A Fresh Look at Dating (Part 1 of 2)

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Jesus said seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to that promise belongs to all of us but our guest today believes this promise is especially important for single adults who want to get married someday. This is Focus on the Family hosted by FOCUS Pres. and Dr. Jim Daly and I'm John Fuller, Jon.

I love talking with single adults and on behalf of singles about family formation because for the majority of singles not everyone, but for the majority marriage is going to be a big part of your future and your focus. We want to encourage you in your journey to find a loving godly spouse. That's the goal. That's why we have our boundless podcast and outreach 220 and 30 something singles who want to honor God and how they live and think and interact with other believers, but also as you begin dating and experiencing romantic relationships.

It's important to know where you're headed.

We also know were talking to a lot of parents right now. I'm one of them who have young single adults in your family and I'm another one, and today we have some valuable insights that I know you're going to want to pass along to them.

Our guest is Gary Thomas. He's a prolific author and speaker and really a thought leader in the areas of marriage and parenting and spiritual formation. Then Gary has written. I think at least 20 books in one were to focus on today is called the sacred search. What if it's not about who you marry, but why and that you can learn more about that book and get a copy from our website. Also learn about the boundless outreach. The gym mentioned stop by the episode notes for the link or call 800 K and the word family and Jim, here's how you began the conversation with Gary, let me ask you a question right into it and you share that you felt almost hypocritical when you wrote this book because you did a miserable job of practicing what you preach. I love that vulnerability. I feel sometimes there is a dad. I'm not doing it as well as I should is president Focus on the Family self I share in your your sorrow, but tell me why why did you feel you're being a hypocrite when you're seeking your mate in Lisa. Well, when I look back at my high school and even college dating years. There's a lot I would rather my kids not do you think back to those old bracelets WW JD. What would Jesus do, and I would joke with my kids. I want you to think back on. What did dad do when he dated and do the opposite.

Because I was I was driven by infatuation.

I think I was driven by other concerns that were spiritually base now. God in his enormous grace and kindness provided a woman that has been a blessing for 28 years that could have dreamed of but certainly the process to get there, was broken and I see so many people at once or broken process and didn't end up with a mate that is an encourager that is a godly person and the challenges as you hear that this is such a consequential decision. A good marriage is like a gift that keeps on giving.

I have been blessed literally every day of my life because of one decision I made as a single man that I wanted to marry Lisa and I seen others have to carry a burden.

Literally every day of their life, because he made a foolish marital choice you if you buy a house you don't like what you'll take a financial hit, but eventually can save up and move into another neighborhood. If you get a car that's 11 you traded in and you count your losses. Marriage isn't like that it changes who you are.

It becomes a part of your history a part of your life and in singles want to make one wise decision in their life next to becoming a Christian. This is the one that has to be thoughtful with their eyes wide open with counsel driven by the truth of Scripture and not Frankie. I think the many ridiculous and misleading messages that the world gives. Well I you know in part you're talking about the distinction between covenant and contract which you talk about with marriage but you suggested single should ask themselves why they want to get married before they consider who they want to get married to that takes a lot of maturity.

I'm thinking myself. I was 23, 24, I don't know that I would've thought that through quite that.

That way, tell me why that's so important because most Christians singles today.

I believe value the same things about marriage as non-Christian singles.

They haven't connected their faith with their romance and their view of marriage. So for them, the why of marriage is sharing in infatuation, sharing sexual chemistry, enjoying each other's company on a date. Those are the things that most people are drawn to have those three things are present, they think once is a great match and if there Christian then what's the problem with there's no other question but those things have been proven not to hold a marriage together. You have to understand the why of marriage. Infatuation will get into neurologically is proven to always fade rather quickly. Sexual chemistry though it's important part of marriage it doesn't hold the marriage together. I think of a Hollywood actress was involved in a cable television show the height of her fame released a book, a sex manual for couples and in it she described her husband as an artist. She said he had his virtuoso move that would send her over the top. Within weeks of that book coming out.

