Besides that, romance is one of those personal topics that isn't necessarily meant for the whole world, especially the world of cyberspace, to know about. Sarah Bessey has a lovely post, In Which the Moments are Ours: on Not Blogging About my Tinies, in which she discusses her conscious decision to stop blogging about her kids once they enter kindergarten. Her life, which includes her family, is full of real, tangible, sacred moments, not all of which are meant to be shared with the online world. Some moments are meant to be Sarah's, are meant to be yours, are meant to be mine. The moments of romance often fall into that category for me.
So, whenever I blog my opinions on relationships I tend to be vague, general at best. Tonight, however, I want to be a bit more specific.
Yesterday I had a conversation with a friend of mine in which he told me about a relationship he is currently exploring. He's been on a few dates with a friend of his, and he's planning on going on more. He's really into this girl. He thinks she's sweet, funny, kind. He says she loves Jesus.
And then he told me something that made my stomach churn.
He's had multiple people in his church community tell him to run the other way, to not give this girl a second glance.
I wasn't turned off by the fact that he was warned not to date her. People have their opinions, and oftentimes it's beneficial for them to be shared. We need to listen when people speak their minds, because often the words flowing from their lips are rich in wisdom and full of advice to be heeded.
The words being spoken, however, were not what bothered me so.
It was the reason behind the words that twisted my stomach in knots.
My friend was being told to not date a girl he was interested in for the following reasons:
She has a past.
She's made mistakes.
And 'she seems a little rough around the edges for a guy like you'.
I've never met this girl, but upon hearing these words every urge within me desired to wrap the poor dear in a hug.
'I've had a lot of people tell me that I deserve better than someone like her, someone with so much drama in her life, and all I could think when people would tell me things like this was that I'm no better'.
'It's like people think that because I grew up in the church and haven't been rip-roaring drunk that I don't have any problems in my life'.
Then came the words full of life that I respect my friend so much for:
'I've sinned just as much as fill-in-the-blank if not more, it's just that my mistakes have been more hidden, they haven't been out there for the whole world to judge'.
Damn straight.
We've all made mistakes, and we've all been condemned for them.
'For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins'.
-Romans 3:23-24
You want someone that has acknowledged his or her brokenness and has laid it at the feet of God, someone who has experienced and received the full impact of grace. You want someone who knows he or she is forgiven, because then that person will be able to extend grace to him/herself and to you when later in the relationship you both mess up. You want someone that not only knows they have a sinful past but they have a sinful future, because even though we all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God and are forgiven, we are still experiencing temptations in this life and we are still apt to stumble and fall. This doesn't mean that we let sin run wild and free. This just means that we grasp God's hand and get back up on our feet.
We all have sinned.
Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous.
If God in all of His majesty and goodness can look on a sinful world with eyes full of compassion, then the least we can do, especially those of us who have taken on the name of Jesus, is to look at other people through such a lens of compassion.
The evangelical church of North America does a lot of right, but it also does a lot that is potentially detrimental. In regards to relationships it seems that a lot of teachings center upon finding 'the right person', and I'm not saying that it's wrong to have standards, but I am saying that perhaps we as Christians should think on what the definition of this truly means.
Oftentimes what we as Christians do in the form of qualifications and guidelines is outline the ideal qualities of a godly man or woman, and to be quite honest this bothers me immensely.
It's not that having standards is bad or that when it comes to yoking yourself with someone else you shouldn't desire someone that is on the same page theologically or that wants what's best for you. It's just that I can't help but think that in the midst of all of our lists, rules, regulations, and expectations that we tend to reduce dating down to a legalistic mindset instead of the glorious experience that God desires for it to be.
Maybe dating isn't as black and white as we often make it seem like.
First of all, as the Church we need to stop preaching the message that dating another person is where one's identity is found. Jesus has called His followers to be servants-not husbands and wives.
Dating and even marriage are forms that servanthood can take.
So is singleness.
Consider the following words from a faith-based article: 'Statistically speaking, you will almost certainly get married to someone at some point in your life, and it is the next biggest decision you will ever make, second only to your decision to follow Jesus'.
Allow me to respectfully disagree.
While it's true that dating another person can be life-giving, exhilarating, and useful in the kingdom, it's absolutely vital to grasp that not one single person is on this earth solely for the sake of getting married. The heart of the kingdom of God is not found primarily at the marriage alter, though it most certainly can be experienced in such a covenant setting. The kingdom can be experienced in various elements and under numerous circumstances. Marriage is a beautiful experience, but it is not the only one we are destined to have in these lives. Marriage is not the only situation that the Lord can work His purposes in.
