often been understood as a process of evaluating someone as a potential mate. It’s also common to think of it as the “fun phase” where you get to explore and connect without being locked in on one person for the rest of your life.

If you view dating solely as a method of evaluating someone else as a potential mate, it becomes really easy to objectify them and stunt your own growth. Maybe the first time they do something you don’t like, you ghost them. Or perhaps they bring up something from their past that makes you mad, so you cut them off. That’s not the best quick-draw reaction. We can get so caught up in evaluating someone else that we leave our own lives unexamined. And if you’re leaving emotional wreckage in the wake of every relationship you enter and exit, and you see nothing in yourself that needs to change, that’s not okay.

On the other hand, if you see dating solely as your time to have fun before real commitment is involved, you’ve also missed it. Without some driving purpose or intentionality in your dating, it will be easy to, “slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires.”

But we won’t go back. We are called to be holy, so we’re going to learn to be holy in all that we do. Dating included.

How do we do it? Now that we’ve talked about what dating is not, let’s talk about what it is—or maybe better said, what it can be. But, it’s going to require us to think differently.

Dating is about discovery. Let’s start here.

Dating is about discovering if you are well-suited to help the person you’re in a relationship with grow and become more of who they’re meant to be—and discovering if they can do the same for you. That’s fun! You get to learn someone’s personality and quirky tendencies. You get to see how they navigate wins and losses in life. You get to be curious about their strengths and weaknesses. As you discover those things about them, you will also discover more about yourself: How you respond when the other person says something that rubs you the wrong way. How you talk about what matters to you when you’re having a deep conversation. How you feel when you see the way they treat people close to them.

Truthfully, every person we are in relationship with can help to sharpen and sanctify us (help us become holy) when we submit to the Holy Spirit and commit to loving them as Jesus has loved us.

However, in dating, as you discover more about where someone is weak and you’re strong, and where they’re strong and you’re weak, you can begin to see how a lifetime of journeying with this person toward Jesus could make you stronger together than you would be apart!

Dating well requires intentionality. Again, you could edit this statement to say, “Healthy relationships, of any kind, require intentionality” because that’s just the truth. Intentionality is doing things with purpose, not just doing whatever feels right in the moment, willy-nilly, and hoping it turns out okay in the end. Living that way often leads us to a place we never wanted to be, with a lot of pain on the way there. Because, as humans, we don’t naturally drift toward holiness. We drift toward selfishness.

So, in our relationships, we need to have a hand on the rudder and our eye on the prize to keep moving in the right direction.

What does that mean in dating? For one, it means that dating is not a status for you to sit in forever. If that’s where you are, it’s likely you’ve stalled out or gotten confused about your value. As a reminder, your value doesn’t come from who you date. Your worth isn’t found in how attractive the person you’re with is or thinks you are. Your value comes from the God who made you and chose you for His family. You don’t have to be dating to be valuable. You are free to love others sacrificially, even when that means recognizing that it’s time to stop dating someone. Because the truth is, you don’t need them to make you okay—they can’t make you okay—only God can do that.

Dating intentionally also means remembering the goal and continuing to move in the direction of becoming holy. If your dating relationship isn’t moving in that direction, it’s time to course correct, and that’s going to take some purposeful steps. Steps like confessing where you’ve been living to satisfy your own desires and committing to change. Steps like seeking godly wisdom from others who can help you move forward in a way that honors God and the person you’re dating. Steps like asking your boyfriend or girlfriend questions about what God is teaching them, instead of just watching movies on the couch.

Dating with intentionality isn’t always easy, but neither is becoming holy. Keep your eye on the goal and remember that the One who called you is faithful to help you become who you were meant to be.

May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it. 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 NIV

Challenge: As you evaluate your dating relationships (past or present), where do you recognize opportunities to be more intentional? Is God asking you to course correct anywhere? Remember, we don’t live like we used to when we didn’t know any better. Now, because of Jesus, we are part of God’s family, so let’s live like it and pursue holiness in our dating relationships.