The announcer separation within a year they were divorced apparently being good in bed, doesn't mean you're good in marriage and the fact that you get along well on a date that you like the same movies in the same kind of pizza just doesn't factor in when you're going through raising kids together, suffering, cancer, unemployment, building a life together.

Those things that are culture values. That's not the why of marriage.

Those things are passing and so if we don't know the why we can't know whether somebody qualifies as a good who Gary with that in mind should a couple weight a couple years so that infatuation stage passes them and their clarity comes in the fog of the moment. No dissipates amass that all the time Jim and using the Bible doesn't give us a calendar and so I don't want to create one. Here's what I'm more concerned as a pastor. When I meet with the couple are their eyes opened. For instance, if they can tell me the three major weaknesses of the person I want to marry and I think that's an accurate depiction of what they're facing.

Then I think, despite the fact that there infatuated. They're making a wise decision. Nursing you know what, I realize this is a challenge. This will be a challenge this to be challenged and this is a strength and this is a strength in this.

I just want to see that they're living in a world called reality and if there there. I think they can make a wise decision whereon concern is when I'm, it's clear the couple really doesn't know each other. They don't even know their weaknesses, and that's what I'm thinking they're not ready, willing, and in that context that Matthew 633 which John opened with wishes seeking God first, which is the bottom line you use that thread throughout your book to kind of bring people back to the anchor.

I actually interestingly enough, that's what I applied when I was single that was the very verse about wanting to do it God's way and that it was fabulous and I met Jane in a very I think God centric way, you're striving for that.

But is there only one person out there for me know and I think that's when the most destructiveness.

The Christian singles are holding onto. Now we sort of Christianize it as if God created one person just for us but I found that leads people astray more than it's helpful and the key verse in this I believe it's pretty definitive. His first printing 739, when Paul is talking to widows, but it also refers to single women. At first she just guesses that singleness is an option, they might want to consider that. Then he says she wants to get married, that's fine. This is a quote she's free to marry anyone she wishes only in the Lord, supposing were not to seek some fulfill destiny were not supposed to try to second-guess God were supposed to look on things like character and that's what Proverbs comes in and Scripture so helpful because Proverbs 31 lays it out entirely on the basis of character is telling men a noble wife who can find as you look for this this this and this not a sense of destiny. I try to second-guess God, but this is what a good woman is this is what you do not want to be led astray with first Corinthians 7 going back to that Paul says we want to marry for sake of righteousness. If a guy is in a dating relationship or he's got a series of dating relationships. He's not behaving himself sexually. He says don't go ahead and get married. In other words get married for the sake of righteousness because you want to live a righteous life. Nowhere in Scripture is the sense that there is that we gotta find the 1/7,000,000,000 people on the face of the earth that God is created just for us. Okay, but we've got this infatuation Alice come back on Because it seems so natural when you're single and you're saying, Lord of Feel like you're allowing me to seek a mate and that's what you want to do and I certainly am grateful for that Lord and you start looking at how again. Do you get the handle on this distinction between infatuation and doing it in such a way that is uplifting righteousness. It seems to me those can be in conflict at times because infatuation. That's the mechanism that God is put in us to draw us together and then we gotta move it quickly to something else. In fact, you say in your book that infatuation only last maybe 12 to 18 months described that I read most of us won't even understand that but that's what's happening to us biochemically right it is actually and for some it would be less than that were all well to have different brain mappings I guess would be the best way to describe it. For some it might not even last that long. But even then if you look at a brain under a scope and infatuation at say 13 months is demonstrably different than one at six months and if were not aware the sea. We spent so much time teaching singles to be good stewards of their sexual purity which we need more, not less.

I'm a big fan of that but I don't believe we've taught Christian singles is much to be stewards of their emotional health. They don't understand how transcendent infatuation feels it carries you away and yet neurologist now because we know so much more about the brain in this generation than any previous age that it literally makes us blind that statement. Love is blind is true.