So now I've advocated singleness, which I do quite often if you know me well. I guess that's what happens when you're a Jesus-feminist who lives in a geographic area where statistically most people get hitched and have babies before the age of twenty-five. I'm not against marriages or even young ones at that, it's just that I'm for a mindset that expands past the 'ring by spring' mentality, past any restricted mentality really.
I'm for a mindset that is open to God working outside the boxes in which we often place Him.
Which brings me back to the lists, rules, and regulations that we place on each other when it comes to dating. I would never say lists are sinful but they do seem to be potentially harmful if we think of them in the wrong way. When we create these qualifications for what to look for in another person, what we seem to be doing is setting unrealistic expectations for each other.
Not only are we setting a standard of legalism for ourselves and for others, but we are rejecting the standard of grace that God calls us to live under.
In creating lists of how a potential partner should or should not be, we can easily begin seeking relationships of perfection instead of what really is out there to experience: relationships of authenticity.
Real people aren't perfect. Perfect people aren't real.
You don't want to be involved with someone who thinks they are perfect. You want someone who knows that they aren't.
We keep trekking on, walking by the Spirit and living under grace.
The thing is, being a Christian doesn't mean you're a perfect person. It means you're quite sick inside (because all of us are sick inside), but the difference between who you were before you knew Jesus and who you are now is that you know the Great Physician.
A Christ-follower loves Jesus deeply, knows God intimately, the Great Healer that delights to bring beauty from our ashes.
It's too easy to forget that, though we are made more and more like Jesus each day as His Spirit molds us into new creations, we have yet to reach the full embodiment of our sanctification. In the past we were slaves to sin living under the reign of Adam, and in the future to come will be the era under the dominion of Christ in which we are wholly slaves to righteousness. It is vital to understand that currently we are living in a time of both: an era that one of my professors labels 'already/not yet'.
We find ourselves in the middle of two circles overlapping, one circle made of Adam and one made of Christ. One of darkness and one of light.
We battle the darkness each day, but we are simultaneously empowered by the Spirit to resist it.
It's true that we are Christ-followers and that we are each day becoming more fully what we indeed already are, but it's also true that we are broken people. We are broken vessels that the Lord pours His healing and restorative life into.
The thing is, when we preach to Christians to 'clean up your crap before you consider dating', we are setting the Church up for failure. We all have crap in our lives, and when you're in a relationship you get two people's crap combined: you get that person's crap on top of your crap. That's double crap.
Part of being in a relationship is living the messy, in figuring out how to experience the kingdom of God even in the midst of another person's crap so closely snuggled up next to yours.
What makes the difference, what makes a relationship glorifying and harmonious, is if both people know to take their crap to the throne of grace, if both people know that when either of them stumbles and falls that Jesus is proclaiming freedom over each of them, extending a hand to pull both people back up to keep on walking the straight and narrow path of unconditional love.
And I'm not saying that it's easy. I think it's an incredibly challenging task indeed, maintaining standards while utilizing wisdom and living under grace all at the same time.
It's hard but beautiful, and I think maybe that's part of what makes dating so glorious. In the midst of the challenges we find that we actually don't have all the answers, and this forces us to turn to prayer and petition to the God who listens to His children.
When we don't have the answers, we are able to make much of God.
When we talk about what a godly man or woman looks like, perhaps we should dwell on the story of David in the Old Testament, a man who did some of the worst things within the pages of the Bible yet was said to be 'a man after God's own heart'.
He was faithful to God in his heart of hearts, a man of confession and repentance.
What seems to matter is the condition of a person's heart, for out of that will his or her actions flow.
What seems to matter is the condition of a person's heart, for out of that will his or her actions flow.
Returning to my friend mentioned earlier and his romantic interest: both are believers, both are redeemed sinners with messy lives and fiery flesh. Both are imperfect but both are wildly, passionately, completely captivated by the love of God and the freedom that comes in Christ. Both are progressively living their ways into holiness, into the kingdom of light in which love reigns and God is moving and working.
They love Jesus.
They love people.
They are set free.
And I think that's what truly matters.
If you're looking for a bit more in regards to romance, dating, and singleness see these words from Emily Maynard: I'm Single, but I'm Still a Whole Person.
