Who to Date

Before we can talk about dating, we need to survey the data. 

This generation of single and dating adults is taking their time when it comes to marriage, saying “I Do” later in life compared to the couples coming before it. While the reasoning behind waiting can be debated, it doesn’t take a dating expert to know fear is rising.

Fear of divorce. 

Fear of messing marriage up.

Fear of marriage messing you up.

Fear of people.

Maybe in an attempt to guard against our fears, we have built a proverbial wall around us and are left wondering why no one is attempting to scale it.

Or maybe you read this with a different perspective, wanting to yell at the screen as you read, “That’s not me! I am healthy, love the Lord, and want to get married! How do I find the right person?” 

Rather than inundate you with best practices or tell you how to get a date, we hope to equip you to journey through this season well.  

Wherever you are in the tumultuous seas of relationships, there are fixed realities in the universe about who God is, how He made the world, and how we're supposed to treat one another. If we can grow to understand those, we can navigate the seas of dating, no matter how rough they may seem, fixed on the one true guide to lead us.

Let’s get started.

Do you remember that elementary school chant your classmates would break out in when they found out you had a crush?

“First comes love, then comes marriage…” You want to finish the song, right?

If we could edit the melodic lyrics that frame those playground taunts, it would go something like this: first comes devotion, then evaluation…

Singleness is for devotion, and dating is for evaluation. 

Before we can link arms and run with someone, we need to know what we are chasing after, which is why we evaluate. As Paul writes, we are to “press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:14)

You were made to know God, and being in right relationship with Him is the lead story of your life. Before you can get a relationship with someone else right, you must ensure your relationship with God is right. 

As we chase after God, aiming our lives in pursuit of Him, we will find ourselves in lockstep with others running the same race. Those runners may be mentors, colleagues, friends, or a future spouse.

Your pace after the things of heaven shouldn’t change because of comparison or a desire to have what someone else has. God has marked your race for you, and when you are faithful to that process, you may find yourself in stride with someone you'd like to run alongside. Don’t stop running; evaluate as you do. 

In that evaluation process, you are asking and answering two questions:

1. Who? - Who do I date, and what qualities should that person have? 
2. How? -  How will I know if they are the one I will run through life with?

While scripture may seem silent on the modern dating structure, it is not silent on the process of evaluating. Look at what the Proverbs say:

“It is better to live in a corner of the roof than in a house shared with a contentious woman”

Proverbs 25:24 NASB

“A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls.”

Proverbs 25:28 

So, how do you meet the right person in the right way? We evaluate. 

Dating is not a status to dwell in but a process to move through. It is a series of actions meant to lead us to a particular end—discerning whether or not we are meant to marry a particular person. Dating exists for evaluation.