We literally start to relate to somebody who doesn't exist then term neurologist uses idealization and so we see strength that others wouldn't pick up you know I somebody does something innocuous. A guy in a gallery in the college café she drops her fork and he picks it up as it is just leaving it there and she's overcome. He picked up the forge be so kind and thoughtful he is and leave it for other people and I know next to Jesus Christ. I don't know anyone with this character that is ever walked the earth and everybody else's like he just picked up the forklift and then this is just as destructive, they miss the negative close. He's an angry person and she redefines it as passionate and what every pastor and counselors heard so often when someone is been carried away by infatuation into a long term commitment's five, six years later, he's not who I thought he was. And that's a true statement they related to somebody who didn't exist.

They created somebody else in their mind and that's what singles have to watch out for. There has to be sufficient time to you get through that brain fog and you can have an accurate picture of who really am. I relating to. We've described infatuation, but I'm still not sure on what the definition is what is it mean to be infatuated with Dr. Helen Fisher's biological anthropologists and she's actually studied this and here some key markers for somebody who's head over heels in infatuation.

Part of what I just said that you tend to focus on your beloveds better traits and you minimize her flaws. You can have extreme energy even hyperactivity and sleeplessness. One or both partners develops a goal oriented fixation on winning the beloved in vernacular language arts as you're so focused on getting and keeping the person you don't have any neurological energy left over think are they worth getting.

Are they worth keeping is just I want to get the goal and really what I think another way to describe is that it makes you feel desperate, fearful and clingy. Also relate to solitary, you're afraid that they won't love you back. You feel desperate to win them and clingy to make sure they don't get away, but again it doesn't have to be kind of described on negatively because God is put that mechanism ministry draws to each other that infatuation. There's got to be a healthy element to it. God designed infatuation.

He designed our brains. It has a good creation of purpose is to have to know it's not a good enough reason to marry someone if you know it can't last more than 12 to 18 months.

Why would you connect yourself to someone for five or six decades of the saddest things I've heard is a pastor is a woman who admitted she got married primarily on infatuation the got married too quickly. She said Gary we had a great nine months we haven't had a good nine weeks cents while living drilling to that because there was a statement in your book that really caught my attention and it fits right here you said just because you're in love with someone doesn't mean you should seriously consider marrying them. That sounds ridiculous in the world are you talking about I know it sounds bizarre but just let me tell singles here's a woman who'd been through two divorces already and they were painful divorces and the guys who cheated on her and gotten a little rough with her. I just horrendous situation she's with 1/3 guy worry that maybe he was and is committed to her as she was to him and she wanted my advice, and she began to describe some things. It alarmed me. Once she caught him on the phone telling another woman not his sister not his mom that he loved her.

That's a big red flag.

He could be somewhat emotionally abusive in a way that would send her into crying fits and she's just describing the dynamics of this relationship and thinking why are you in this relationship. I'm yeah I said, he seems to be very similar to the guys you had this problem with before secure. You understand I am deeply and passionately in love with him so I took a deep breath and I said were you in love with your first husband.

Absolutely.

I was devastated when he left me. What about your second husband.

Oh yeah, it was different. But yeah, very much so.

And I said finally maybe need to find a reason other than being in love to marry someone because it's led you to to bad relationships, it might lead you into 1/3. It's leading to men that aren't healthy for you that aren't good for you, but because it's so ingrained in our mind if we feel this head over heels in love, we don't even question whether we should marry and that's what we value most, and even a woman who would been burned twice. Living by that philosophy was ready to make 1/3 decision on the same basis we just can't let it go.

It's a really challenging perspective heard from Gary Thomas who has written really profound book called the sacred search.

