Navigating the Single and Dating Life

There is a mutual friend of mine that is now in a relationship. She is so in love with a guy from church and they have already had conversations about marriage and a future. A few weeks into the relationship he already wanted to speak to an apostle in the church about the seriousness of the relationship.

Personally, I love love, I mean who doesn’t? The feeling of being in love and being loved is amazing. Often as Christian when we date we don’t “fluff” around, we are serious, we want commitment, the end goal is marriage. Even the church encourages marriage so not everyone is embracing the single life. But, many times we don’t enjoy the dating space and the nostalgia that comes with it because we are rushed to the finish line.  Dating for Christians is not even a conversation we want to have, marriage we speak about, but often we never have conversation around navigating the single life, going on dates, or getting to know people without the label of marriage hanging on our heads. 

Marriage is beautiful and God completely loves marriage, but we should not be entering into marriages because we are unable to master the flesh (which is one of the reasons the Apostle Paul gives to get married in 1 Corinthians 7:9). Marriage is something to be entered into when we are healed and whole.  You go on YouTube and almost every Christian Youtuber is speaking about a Kingdom spouse- about your Boaz coming- but no one I know on social media is talking about the joy of the single life and Christian dating.

But alas, dating and the single life is here to give you the time and opportunity to learn, grow and mature on your spiritual journey. This is where you learn that Jesus needs to be Lord over the body, you learn the hard way the dangers of sins like fornication and sexual immorality, learning self-discipline which is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, and just all-round having time with the Lord and finding purpose. 

The dating space now is filled with men of God who want their girlfriends to submit, and it’s filled with women of God wanting boyfriends to be providers.  We want our partners to do things within the dating relationship that is not within the scope of this relationship level because God is our provider. Only wives are called to submit to their husbands and not girlfriends. I believe there is a lot of confusion because the Bible only speaks about the single life and marriage, but there is no biblical frame of reference for dating.

Is dating even allowed, did Rachel and Jacob date in the years that Jacob was serving his father-in-law? I don’t know but what I do know is that navigating dating without a clear blueprint or a list of dos and don’ts can be tricky. We need to keep in mind as we are navigating the dating scene that the Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 10:31 “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” and so as Christians, we need to remember that we need to glorify God even in our singleness or our dating life, and if you are dating, single or married, God needs to be glorified.  And so, we date with that as our point of reference and our foundation, with the Holy Spirit leading and guiding us, giving us discernment and wisdom.

Besides sexual immorality, there are no clear do’s and don’ts from the Bible to reference as it pertains to dating. Quite simply as Christians, we should allow the Holy Spirit to lead us and our focus should always be on God.