Dating is not a status we sit in—it is a process we walk through. This process exists to help you evaluate one of the biggest decisions you may ever make in your life: whether or not someone is a good fit to commit your life to. Ben Stuart challenges us to start with finding the right person in the right way. 

Through this 4-day track, Ben highlights how we can potentially meet the right person, how we can shift our mindset from a consumer mentality in dating to setting realistic expectations, how our allegiance determines our values, and he helps identify the characteristics we can look for when dating someone.

We hope that at the conclusion of these four days, you will feel more comfortable and confident in your decision-making in the dating process and that you will gain wisdom about the kind of person you choose to spend your life with.

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.

Dating is about looking for a person to love and not a product to consume. You may read that sentence and find the implications obvious, but we challenge you to consider your perspective. When it comes to dating, do your desires for a certain “type” lead the way?

You want him to be tall, but not too tall. Handsome. Funny. Charming. Great job. Solid income. Sensitive but strong. Confident but also caring. And with six-pack abs.

You want her to be shorter than you with these specific measurements. She needs to know how to have a good time. She needs to be into sports, running, hiking, traveling, saving money, and you.

This mentality, however, has two fatal flaws.

1. Dating like a consumer creates unrealistic expectations.
2. Dating like a consumer is based on the assumption that we know what we want. 

God assembles people; we do not. When our dating life is built on a wishlist of wants rather than a Godly set of standards, we start to see dating relationships as transactional.

Think of your next relationship as a house. You can pick the paint colors, assemble the furniture, and send out invitations to have people over—but if that house is not built on a steady foundation, it will never stand the test of time.

What is it you are really looking for in a future spouse? Is it more than skin deep? 

Proverbs 31:30 says,  “Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”

Are you flirting with what’s fleeting? 

Peter tells us in 1 Peter 3:7 that marriage is made up of co-heirs in the grace of life. Consider that for a moment. 

• Women, does he sharpen you? When everything falls apart, does he point you back to the things of God? Does he value your purity?
• Men, does she sharpen you? Is her heart set on the things of God? Is being in proximity to her pushing you closer to Jesus or pulling you further away?

What is worth really looking for?

Character. Integrity. Kindness. Honesty. Compassion. Not a savior or a servant, but a companion. These are the attributes we should be focused on finding.

Abraham was now very old, and the Lord had blessed him in every way. He said to the senior servant in his household, the one in charge of all that he had, “Put your hand under my thigh. I want you to swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you will not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living, but will go to my country and my own relatives and get a wife for my son Isaac.
Genesis 24:1-4

It was common for the Father to lead the charge in finding a wife in this day, and in this passage of scripture, we see Abraham give his servant some pointed instruction.

Abraham knew that the people he lived among had no allegiance to the God he loved and the faith he followed. It was of the utmost importance to Abrabram to set his son up with someone who knew and followed the one true God; He was determined to link his son’s life with someone with a heavenly allegiance.

A.W. Tozer said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”

What you believe about God determines what you value, and what you value determines what you will chase. If you are considering linking up your life with someone, resolve first where they are going.

2 Corinthians 6:14-15 says, “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?”

Different goals. Different beliefs. Different direction. 

As we evaluate someone we are considering dating, we should ask:

• What are they chasing after in life?
• What are their goals? 

Pay close attention to what they are pursuing.

There is value in variety, but bind yourself with someone running after the same cause, in the same direction, at the same pace.

As a believer, you live by faith, in lockstep allegiance to the things of God (more on that tomorrow). It doesn’t mean you are striving for perfection, but it does mean that in your obedience to him, you follow Him and honor what He says in all things. 

Paul’s call here is not to abandon everyone with no allegiance to God but to caution us in building our lives with an unbeliever in marriage.

We believe there are two results of a relationship like this:  

• You will abandon what you believe out of allegiance
• You will continue in different directions with no destination in sight

As a believer, you are heaven-bound, running a race after the things of God. You want to link hands with someone running after the same goal, not forcing a connection between two people who ultimately desire different things in their cores. 

As you run your race after the things of God, you may find that others will run right by you. Don’t change your pace or reroute your direction – run your race.

In the Greek, the word for “character” is “χαράσσω,” meaning to etch. 

Think of God as a careful artist, chisel in hand, making you more like Him. He’s sculpting the hard edges and chipping away what doesn’t bear His name. Every day, as we follow Him, He is etching us more and more in His image.

It’s a beautiful illustration to behold.

Regarding our character being shaped by God, we are not passive in the process. We are not stand-still statues wincing at every chip off the block. We are active participants, submitted to the divine artist and allowing Him to mirror His image in us.

As you begin evaluating your date, ask: is their character shaped by God?

The question is not, “Do they have a bible?” or “Do they go to church?” Rather, are they submitted to the process of becoming more like Christ every day?

Date someone who is faithful to God and a good fit for you. That is where chemistry comes in!

There are four components to chemistry that we can evaluate.

• Theologically compatible: What do you believe about God? What are your personal belief systems? What are your convictions? 
• Socially compatible: Do you get along? Do they compliment you? Are you sharpening one another?
• Vocationally compatible: Are your lives headed in the same direction? Where do you want to go?
• Physically compatible:  Am I attracted to you? 

As our time together in this track comes to a close, you may read all the content above about godly character, good chemistry, and finding someone chasing after the same cause of life as you and ask, “Is that person really out there?” 

While we can’t answer that definitively, we want to encourage you to make a move. Wherever you are plugged into your community of faith, chase after that cause fully. Journey together and run after the things of the Lord, involved in a community chasing after God’s cause.

You can trust that God, who loves you and holds the whole world in the palm of his hand, has good plans for you. He doesn’t just care about who you will spend your future with; he cares for you now in the present. 

As Ben said, “In the end, the happiest people are not those who are actively seeking a mate, but those who are actively seeking their Maker.”