Choosing for Life

In most of youth groups and university student groups where I am asked to speak, the most frequently requested topic is dating and choosing a spouse. Young men and women want to know how to relate, date, and find a mate. They also want some clear answers, not just general principles.

The questions young people ask follow a similar line in all of the youth groups and campus fellowships. What they are looking for is clarity, a commodity not always readily available. Complexity may be fine for chemistry, algebra, political science, but when it comes to Christian principles of dating and courtship clear, practical, applicable wisdom is what we need more than anything.

What I am writing I do not consider to be theoretical in the sense that there are theories about science and even psychology. By the grace of God, I think I have some sound answers, not just some theories. Perhaps these few thoughts will help you make wiser decisions and avoid some common mistakes that singles make. My purpose is to point you in the right direction, not to answer every possible question about boy-girl relationships. To do that would take a book so big that a busy single wouldn't have time to read it. And I really want you to read this.

Do you like classical music? I do. If stranded on a desert island with just one recording (and a whole bunch of batteries), I would choose J.S. Bach. Somehow Bach could take the simple elements of tone and rhythm and weave them intricately together. Yet behind that simplicity you sense a masterful blending of harmony and rhythm. Genius!

I am no genius, but my goal is the same: to give you some simply stated principles, but with years of experience and study woven into that simplicity.

Jesus was the great master teacher. He stated profound spiritual truths in terms so simple that the learned Pharisees could not catch the point. He never left any doubt about where people stood in relation to himself and the truth. Often, when we are more interested in theories than in straight answers we are trying to leave ourselves an out. While we are examining all the theories we continue doing things that we know, in our hearts, are not right.

To the best of my ability I am trying to give you straight answers that will help you choose a life partner. Now may I ask you something? Will you, to the best of your ability, try to be honest with God, with the Word of God, and with yourself? Personal dishonesty is the only condition that absolutely guarantees that we will make a mess of our lives.

You will spend approximately fifty years, maybe more, in close, intimate relationship with the person you choose to marry. That is, if you make it. Not all do. But if you make it you can look forward to fifty years. That's a life sentence.

Fifty years! That's 18,250 days, not counting extra days for leap years. How many mornings with smelly breath and messy hair? How many meals at the same table? How many times that he leaves the bathroom a mess or she squeezes the middle of the toothpaste tube? How many bad moods? How many arguments? Choose well. It's a long sentence and it needs a happy ending.