Questions & Answers On Marriage, Dating, Singles…

 Ok so rather than do a series of long lengthy posts dealing with each question, I am going to do quick fire questions and answers for now and then expand at a later date.

Here goes:-

• Dating – Can Christians date?

No.  Christians enter into courtship (see definition below).  Dating is a worldly concept that people are trying to bring into the church.  Marriage was and is designed and formulated by God as in shown in Genesis 2:18-25.   To do it God’s way you cannot use worldly methods.  Remember the things of God are spiritually discerned.  1 Corinth 2:14 says – But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means.

Plus dating is quite destructive and completely self gratifying.  There’s no real direction or purpose for the relationship, it’s a lot of pick Adam today, see how it goes, if it doesn’t go well, pick Seth tomorrow and see how that goes.  And on and on and on the cycle continues.  Leaving pieces of yourself with everyone you have dated and taking their baggage along with you to the next relationship and finally to marriage.  By the end everyone has so much damage that when they do finally get married, more often than not the ghost of previous relationships and emotional baggage causes monumental problems.  Problems such as comparing your spouse to previous boyfriends and spending time yearning for previous relationships rather than working on your marriage.

One of the main differences between dating and courtship is the purpose for entering into the relationship in the first place.  Are you seeking whether it is God’s will for you to marry that person or are you just wasting someone else’s time and playing with both your emotions?  Either way, you’re causing problems for yourself and for your marriage later.

• What is ‘courtship’?

Going into courtship or courting someone is entering into a relationship when you know you are going to marry that person (i.e. there’s a specific purpose for being involved with that person).  Before you enter into courtship (hopefully) you would have prayed, received a word, knowledge or revelation from God that that person is your spouse.  Ideally you should also involve your pastors and anyone else you trust spiritually and are accountable to pray along with you for confirmation (out of the mouths of two or three).  Once the couple have received their own conviction and they know from God that marriage is God’s will for their lives, they then enter into courtship.  This is the bit where the couple will spend time together praying, developing their friendship and continually seeking God’s will etc, and if all is fine and dandy, they get engaged and then marry.

Does courtship always lead to marriage? Sometimes not, but it will be because the couple find out that it was not the will of God after all.  Point is, God is involved every step of the way and the couple are following His will.  Better a broken courtship or engagement than a marriage.  It is God directing the couple throughout.

There is purpose, accountability and most important of all, involving God and making God the centre of everything.

• How will I know when I meet/see/talk to ‘the one’

I can only answer this question from a believer’s point of view.  You first need to be born again, spirit filled and have a relationship with God so that you know how God speaks to you.  Marriage will not be the time to test and see how God speaks to you or whether it really is God speaking and leading you or whether it’s your flesh or the devil.  You need to be familiar with God’s voice and the way He leads and speaks to you.  Romans 12:2 says – Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.   Without a renewed mind/mind of God how will you be able to know what God’s will for your life is?  God speaks to people in different ways and what he says to you will NEVER contradict scripture.  There is no confusion with God.

Also be careful of asking God to lead you when deep in your heart you have already got plans A, B and C ready to roll out.  You’re just being religious and going through a ceremony.  Remember that God will answer you according to the idol in your heart.  Trust God and lean not on your own understanding.  Just give it all to Him, seek His kingdom first and He will surely lead you through the paths of righteousness.  God sees our hearts and our intentions, we cannot pretend or fool Him.

• What if he/she isn’t saved?

If you are truly a born again spirit filled believer, you will know that you cannot marry them.  The reasons and the supporting scriptures are in abundance.  “Do not be unequally yoked…what does light have to do with darkness…come out from among them….be separate” and on and on it goes.  In both the old and new testament.  No matter how nice, gentle, thoughtful, kind, charitable, loving and so on said unsaved person is, they’re are not a child of God.  The bible says you cannot serve two masters.  Your are either a child of God or a child of the devil.  There are no civilians or fence sitters.  It’s an either/or situation.  A pig no matter how well it is house trained is still at its very core, a pig (not comparing unbelievers to pigs but you get the point).

It will be impossible to grow in Christ and fulfil the purpose for why God created you whilst battling with an unsaved spouse.  Your house will be divided at best and destroyed at worst.  Everything will be a problem – what to watch on tv, what to listen to, morals, how to raise children, beliefs, lifestyle.  Do you want to spend your days arguing over everything or do you want to be like Adam and Eve before the fall of man?  God has someone for everyone.  Trust Him to bring the right person to you.   Also remember it was the foreign women Solomon had that turned his heart away from God.

