Dating for marriage is not quite as serious as it sounds. It can still be fun! But every Christian who’s dating should be dating for marriage.
I’m a sucker for a good J.Lo film. My heart recently leapt with joy when I got on a long-haul flight and saw her latest flick appear on the selection menu – ‘Marry Me’.
In it, Jennifer Lopez plays popstar (of course) ‘Kat Valdez’ who plans to marry her rapper fiancé in front of thousands while performing their new hit single ‘marry me’. She is enlightened about her fiancé’s infidelity, moments before stepping on stage for the concert/ceremony and in a daze spots Charlie (Owen Wilson, of course) –– who is holding a ‘marry me’ sign his daughter brought along. He’s pulled up on stage and she marries him instead…
It’s about as good as that initial synopsis suggests but was just the tonic for my flight.
You’re here for some godly dating advice though, not rom-com reviews. Humour me a little longer friends.
J.Lo’s character has been unlucky in love and takes a big leap to see if it’ll pay off this time. She skips right past the dating to the ‘I do’s’ and it mainly works (of course! It’s a film).
Like Kat Valdez, many of us are looking for long lasting love and a happy marriage. I bet many of you would love to jump past the dating bit altogether too. But for us in the real world, dating is still part of the journey. So, how can you navigate dating with the intention of marriage?
TL;DR: The Summary
The modern dating world is full of ambiguity, ‘the grass is always greener’ mentality and labels that don’t always mean what they seem to.
Christians, stereotypically, enter this world with our ‘I’m looking for a spouse’ mindset and get a bit lost between seeking the end goal and the grey area of how the dating sphere can be.
Approaching a potential date with the question of marriage on the tip of your tongue might not always be the best strategy either, even amongst other single Christians.
But what else is there to do?
As a Christian looking for love, coming on a bit too strong with the legal commitments isn’t always the most romantic start to a love story.
Fear not! Here are 5 tips for dating with the intention of marriage
- Do the groundwork
- Loosen the timeline
- Share the vision, not the idol
- Spend the time
- Accept guidance
Clear, intentional and stress-free dating without the need for the large ‘marry me’ sign guaranteed.
Let’s get stuck in!
Why marriage?
So many of my friends wonder why Christians always seem to want to ‘rush’ (in worldly standards) towards a wedding date. Understandably the assumption is because of marital sex. Which can’t be entirely denied, surely.
But if we’re really seeking to date with the intention of marriage, it’s got to be for more than the ‘perks’ right?
You see, marriage is serious. Marriage is a covenant, dating is not.
When two people get married they make a covenant, to love each other and choose each other all the days of their life. This is important to God as He is in the middle of this covenant, and it reflects the covenant he has made with us through Jesus. (Read more about covenants here)
To the world, dating seems to be a way to keep personal freedom with the benefit of having the things that make them happy in their life. Once they’re comfortable with that, they’ll lock it in by getting married but there’s always the option to opt out should they feel they aren’t happy anymore.
For Christians, marriage is a choice to faithfully devote themselves to another person through love, service, and pursuit of a shared goal. Therefore, happiness is the product of a good marriage and dating is how we choose this person to partner with for life. Serious stuff!
Before you begin your dating search for ‘the one’, think about what you want. And if the covenant of marriage feels like everything your soul is longing for, hopefully these tips will help lead you in your discernment of this decision.
Dating for Marriage: Do the Groundwork
The fact is marriage isn’t going to fix the problems in your life.
When you’re looking at dating that could lead to getting married, it’s worth taking some time to reflect on how you’re doing before you begin to commit to someone else.
If you’re holding on to anger, have trauma from a past experience or feel trapped by an insecurity or addiction – having a Christian husband or wife won’t make these things instantly go away or stop further problems coming along.
I’m not suggesting that you must have it all together to start dating, or that you can never lean on your partner in moments of difficulty or uncertainty. I hope that’s clear. But so often we want someone else to make our life better when God is pointing us to Him to work on that.
This groundwork, looking in and up to God for His help will enable you to enter ‘serious’ dating with transparency, clarity and confidence. It will also make you more resilient for the challenges that inevitably come up in relationships.
As water reflects the face,
so the heart of man reflects the man.
(Proverbs 27:19)
If giving your heart to someone else for life is a high priority, checking in on your heart should be too.
Dating for Marriage: Loosen the Timeline
In an episode of the classic TV show friends, Rachel Green comes to celebrate her 30th birthday and like anyone reaching a similar milestone, she starts to evaluate her life plans.
During the party, Rachel tells her friends that she wants to have a baby by the time she turns 35. She’d like to know the guy for a year/ year and half before getting married, then she will need a year to plan the wedding and then wants to be married for a year before she gets pregnant, so she would already need to know the guy by the time she was 30… things aren’t quite on track as she hoped.
Maybe this is a familiar feeling. We can tend to enter or look at our dating life through the lens of our personal timeline. Especially when we want to get married.
The expectations
Meet and marry within two years, one year, six months for some, less even. House by 30, handful of kids by 35, jobs, promotions, holidays and more all thrown into the mix.
For many, things rarely work out this way. Often we end up single through the years we thought we’d have a spouse and this heaps disappointment onto our hearts. Maybe our timeline is completely out of an expected order already.
We can all easily fall into this trap of adding time pressures when dating with the intention of marriage because it’s so easy to. But the Holy Spirit is nudging us to see that there’s more to life than deadlines.