What if it's not about who you married but why do recommend a course that you get a copy of number here 880 family or visit the episode notes and you finally and let's go ahead and return to the conversation with Gary on today's episode of Focus on the Family where I asked this question. Gary you talked about a study that really showed the value that women in particular place on romantic love and seems like there been some changes over the years. In that regard, there have been and we look historically just a few jumped couple generations ago. If you presented to woman guy has this trait destroys the street district, but you don't have that over the top week in the knee feeling of infatuation. Would you marry him and I don't know the exact number but it was over 80%. That said, yes, nowadays less than 10% would say yes you have been pushed back on. This is interesting at a college setting. A woman said to me young woman said to me, just be honest, don't you want them to be in love with the man on their wedding day and said you I get what you're saying and in a perfect world romance is a wonderful thing. I think it's good that we celebrated.

But here's the thing I want to be walking my daughter down the aisle toward Amand that she respects because respect is something that grows if he's a respectable man.

Her affection for him will increase. I want to walk down the aisle toward a man who's pursuing God because his wisdom will grow his character will grow. They'll be more of him, to love and appreciate. I want to walk down the aisle toward a man who will die for his family who will be engaged with their kids because when she has kids. She's going to care for them in a way she can't even imagine caring for those kids now and the thing that will thrill her heart the most is if he's involved and therefore her family. I said I want her to marry a man who is so strong and selfless and his love that she gets cancer and loses all her hair, he will kiss her bald head and make her believe she is a most beautiful woman on the face of the earth as it is. She's walking up the outward a man like that and doesn't have a lot of feelings I must say honey it really doesn't matter, but if I'm walking her up the aisle toward a man who has none of that. But she said she's head over heels. I'll be doing my best to pull her out the back door because those are things that don't last character is something that lasts Gary have got as though I'm the single and I'm again seeking the mate and what you're saying. Theoretically, it's resonating with me.

I get it I understand it, but how do I truly learn to develop that ability to place character over infatuation when you just told me a little while ago that infatuation makes me blind and stupid helmet you learn to do that one of the hooks that I can say okay I'm 25. I'm falling in love. I'm not sure if he's got the character that I want.

How do I learn to put character above infatuation one recognize what infatuation is doing to you. It makes you vulnerable and stupid and so just enjoy the feeling but recognize, I'm very vulnerable to my feelings.

I'm really literate.

I don't mean is negative but unconnected kind of stupid.

I don't see think so seek counsel seek those character-based rates, and I hope we have time to get into it. I like to say I think eight character traits that are essential for us to be and for us to look for for a successful marriage of document the why of marriage. If infatuation isn't enough. What can we look for and and then you go through that list and then you can begin to see okay this makes sense because it's perfectly possible to become infatuated with somebody who would be's early marriage material but is not married him because of the impact it can happen that way. Let's also come back to this idea.

Finding the number one person that God has selected one person for me and I gotta find that girl or that guy that you kind of do a little shift on the acronym the soulmate you move from SO you well to SOL E what you mean in your book about the soul SOL E mate well the reason I debunk the soulmate. So UL is that it comes from Plato, not Scripture.

He really is the one who surmise that what he says in his book symposium as a character named Aristophanes who said that there's this ancient prototype human that was male and female together. They called him round people. The problem is that they were becoming too powerful and threatening the gods so Zeus came up with the plan. I'm gonna cut them into separate the two halves will be so desperate to find her missing half that they won't have anything left over to challenge the gods. Then once they find each other. The be so clingy and desperate to stay together that the leave us alone and that's what Zeus did, and thus the gods were saved and nobody believes that worldview now but we still have the sense that there's this one lost person that will connect us the biblical worldview couldn't be more different. The biblical worldview is not that I'm incomplete because I've been separated from an ancient half human, is that I've been separated from God by my sin and and so I'm not finding someone to complete me. I'm finding someone with whom I can share my love with God, with whom I can share the journey toward learning to love other people with whom I can share.

Matthew 633 seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and so soulmate SOL. He is just walking out the biblical commands of loving walking out the biblical command of serving God in his kingdom. The richest marriages I've seen. This is what I would tell singles the most intimate fulfilled marriages I've ever witnessed our marriages that exist for something bigger than themselves. They're passionate about the kingdom.

They worship God together. They serve God together. That just staves off the boredom that affects so many relationships that are self-centered Gary were coming in for a landing, and that when I think back on this conversation thus far. Some people could think that is a really unromantic approach to marriage.