• Can a Christian marry a muslim/sikh/hindu/insert religion?

This question is answered above as anyone who doesn’t believe that Jesus is  Lord and that He came in the flesh and died for your sins and rose again on the third day is an unbeliever/unsaved.  Even if the “scriptures” you read has a Jesus…if that Jesus is not what is described above i.e. Jesus is Lord then that is a false jesus.

I am however always fascinated when people do ask these questions though, because I think it gives a good indication of how grounded or even how much said person believes in the God they claim to serve.  If Jesus/God is your priority and your life, it would be unthinkable if not impossible to even consider marrying someone for whom Jesus (who you claim is number 1 in your life) is not the priority, way, truth and the life.  Something is wrong somewhere.

• What if he is unsaved and I preach Christ to him/her – can we still marry? Aka ‘evangelical dating’.

No.  It is God that truly changes people lest any many should boast.  In any event, how would you ever know if someone genuinely repented or they are doing so just to marry you.  People should repent and seek God for who He is and because of a holy conviction.  Not for another human being.  You did not die for anyone, however Jesus died for everyone.  Let Jesus change people.  That aside, once someone is saved, they need to find their own grounding in Christ and develop their own relationship with God.  They need to know what God’s will for their life is.

There has to be a certain level of spiritual maturity before going into marriage especially if you are a lady who must submit to the man who is the head.  He will be leading you spiritually and otherwise as the head of the home.  How will you effectively submit to him spiritually and otherwise when the only real reason why he converted was to get you?  It would be too late when you’re married because you cannot rule over him and not submit because he is not being the priest in his home as he ought to be.  Also, is this the type of marriage you envisioned?  Where you want to pray together, study the word together and grow spiritually but instead you have someone who loses interest the minute he/she has said “I do”.  Do you want to be the married person attending conferences, prayer meetings, bible studies alone?  God has given more than enough warnings about being unequally yoked.

• Ok, we are both believers, can we marry anyway?

Not necessarily.  You need to find out if it is God’s will for you to marry that person.  There is a specific person, or help meet (if your prefer) designed perfectly for you.  Ask God who that person is.  Just because you are both Christians does not automatically mean you can marry.  What is God saying about your life and marriage?  You will know that not just anyone will help you fulfill that purpose.

• What if I made a mistake, can I divorce.

No.  No such thing in the bible and God actually says I hate divorce!  I know you’re thinking “well actually it says somewhere in the bible that you can divorce because of adultery”.  Yah I knew that was coming.  This is a separate post in itself but to keep things short and snappy ill explain briefly.  The scripture you’re (probably) referring to is Matt 19:3-11.  But let’s look at what it actually says ….

³ The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?

⁴ And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,

⁵ And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?

⁶ Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

⁷ They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?

⁸ He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.

⁹ And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.

¹⁰ His disciples say unto him, If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry.

¹¹ But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given.

In all the other scriptures of the new testament, this exception of “except it be for fornication” is not mentioned.  It can only be found in matt 5, when Jesus is talking to his disciples and Matt 19 when he is talking to the Pharisees (btw you do realise the Pharisees were not saved/believers right?).  You do know that married folks cannot commit adultery right?  Study Matt 1 where Joseph is betrothed to Mary and calling her his wife before the actual marriage has taken place.  In that betrothal/engaged period IF one party commits fornication, you have a right to change your mind and ‘put that person away’.  Only then is it fornication.  After marriage its adultery and the scripture above does not say adultery.  It specifically says fornication.  Jesus says that Moses allowed them to divorce because of the hardness of their hearts.  Can true believer and follower of Christ be hard hearted?    Just to emphasise nowhere else where divorce is mentioned in the new testament is this exception is found.  Once you are married, you are married till death do you part.

And yes, the same rules of no divorce apply whether you’re saved or unsaved.  Jesus said the same thing to both his disciples and the Pharisees on the topic.  Plus if you see marriage how God sees it i.e. that the two are one (think about if you mix water with strawberry syrup – can you ever get your water or your syrup back separately as before?) then you will know that only death can separate you.  God sees both as one, you are one.  Regardless of what a piece of  paper from the Court says.

