Love vs. Romance

My husband is getting a reputation as the 'relationship guy'. He has had several breakfast meetings where the main topic of discussion was "...there's this girl and... what do I do?!"

Once you get my husband started on the topic of dating, courting, and marriage, there's no stopping him! This is an arena he loves, not only because he loves being married to me, but because he believes so strongly that marriage is a wonderful reflection of God's love for us, and that the world has twisted romantic love into something less than what it should be.

And while I haven't had as many opportunities to sit one-on-one with young women, I too love giving guidance to those who are seeking to find a Godly spouse. In my encounters, I have heard questions such as:

"How do you know if he's 'the one'?"

"Is it okay to go to a church to find a spouse?"

"Am I ready for dating? Am I ready for marriage?"

"What do I do when I feel like there are no Godly men out there?"
"Can I marry a non-Christian?"

Most people want one pat answer. Life would be so much easier if there was a checklist that marked you as 'ready' or 'not ready'. (Could you imagine if there was a stamp on our foreheads that broadcasted our marriageability to the world?!) But I can't give you one answer, or even a decent checklist, because much of it is a matter of the heart. The best advice I know is this:

Treat the other person as a brother or sister in Christ.

This simple idea can carry a person through the short season of courting and into the long, lasting years of marriage. It applies to men, women, young people, old people, divorced people, and never-been-married people. And why it works better than advice like "Just be yourself" is that it takes the focus off of "me" and puts it on serving others. You stop worrying about making an impression, or about "looking" at your own church or any other church. Many dating questions are easily answered if they are first put through this filter: Am I thinking of this other person as a sibling?

And you find yourself asking a different set of questions altogether, questions like:

"Is this outfit going to give my brother sinful and tempting thoughts?"
"Am I safe-guarding her heart and her purity?"

"Am I seeking God's best for my sibling?" (the best may meaning going on the mission field or finishing school instead of marrying you)

"Do we serve together, pray for each other, encourage each other to grow closer to Christ?"

I admit that when I first met my husband, I didn't feel 'swept away'. When we started courting, I never giggled or swooned. When he proposed and kissed me for the first time, there were no fireworks. But from the beginning, I felt a deep respect for him, and with time, the joy in my heart started overflowing. My friend Rebecca would also say the same if she shared her story. Her relationship with her husband started in India as a modern-day arranged marriage. Through much prayer and wise advice, she started corresponding with her (not-yet) husband, then met, then decided to marry. Ten years later, they are going strong because their marriage, like mine, is one of respect and friendship, not the Hollywood-fireworks-in-your-eyes-twitterpated kind of romance.


I'm not saying that romance is sinful. I'm not saying that Christians need to turn and run from romance. Timothy Keller, in his book The Meaning of Marriage, puts it this way:

Does that mean it doesn't matter who you marry, that you don't have to be in love with the person you wed, or that emotion is unimportant in marriage? No, I am not proposing that you deliberately marry a person you don't like. But I can guarantee that, whoever you marry, you will fall "out of like" with them. Powerful feelings of affection and delight will not and cannot be sustained. It it quite typical to lose the head-over-heels feelings for your mate even before you get married, because our emotions are tied to so many things within our physiology, psychology, and environment. Your feelings will ebb and flow, and if you follow our culture's definition of "love," you may conclude that this can't be a person you should marry. Our culture glorifies romantic passion, and so we say, "If this was the person for me to marry, my feelings wouldn't be so up and down."

Romance as portrayed by the world is all about the self-- make a good impression, have fun, have your needs met, find good chemistry. Romance by God's definition comes after marriage, and starts with thinking of the other person (even before you date him or her) as a sibling in Christ, in order to form a foundation of true, deep love. Then your relationship will go beyond physical attraction and first impressions, beyond the world's popular idea of shallow, selfish romantic love. 

This is only the tip of the iceberg. I can hardly go in depth on this subject on a blog. If you want to learn more, I recommend Timothy Keller's book. Or if you want to know what courting in a Biblical way looks like, read Joshua Harris's Boy Meets Girl. But whatever you do, put God first and foremost in your life. Whether in dating, in marriage, in work, in play, make God your center.