Christian Dating Tips #1: Choose to give up other choices

Why does it feel so hard to make a commitment in a relationship–especially to decide to marry someone? One primary reason is that we typically want to keep our options open. We want to stay flexible in case a better opportunity comes along.

But as marriage researcher Scott Stanley says, “commitment always means making a choice to give up other choices.” You have to make a choice regarding your ability to choose. That can sound like torture when you’ve been conditioned for so much of your life to be a good shopper–to maximize your choices and to always know the return policy before you buy something.

Making a choice for marriage means saying, “This is it–I’m going to forgo any further choices.” As scary as that might sound, it’s a good thing to do. It’s not good to stay in decision mode for a long time. When you’re buying a new phone, a car or especially a house, it’s valuable to shop around, scope out your options and do some comparative shopping, but after awhile, you know you have to just make a choice on something and move on with your life.

There’s much life ahead to enjoy one the other side of a decision. Yes, it means forgoing other choices–such as the imaginary person you expect to come around the corner as soon as you commit to the good option right in front of you. But it also means moving past the anxious task of wading through choices and finally enjoying the benefits of a choice made.

I’m turning 27 in a few months.

That’s not a particularly exciting age. There is no major rite of passage attached to it. But for me, it’s somewhat significant. It will mark 10 years of undesired singleness.

I came from a rather old-fashioned family. My parents saw no point in young girls putting on lipstick and parading around with boys pretending to be grownups.

But all that changed at 17. At long last, make-up was permissible. So was Biblical dating. And as every young girl knows, no sooner are you allowed to date than a handsome prince rides in on his white horse to carry you away to the land of marital bliss.

Let’s just say it was a rather anti-climactic year.

I’ve learned a lot about relationships over the last decade. Of these lessons, one of the most important was about facing rejection.

Men risk rejection when they choose to pursue women who may turn them down. Though women are generally exempt from this task, we deal with several types of rejection.

• Active Rejection: You get dumped.
  The guy gives it to you straight: “You are a really great girl, but I’m just loving the single life right now.”
• Passive Rejection: You get dropped.
  You have a beautiful, budding friendship. Then he disappears.
• Serial Rejection:  You get dumped/dropped in quick succession.
  Tyler from Boston, Jerry from Springfield, and Jeff from New Orleans contact you via a dating site. You respond. They don’t. Joe from Chicago exchanges private messages with you every day for a week, then stops. After a month of silence, Tim from Atlanta writes to let you know he’s dating someone else.
• Default Rejection: You exist – alone.
  You’ve tried everything. You are involved socially. You are active in ministry. You’ve signed up for a dating site or two. But still, you are single. You don’t get asked out. You don’t get contacted by site matches. Despite your best efforts to think positively, you find yourself wondering, Why doesn’t anyone want to get to know me?

Rejection hurts. And if handled incorrectly, it can lead to all kinds of less-than-mature behavior. Some women run from it by avoiding relationships, seeking solace in the more welcoming spheres of ministry and career. Others embrace rejection, feeding and nurturing it until it matures into bitterness.

We need to respond to rejection positively. Here are four tips to help overcome the hurt:

1. Know you are accepted.
   Romans 15:7 says, “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God” (NIV).

   Though we may be rejected by men, Christ has accepted us. It is imperative we understand this truth as we navigate the vulnerable field of relationships.

2. Maintain community.
   The author of Hebrews stresses the importance of community: “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:24-25 ESV).

   Rejection is easier to handle with the support of good friends. They can “encourage” you through the disappointment and “stir (you) up” to keep risking rejection as you persevere on your journey towards marriage.

3. Guard your heart.
   Paula Hendricks answered the question “How do I guard my heart?” for the True Woman blog some time ago.

   a) Guarding my heart does not mean protecting myself from being hurt. There’s no way I can insulate myself from any possibility of pain. Pain is a regular part of relationships in this broken world.

   b) Guarding my heart does mean allowing no one access to that most central place of my affections but God. It means keeping the first commandment first—and loving Him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength (Deut. 6:5).