• What if God did not join us together

When I heard this question I laughed because the human mind is creative in its search for loopholes.  I.e. if God did not join us together then we can separate.  Sorry no.  Whether you married as unbelievers, Muslims Sikhs, Hindus, atheists etc, and you are now in Christ, you are still married. And if one spouse becomes saved and the other does not, the bible gives allowances for that.  The allowances do not include divorce and remarriage.  Remember, there is nothing that prayer cannot change – the fervent prayer of the righteous man brings results.  There is no marriage that God cannot save.  There is no soul that is beyond saving.  Trust Him and travail in prayer.

• What is fornication?

Sex outside of marriage and it is a sin.  God says your body is a temple and he lives in you and that you should not defile your temple.  Sex is for the marriage bed.  Preserve your souls, bodies and destinies.  We laugh and ask how Esau could exchange his destiny for a meal.  Do you laugh and wonder how people can exchange and/or destroy their destiny by having sex before marriage?  The bible is clear on this.  Don’t put yourselves in positions/places where you could fall/lead to temptation. Flee from all appearances of sin.  The bible does not say stand their and resist, it says flee.  Joseph fled and left his garment behind whilst getting away from Portiphar’s wife.  This means it’s probably not a good idea to send/upload that suggestive picture of your body, spend lots of alone time together especially late at night.  Use your common sense and don’t give the devil an opportunity.  This is for your own benefit, destiny and marriage!  God will always honour those who keep to His word.

• How far is too far in courtship/engagement re: sex?

To be blunt if you have to ask this question one would ask if you have truly and genuinely given your life to Christ.  Once again bible is clear on the boundaries in which one can have sex and be intimate with someone.  Trying to find loopholes and playing how close I can get to the fire without being burned is a sign that we need to go back to God and ask for His grace, mercy and forgiveness.  Something has gone wrong somewhere.

Ok so that’s all for now.  I’ll do quick fire questions as and when they tend to come up.

It’s the good life.

Does Father’s Day Mean Anything To You?

 Yah, I know I am a couple of days late with the whole father’s day post but that should give some insight as to my view/opinion on father’s day.   I totally forgot it was father’s day until it was hastily mentioned just before the sermon in Sunday’s service.  I had my ‘oh yeah’ moment quickly followed by, I better text my father the obligatory annual “happy father’s day text“.   I got distracted and forgot to text him until some point before the end of the service, father’s day was mentioned again.  With the second clunky reminder, I sent my father the awkward but annual “happy father’s day text“.  A couple of hours later, the sibling text me telling me it was also our father’s birthday.  How many more awkward moments can we fit in before 3pm on a Sunday afternoon.  I sent another text saying “and a happy birthday to you too.  how did you spend the day?”.

By now you should be slowing but surely getting the notion that I do not have a relationship with my father.  I don’t even know him as a person.  My parents fell in love whilst still young, married young (mother says she was 21) and they had me when mother was about 27.  They had the sibling less than two years after me.  It was all going swimmingly well until my father decided that infidelity was a good idea and just like that the marriage ended.  I don’t think I was even 5 years old when they separated.  I never saw him after they separated and I was too young to remember anything of significance about him and who he was as a person.

My only memories involving him are of the bad thing he did which led to divorce and him marrying someone else.  There are other bad bits in between the marriage breaking down and the divorce such as a bit of domestic violence but let’s move on from that.  The main point to take away from this is that he did not keep in contact with the sibling and I.  If you were non the wiser, you would never know that he was married and had a family before his current second family.

I was 25 years old when the sibling and I met up with him for the first time since the separation one evening in winter.  It was almost comical that we were going to meet our father at a busy train station…and had zero idea what he looked like.  Nevertheless, from then on, a sort of relationship between him and us was started.  By sort of I mean exchanges of birthday/holiday season texts. Since he downloaded whatsapp he also comments from time to time if I change my profile picture.

But alas, I grew up without a father, a mother doing everything for us and no idea what it is to live in a two parent household with a husband and wife.  I don’t know what a father’s role is in the home.  I don’t know what he is supposed to do, say or advise me on.  I don’t know how a father fits into the picture of a home/family.  Where do you insert him?  Where is he relevant?  What does he do?  Would I have been happier if he was around?   Would life have been different?  Would I be different?  Would I see men in a different way?

I’ve often heard the phrase women choose/marry men like their fathers but how true is that when I don’t really have a picture of a father.  My picture of a father is non existent because for the simple reason, I did not have one.  But perhaps that is my picture?  Maybe my picture of a father is that of a man that is irrelevant, a burden and one that breaks things.

I am not naive enough to think that my relationship (or lack of) with my father hasn’t had some sort of psychological impact on me and the way I see/relate with men.   Don’t get me wrong, I never contemplated entering a nunnery, in fact quite the opposite, I have quite a lot of male friends but there’s still seeds sewn from the past.

