Dating, Love, Sex-Part 1

Well its February and that means 2 things. First, it is FREEZING COLD in Southern Illinois right now! And Valentines Day is right around the corner. I have a remedy for the 1st one...I'm leaving Florida in 6 hours and 45 minutes (not that I'm counting). But the second one is a real conundrum (yes that's the right spelling...I had to look it up.) Anyway, Valentines Day has always been kind of a waste to me. My wife likes flowers and chocolates and all that stuff and I like to give her things she likes but does it really mean anything if its expected?...if its SUPPOSED to happen then? Where's the feeling and emotion in that? "Here honey...here's some flowers that I bought you because every other husband in the entire world is buying their wives some this week so I thought I should buy you some too." See what I mean? (Alright...I realize that is a really lame excuse for NOT buying flowers but its the best I've got right now. If you have something better, let me know.) So Valentines Day isn't really that big of a deal at our house. But it is a big deal to me for another reason. Every year at this time, we take some time at The Mix to talk about the HUGE topic of love, dating and sexual issues. And this year is no different.

In my 18 years of youth ministry, of all the conversations I have had and counseling I have done with kids, BY FAR the most frequent topic has something to do with dating, boyfriends and girlfriends and sexual issues. Probably 85% of the time when a student comes to me and wants to talk, we end up talking about their dating life in some form or fashion. It's a big deal because the stakes are really high and the potential for long-lasting damage is enormous. And the thing I've noticed is that many times, students have unrealistic and very wrong attitudes and ideas about dating, love and sex, before they ever get to a point in their lives when they begin to think about dating. Check out these quotes from grade school kids concerning love, marriage and dating:

HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHO TO MARRY?

• Alan-age 10--"You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff. Like if you like sports, she should like it that you like sports...and keep the chips and dip coming."


• Kristen-age 10--"No person really decides before they grow up who they're going to marry. God decides all the way before and you get to find out later who you're stuck with."
  
  

WHAT DO MOST PEOPLE DO ON A DATE?

• Lynette-age 8--"Dates are for having fun and people should use them for getting to know each other. Even boys have something to say if you listen long enough."
  
• Martin-age 10--"On the first date they tell each other lies and that usually gets them interested enough to go for a second date."
  
  

WHEN IS IT OK TO KISS SOMEONE?

• Curt-age 7--"The law says you have to be eighteen, so I wouldn't want to mess with that."


• Howard-age 8--"The law goes something like this: If you kiss someone, then you should marry them and have kids with them. Its the right thing to do."
  
  

HOW WOULD YOU MAKE A MARRIAGE WORK?

• Ricky-age 10--"Tell your wife she looks pretty, even if she looks like a truck."
  

Now obviously these little guys and gals will have their ideas changed for them as they get a little older! And its easy to see where they get these ideas from in most cases. But its important to realize that we all start to form ideas and attitudes about dating and love and marriage and even sex, from a very young age. And kids carry those ideas into high school with them and right into dating relationships. So what ARE the right attitudes for students to have about dating? Our goal at The Mix is not necessarily to come up with hard and fast rules for our students to follow. Obviously, their parents have a lot to do with all of that for them. We are more concerned that they have a right attitude towards dating and that starts with some realizations about why God cares so much about their dating and sexual life. We came up with 3 big reasons why God cares so much about the dating life of high schoolers:

1. God sees the big picture--You don't! (God always sees how our choices and decisions right now will affect our future. We don't always see that. So by depending on God for our wisdom, we are depending on the One who really can see the future for us!)


2. God always looks out for your well-being--You don't! (God will ALWAYS lead us into what is best for us...His plans for us are not to harm us but to give us a hope and a future, according to Jeremiah 29:11. We don't always have our best interest in mind. We get caught up in the moment and make bad choices that lead to harmful things for us...it happens all the time. We don't have to ever worry about God doing that to us.)


3. God always has the purpose of dating, love and sex in mind--You don't! (Again, we get caught up in the moment, give into temptations and allow or focus to shift all over the place. God never gets caught up in the moment and always has His focus exactly where it should be. He knows the real purpose and intention behind dating and eventually marriage...He should, He invented it! And He can help us to do the same if rely on His direction and operate within the guidelines He has established for us.)
   

So what is God's purpose for dating and eventually even marriage? Well I think God seeks to accomplish a lot of things through our dating processes and eventually our marriages. But the one thing I want our high school students to understand is this: God allows us to experience a lot of things in the physical sense here in this life on this earth that are representations of deeper, spiritual truths He also wants us to experience. He gives us a physical picture we CAN understand of something spiritual that is much harder to wrap our arms around. Dating and marriage are part of this. Its hard for us to understand the intimacy that God wants to have with us in our relationships with Him. He longs to love us and experience deep, intimacy with us. But that's sort of a vague concept to us because we can't see Him with our physical eyes and touch Him with our physical hands. So He gives us marriage...something we CAN experience in the physical. And as we experience a God-honoring marriage, it helps us to understand the kind of intimacy God wants to have with us on a spiritual level. Might sound weird to you...but I believe there's more truth to it than any of us understand. Check out Ephesians 5 for more insight on this.

SO...as we date, we have to keep in mind that some day, God wants to allow us to experience a marriage that will mirror our relationship with Him. And how we date as high school students DOES AFFECT our future marriages!! Even though we may have a long time before we get married and we have no idea who we will eventually marry, we are training ourselves as we date in high school and shaping how we think about marriage someday. So here is a good goal as we date in high school:

Our dating experiences in high school should help our future marriages to be...

-God-Honoring

-Healthy

-Life-long

If we have the future in mind as we date (especially because we don't know who we will eventually marry down the road), we take big steps towards having a marriage with our future spouse some day that will be God-honoring, healthy and life-long. That's a good attitude to have towards dating in high school!!

In Ecclesiastes, God talks about a triple-braided cord that is strong because it has three cords wrapped around each other...the husband, the wife and God. When a marriage is set up like this, it is strong and God-honoring. So as high school students who are dating, we have to ask ourselves this:

Are my actions, attitudes and behaviors concerning dating going to lead to a triple-braided cord-type marriage down the road that isn't easily broken?

OR

Am I destroying the cord before it even starts?

How we date matters to God...and it should matter to us. Over the next few weeks, we are going to talk about some practical things we can build into our lives to help us date in a God-honoring way. Hope you check back in with us! Now I have to go figure out if my wife is getting me anything for V-day so I know if I have to get her anything...and we wonder where our kids get their ideas...

Thanks for reading!

-Bob