Continuing with the series, "How’s Your Soul?", I want to talk about dating/ marriage. Dating leads to marriage, especially if you're mature and in your mid 20s. It shouldn't be something that you're doing for fun, but to be finding your life partner. Although I have heard of 40 year old men dating around, thinking they're teenagers, and treating women any kind of way. But women shouldn't be chasing such men, but that's for another post.

Being a good partner requires having a good sense of self. It requires maturity. It requires a daily dying to self- being selfless and putting your partners needs before your own. It requires humility. It requires grace and exercising forgiveness. It requires knowing who you are (although that comes with age and time). It requires letting your yes be yes and your no be no. It requires having a strong awareness to not lead people on that you don't intend to be committed to. It requires knowing Jesus first, having Him be the center of your life so that His Spirit is awakened within you.

When Jesus is truly the center of a person's life then His fruits (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness and self-control- Galatians 5: 22-23) will be in their souls. What's in our souls will affect how we treat others. And, in how we treat our romantic partners.

God won't tell us who to date and who to marry. What we should do in the dating stage is look and see if we see the characteristics of God in the person we're dating- are they equally yoked with you in your Christian denomination, do you share the same morals and values as you, do you have chemistry with them, do they help you run your race etc? We should also make sure we have God's peace in moving from dating to marriage. If we don't see the characteristics of God in a partner or feel God's peace then we shouldn't move forward with that person in marriage.

 

Until a man or woman comes to truly know God their behavior in dating and marriage life will be unfulfilled, and their partner will be unfulfilled. I know that sounds out there, especially for those who aren't Christians. But we were created to commune with God. So when we don't have a Jesus centered life, we won't really know how to truly treat others. God doesn't want His children yoked to someone that's not truly in Him. He wants the best for His children- and that includes their romantic partners.
 

Why do we need Jesus at the center of our lives to be good partners? Because without Him at the center we will always run into our own carnality. It could be a million different things- always staying at the office too late and overworking when you should be home with your partner, being mean to your partner, causing dissension and arguments with your partner, not being faithful, being rough or even physically abusing your partner, not being self controlled in your relationship. When a person allows the Holy Spirit in daily to work on their un-Christ-like behavior they'll let go of the things that caused them to be carnal with their partner. They'll leave the office at a respectable hour, they'll show kindness to their partner, and they'll be faithful no matter how hot another person is.

When Jesus is the center of our lives and we get our soul's right, then our behavior will change in how we treat our romantic partner.

Happy Friday!