Yes, let’s come to God with our longings. Let’s dream and hope for the spouse we eagerly seek at a time we would love that to happen. Let’s plan the years ahead as we date, being intentional and clear about where things are going and why.
But what we want to avoid is unnecessary heartache.
Rachel Green decides to break up with her younger boyfriend during her birthday, as her evaluation of what she wants in life made her realise the relationship she was in wasn’t going where she wanted to end up.
Ask the right questions
It’s good to ask ourselves the same questions when we are already dating and feel so set on getting married.
- Is this a healthy compromise or am I just eager to march down the aisle?
- Is this true love, or the one that works for now?
We don’t want to allow these timelines to let us settle for less than God’s best.
Remember that He says:
I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
(Jeremiah 29:11)
Whatever your personal timeline and however much these seem to be on or off track , work on trusting that God’s ultimate timing is the one to look for as we date with the intention of marriage.
Dating for Marriage: Share the vision, not the idol
We spoke about the vision of marriage at the start, one of faithfulness and devotion to another person.
It’s common though to place marriage on a pedestal as a success marker. Or a reward for being a ‘good Christian.’
To date with the intention of marriage in a healthy way means being transparent about this goal without making it a god over your life or relationship.
How can you achieve this?
Firstly, discern the right time to discuss your intentions of marriage with someone you’re dating/ want to date. This, in my opinion, is a case-by-case thing, not a blanket ‘ask them on the third date’ rule.
Then, if you want to get married and the other person does too – great! Now make space to read the Bible, pray and chat about what marriage means to you so you know you’re on the same page.
Side note – If you’re early in your relationship, know that just because you both want to get married doesn’t mean you have to marry that person.
Having these conversations doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy your time together either. They can be fun and help you bond at the same time. And crucially, every date or time you hang out doesn’t have to be logistical planning either!
A Christian dating relationship where both parties share God’s vision for marriage will be more enjoyable, easy going and give it momentum. It gives dating its meaning without putting the wedding day above God himself and your relationship with Him.
Dating for Marriage: Spend the time
If you’re going to spend your life with someone, you have got to actually want to be with them.
Now dating isn’t ‘try before you buy’. But valuing time together to build your relationship and grow it is vital.
Find your feet
It’s good to allow time to find your rhythm as a couple. Discover the things you like doing together. Experience all the firsts, in the positive and negative sense, too.
Foster friendship and friends
Friendship is a strong foundation to build a marriage on. Like any relationship this needs some element of quality time. It’s down to you when this feels like enough.
It’s natural to move away from other friendships while dating, especially as it gets more serious. But ditching friends all together isn’t wise. Be good to your friends, learn the balance and bring them into this exciting part of your life (more of this in the next tip).
Find joy in waiting
I know this goes against how we all feel. But the old saying is, ‘anything worth having is worth waiting for’. As you wait (for a date, relationship, proposal etc) see that the longing for forever with your spouse is part of the joy of dating and will make marriage (if this happens) even sweeter for you. Song of songs is a whole book about eagerly longing for the love of your life. The mystery of falling in love is one not to be rushed, but to be savoured.
Dating for Marriage: Accept guidance
So Ruth told her mother-in-law about the man in whose field she had worked. She said, “The man I worked with today is named Boaz.”
“May the Lord bless him!” Naomi told her daughter-in-law. “He is showing his kindness to us (…) That man is one of our family redeemers.”
Then Ruth said, “What’s more, Boaz even told me to come back and stay with his harvesters until the entire harvest is completed.”
“Good!” Naomi exclaimed. “Do as he said, my daughter”
(Ruth 2:19-22)
Modern dating tends to be quite isolated, just about the two people involved. Family and friends are excluded.
In Ruth’s time, marriage was all about family. It was a means to life and lineage before love. I think there’s something to learn from her story here.
Ruth invites Naomi into her ‘courtship’ story before she even knows it’s really begun. By sharing her meeting with Boaz to Naomi, she receives assurance about his character, a glimpse of hope for their futures and guidance on how to go forward.
Isn’t that what we all need when approaching dating with the intention of marriage? As Biblical dating guidelines go – receiving assurance, hope and guidance from those who know and love us sounds pretty good.
Date in Community
Inviting your community (close relatives, friends, mentors/church) in on a relationship that’s aim is to move towards marriage is an often-overlooked step. This is less about family permission or approval (though for many these still help) but instead help to grow and prepare a relationship to last as counsel is sought from those not blinded by love, who can pray over you and help with the discernment too.
God’s guidance is something that should always be eager to seek as well. Allowing time and space to wait on God and listen to Him instead of powering on with things or asking all the time will bring peace to your dating life, allowing it to flourish.
Don’t hide behind closed doors or date with the intention to be self-involved.
Bring others alongside you to open opportunities for fresh perspective on your relationship. At the end of the day if you do marry that person, it’s only going to be a benefit to already integrate those most important to you!
Let’s Conclude
In your search for love, getting married can sometimes feel like a far-off dream. Making it happen isn’t about finding a FastTrack pass to the altar like jumping the queues at Disneyland.
For most of my dating life I’ve approached every new potential relationship thinking ‘could this be it?’ Not because each felt like the right person but because I just really wanted to get married. This attitude didn’t get me very far. It also made me ignore red flags (read more here).
Waiting for the search to be over or hoping the next one will be the right one steals the chance to enjoy all that dating has to offer, the romance and love that can grow..
Instead, we should prioritise preparing our hearts and minds so that when someone does come along who could be ‘marriage material’ we can be ready to confidently say yes to beginning a partnership that could last for life, for all the right reasons.
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