Courtship over Dating

Relationship Friday: Courtship over Dating.

Growing up within the pentecostal community in the 80s and the 90s here in Nigeria, the path to getting who to marry was simple. Receive from the Lord who He has in mind for you through prayer and divine instructions as a brother, verify with the community and the leaders for confirmation, make your proposal and expect the sister to go pray to enquire God's approval and to table it with her own friends, prayer partners and older Christians for confirmation and then return to either say yes or no.
If yes, courtship began with strict rules of engagement comprising many fences to forestall any act of sexual immorality and sin. Courtship then leads to the marriage.

Then came dating out of the dilutions and the liberality that characterised the late 90s and early 2000s. Dating means you see someone you fancy and you ask the person out and with consent begin a relationship without any assurance of it ever getting to marriage, with most people not even having marriage in mind.

The rules of engagements are blurry, and fences are hardly existent. It has to be so because the foundation came out mainly of mere impressions that trigger desires to satisfy basic human nature of sexuality, with values such as fulfilling divine purpose, pleasing God in doing His will and following His plan for one's life are secondary or not even on the list.

In dating, proposal for marriage comes later, if it ever comes. If it doesn't come, the relationship breaks, no matter how physically or emotionally intimate it had been and the game starts all over again with another person under same uncertainty.

One argument people advance in favour of dating is that it gives the opportunity to know who you are about getting into a serious relationship with. The extent of that knowing is not defined.

But that only goes to show that dating is a child of unbelief in God, with walking by sight as precursor backed up with a believer's indulgence in spiritual laziness and slothfulness.

A believer is one who relies on God and on His will in total submission and surrender in everything. A believer is one who has confessed Jesus Christ as Lord to be saved, one who lives that confession and covenant daily. The basic response to anyone you call lord either in a law court or in spiritual matters is submission to whatever he or she says or decides concerning you. Whoever is lord has the final say.

So a believer trusting God for who to marry should be ready to receive God's mind on the matter. God sure has a say concerning everything about us with the assurance that His love would not permit His will to work evil for us.

A believer is also one who is led by the Spirit. In fact, the reason why he or she is born of the Spirit is so that he or she could could be led by the Spirit of God into God's will and righteousness. His or her wind would blow as it wants according to the influence of the indwelling Holy Spirit. If you aren't subject to being led of the Spirit then you aren't born again yet. As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. We are led because we don't know. We are led because we are children in matters of life and of the spirit in comparison to God. Romans 8:14

Lack of faith in God's leading would always want us to resort to doing it ourselves. Lack of faith in God's processes puts us in trusting our own processes. We become afraid of trusting that God can lead us to the person who is best suited for us. We prefer to use our limited knowledge of people to choose for ourselves, ignoring the fact that the heart of man is desperately wicked which can not be known by any other man. Jeremiah 17:9

Dating indulges our spiritual weaknesses in these areas. We were told in Hebrews 6:14 not be slothful but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promise. So, lack of faith in these matters makes us believe we know what suits us more than God who created us, that we can assess what we want more than God would and probably that we are wiser than God and in so doing indulge the flesh in all manners of carnal lifestyles.

It may actually not be as ruthless as that but it sure tells us how unbelieving we are in things of the spirit. But we should understand that if truly God exists, and loves us as the scriptures want us to believe, then our response to His love should be faith in that love, in His omnipotence and omniscience... and in His faithfulness to deliver His best for us when it is best for us. When the only wise God makes a decision for you, you may not need to even verify it, it will definitely suit both you and the situation in question.

But then, it may actually not be unbelief in God but unbelief in our own ability to receive the instructions and the leading of His wisdom. We thus show more faith in our imperfections than in our spiritual abilities. We readily point to those who missed it trying to ear from God instead of simply accepting that as children of God we are led of God according to God's word.

At last, we should know that infallibility is with us and not with God and so we can trust God to lead us. A young man or woman who has trusted and submitted to Jesus Christ as Lord for salvation ought to be able to trust Him also to be led to who to marry, if marriage is God's will for him or her, better than trusting in his or her limited abilities to know another person, while distrusting his or her own ability to be led by the Spirit of God.

The question is if God can actually lead a believer to someone to marry or not. If He can, then dating is made easy. Receive from God and not from your lusts or emotions, confirm its from God, propose to the person, knowing full well that with that person going to God, she or he will come back with same result, get engaged and prepare for a successful marriage with grace to deal with any challenge that may come.

This is better than waiting endlessly in a relationship going nowhere while trying to find out things about someone who is deliberately covering up from you in order to use you in satisfying his or her own selfish and carnal lusts.

Consider this and let me know your thoughts on this, probably we can discuss it further.

Share this with others also, particularly with young believers who may be helped by it.

God bless you greatly and do have a wonderful weekend!

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