You told is basically the person you love doesn't necessarily need to be the person you marry that you know what you got to beware of infatuation because it makes you blind and stupid and you get down to it, you're going to seek out character over attraction really. That's the bottom line what you're saying speak to that person, why what you have said, it seems counterintuitive to your emotions, but it is right on the mark when it comes to what God wants in your life Jim. It goes back again to the why. I think of the Mother's Day card that I wrote for my wife the last Mother's Day just thanking her for what she's invested in her kids.

My anniversary thanking her for how she stood behind me and beside me and with me all those years.

Marriage is very difficult. Life throws stuff that you every day and romance can't survive that. But when you have a strong sister or brother in the Lord that that is there beside you that has your back. That is a rock I think of a woman on never forget. She had gone through so many medical crises in her life. It would make you want to cry that one woman had to go through all that in one lifetime and she said, but Gary, I can't.

I don't know how I would've gotten through this without my husband. He held my hair back while I was vomiting. He made me feel like as most beautiful woman on the earth when I felt like I was the ugliest because of the treatments I was going through next to him becoming a Christian marrying him was the best decision I ever could've made what she said is that life is been very, very difficult, but is been better because she chose a good man to walk through this life with it singles have no clue what they face up ahead they don't know the trials or the challenges but here's what God says I'm gonna let you choose who you face those challenges with I'm not you choose who you walk through those trials with and what will matter most is faith and character, being filled with the spirit having the wisdom of Scripture invested in your family. In the end that's what creates the most rewarding life. Jesus knew what he was talking about with Matthew 633 if we seek first his kingdom and his righteous all these other things that we desire.

Those will be taken care of if we keep our priorities. First, the why really does matter to answer the who will Gary Thomas off of the book, the sacred search. This is been a great start to the discussion, but that we got more questions. In fact, I want to start next time with this one winning the romance lottery and let's go there and can you stay with us and will Jon I so appreciate the passion that Gary brings to this topic.

He wants to help couples live godly lives, starting from day one in their relationship, and I think he's also challenging those of us who've been married for several years or even decades to do better. We must continue to live out our faith in the ways we serve and love and treasure our spouse. I would say first and foremost, that's where it starts because the world is watching to see if what we say and what we do. It winds up with our faith. I want to encourage your listeners to get a copy of Gary's book. If you're considering marriage in the future, you need this resource and if you're already married. Pass it along to a single adult or an engaged couple that you know and maybe you're even meant touring.

We can send you a copy when you make a monthly pledge to Focus on the Family today at whatever amount you can afford.

We need more sustaining members. If I can call it that, in our financial team who believe in the importance of godly marriage and want to help couples build a solid foundation for the future. So please consider a monthly pledge to Focus on the Family today and will say thank you by sending the sacred search right out to you.

This is a wonderful resource. As Jim said, I know you're going to find it helpful. So please donate.

As you can today 800 the letter a in the word family to make that pledge, or if you're not a spot to be able to commit on a monthly basis, a one-time gift would be deeply appreciated.

Again, our number is 800-232-6459 or you can donate by clicking the link in the episode notes and John at the beginning of the program I mentioned our boundless podcast that it's also broadcasted by the way, our colleague Lisa Anderson heads up this amazing outreach to single adults.

And if you're looking for a tightknit supportive group that's dedicated to following Christ boundless is for you. A balance will challenge your preconceptions and hold you accountable to the truth and you'll find a lot of solid godly friends there and parents that this is where you want to send your young adults who are in that 20 to 30 something age group boundless is a wonderful community of faith for them to check it out. Love the link in the episode notes coming up next time more insights from Gary Thomas about singles looking for the perfect spouse, I'm trying to take on. I think popular myth in Christian culture and it goes like this, God will bring the right person at the right time. If I just sit back and wait on behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team. Thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family I'm John Fuller inviting you back. As we once more help you and your family thrive in Christ