I don’t know the depths of the impact but for now I do realise a couple of things.  I realise that I don’t automatically as a given, respect men.  I have met many in fact most of the women I meet seem to have this automatic by default respect for a man just because he is a man.  That’s missing for me.  A man has to prove himself to me or rather earn my respect for me to look up to/respect him.  There just has to be a reason why I should listen/follow what a man says.  I’ve also realised that I underestimate men and their capabilities and I tend to think the worst of them at times.  It goes back to the man proving himself to him.  Unless a man shows me his capabilities and values, he is relegated to the (I don’t want to use the word useless but I am struggling to find another word) pile.  I also didn’t know how to be soft and womanly around men.  How could I know when I grew up with a mother who did all the cooking and all the DIY stuff around the house.  She would cut my brother’s hair and then do mine.   There’s lot’s of other things too in the way I see and categorise men but I am not in the mood to explore how far the rabbit hole goes at this time of the night.

Luckily, it’s not all doom and despair.  God has put in my path loads of wonderful men, caring fathers,  faithful husbands and lovely bachelors.  I know and have seen that there’s a reason why God said “it is not good for man to be alone“.

For now though, father’s day is still the day that doesn’t mean anything to me other than time to send the annual awkward text.

It’s the good life 

 

 

 

I Want To Get Married…

 Yeah I know that’s pretty much stating the obvious considering my blog is (supposedly) primarily about my life as a singleton however, the thought just dawned on me last Thursday morning en route to work.  I think, (well actually I know) that I have been so distracted and worn out by my awful, tear inducing, stressful job that I forgot to think about a somewhat pressing desire I have.  To get married!   As I was driving to work, the thought just dropped in on me “hey, what happened to getting married, it’s May already“.

To answer the question, yes, I still very much want to get married.  Preferably soon as possible.   Now obviously I am going to need a couple of things in place before that happens such as actually having a significant other and said significant other asking me to marry him.  But alas, I am currently single with no real hint of anyone on the horizon.

So, let’s get the party started with a few popular questions I get asked repeatedly:

How single are you?

• Very single – in every sense of the word.  I couldn’t be more single if I tried.  There are no male friends lurking in the background that could be potential husbands.  Search my heart and thoughts and you may find fleeting thoughts about Wentworth (more about him later) or perhaps other interesting individuals that cross my path from time to time but that is about as exciting as things go by way of a potential husband.

 

Why am I single?

• By choice really.  I don’t date (see reasons below) and lack of viable options also make it possible to remain single without temptation.  It also helps that I believe in the biblical principles of marriage, specifically Genesis chapter 2 (if you were curious) which is the first blueprint we have for what marriage is and how it all started i.e. God designs the right man and the right woman, brings them together, at the right time, according to His will.  So far, hubby to be hasn’t been revealed to moi and until I receive the epiphany, single I’ll remain.  In every sense of the word.

Am I happy with my current single status?

• In short, no.  Couple of years ago when I started blogging, yes.  But now not so much.  Mrs Belle Beejou I would like to be.  I can’t specifically point the date or the hour when my desires changed or even why.  I just know I am at that point in my life where I’d like to use ‘us’ and ‘we’ pronouns.

 Is there anyone that appeals to me?

• This is tricky.  Yes there is someone (Wentworth) that does have me hoping I haven’t got food on my face or some other equally embarrassing thing and in general I am not blind – from time to time I do meet people where I think “hmmm, not bad” but again it’s not that simple.  Marriage is for life (yes I know you’re wondering if I have not encountered the divorce concept) and therefore my reasons for going into it has to be more than just my heat rate picking up a bit of pace because I like someone.  Also, see answer above to the question “why am I single“.

Do I want to get married?

Duh!! Is that not obvious already? However, I want to get married at the right time and to the right man for me, as designed by God.  I have no desire or willingness to get married just because of:-

–       Family pressures (mother is great and is not a Mrs Bennett a la pride and prejudice)

–       Desperation (too young to be desperate)

–       Loneliness (maybe during the holidays – blame the marketing, but not severe enough to induce me into a dodgy union)

–       Financial (got mine already)

–       Children (Children are a reward from God)

Obviously, there are a couple of things mentioned which I need to expand on such as the why I dont date, the divorce thing, Wentworth etc, but it’s late, I have more writing to do and I would like to go the gym for a quick interval session.

It’s the good life