Sunday, June 15, 2008

What God wants in a relationship

Last night, I tagged along with Richard and Jeff to their weekly youth fellowship session. The topic was "boy/girl relationships" and what God wants in a relationship. It was a fairly insightful and interesting discussion but I can't say that I agree with it completely. I found that it was hard to relate where most people discussing it were devout Christians. It was hard to relate when all their actions are grounded upon a common understanding - that they do these things for God and that they do these things so that they would be a good Christian. If you don't really believe in God - then what do you do these things for?

The pastor started off by saying that in the bible, there is only 3 relationships
(1) platonic
(2) working toward marriage
(3) marriage

It was preached that people shouldn't test the waters as you could hurt those around you. Rather be sure of what you want and then while dating, you will be working towards marriage and intend to marry in the future. While theoretically very beautiful, I just don't think in this century that this is actually feasible. How can you work toward marriage if you don't even know whether that person is of marriageable material? Sure, you may have thought that the person has possessed all the marriageable qualities that you may want in a husband/wife but unless you date, you have no idea about whether you're compatible. Even if you have dated...people are always subject to change and thats why its virtually impossible to not test the waters.

One other thing said which really made me reflect was the fact that we should be careful who we enter into a relationship with for fear of making a detrimental mark in their relationship path which may carry into their next relationship---> Dominoes effect. This is very true as I can no doubt say that I have pushed people away in fear of the same thing which happened in past relationships. Should I blame that person? Well...I probably did the same thing with them. Thats why maybe we should all be content with singleness until we're sure that we've found the person and prepared to do everything to avoid making a mark in their relationship path.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Yo shouldn't you be studying instead of writing blogs!! lol

but u could say the same for me, considering i have a massive first one 2moro arvo!!

Yea i agree he didn't talk too much about how you're supposed to know if the person is compatible with you or not!

However I have heard and read other points of view, and my addition is that the main goal is not to run away screaming from ppl if you're not ready to get married, but rather "just be friends" ie platonic rlationship styles UNTIL ur ready to get married.

By doing this we get into the mindset of ONLY looking for a longterm relationship that will work out, ie end up in marriage.

However, not all of these "working towards marriage" things may work out, but you'll definitely minimise the amount of hurting ppl and as you said, "making a mark on other ppls relationship paths".

Unknown said...

also..Ushers new album is not too bad!
did you kno he's MARRIED?

if i was black, and a girl id be devastated

Anonymous said...

i didn't know u had a blog. haha, why dun u give us some "insight" since ur so "pro" *cough cough* i was gonna say exactly the same thing as richard. somebody has way too much time on their hands. yes, it's hard to understand what the speaker said if ur a gweilo. but it will make sense in time...trust me. i'll give u some credit for going :) btw, too much muffins and krispy kremes are gonna make u fat

Anonymous said...

u made me sign up just to post on ur blog. u shld have left open the option so anybody can post. boo...

audrey said...

Hey Jen!

here's my 2 cents worth:

When i was 20 i thought that dating to marry was incredibly stupid! Life is too short and too much fun to be so serious. I think its great to have different bfrens, i had a few dodgy ones too, so you appreciate the one that you end up marrying.

At my age, if a guy won't marry me after 2-3 yrs together, there's something wrong with him (or the relationship) and I wouldn't hesitate to give him the flick.

Wouldn't you?

I still think that sometimes pastors tend to be on the old fashioned side. But its up to each of us to pick out useful advice for ourselves : )

You won't grow old and wrinkled, you'll be cute and little haha