4. Don’t give up.
   Like many things, handling rejection gets easier with practice. Getting rejected is never pleasant, but it doesn’t always equal devastation.

This article was originally published by Marry Well on July 27, 2011.

Often, those wishing to head to the altar will get the well-meant, but ultra-vague, advice that they wait until they are “financially ready.”

But what does “financially ready” mean? Is there a magic salary, debt amount or net worth number to reach?

Answer

It’s a difficult question. I’ve observed couples for years. Some started out dirt poor and had beautiful marriages. Some started with six-figure incomes and couldn’t make it. So what made the difference? From my observation and experience, it was one thing: maturity.

It wasn’t that the couples were financially ready. In truth, I don’t think that I was financially ready either when I got married or when I had my first child. Why not? I still had debt. I didn’t have much savings. I was young and hadn’t gotten my financial house in order. But what my husband and I did have was a certain amount of God-given financial maturity. We were able to be responsible with our money — no matter how much we had.

So, what are signs of financial maturity? Here are a few that have marked our path.

Question #1: Do You Tithe?

I know … ouch. According to the studies, most of you reading this don’t tithe. Some of you may take issue with the mere idea of a “ten percent” requirement. I used to.

So, let me put it this way — Do you give to support God’s kingdom? For me, this was the most important step towards financial maturity. Honestly, the rest of my financial life (and spiritual life, really) did not come into line until I got this one thing: God first, not Heather first.

It’s not that God needs my money. But God knows that giving keeps my priorities straight. “[Tithing] is to teach us how to keep God first in our lives and how to be unselfish people,” Dave Ramsey writes in The Money Answer Book. “Unselfish people make better husbands [and] wives…. God is trying to teach us how to prosper over time.”

The bottom line is that giving to God first, before meeting my needs and wants, teaches me that it’s not about me and that it’s God, not me, who takes care of my needs. That’s a great place to start a marriage.

Question #2: Do you spend more than you make?

A recent study showed that debt brought into marriage was the number one problem area for newlyweds. Will it be yours?

Do you have a running balance on your credit cards? If the answer is “Yes,” let’s be honest, that’s a sign of financial immaturity. You have not shown the discipline to say, “I can’t afford this. I’ll do without it.”

Even the “but I’m in college” excuse is no justification. Remember that you have choices. You can go to a less expensive school or take a break for a semester to work. You can do lots of things before resorting to credit cards.

Does that mean you shouldn’t marry until you’re out of credit card debt? Not necessarily. Maybe you went a little “swipe crazy” your freshman year in college. You fell for that “free pizza” credit card offer and kept the VISA pizzas coming. But you’re now delivering pizzas to conquer your debt. Excellent!

But I do think that you shouldn’t marry until you stop getting into more credit card debt (this includes the temptation to finance your wedding with it). Are you still piling up the debt? Then, stop, get a good Christian resource and get a hold on the problem.

You also need to take an unbiased look at your “intended” and his or her spending habits. As Michelle Singletary writes in her book Your Money and Your Man, “I didn’t grade the men I dated based on their looks. Income wasn’t high on my list, either. Instead I watched how they dealt with all things financial. How my future spouse handled his money was too important to ignore.”

As Christians, of course, we have other criteria to use for a potential mate besides just how he or she handles money. But, Singletary’s right. How he or she spends is too important to ignore.

Question #3: Do you have a plan?

Wherever you are financially, I think it’s important to have a plan. Not a budget, a plan.

Let me preface by saying that God is in control. I have had several financial (and other) plans in my life where God intervened and said, “Yeah, nice planning, but … no.” And hallelujah that He did! But I do think that God honors our attempts to get our financial lives straight.

So, take a piece of paper. Left side: Assets (anything you own). Right side: Debts (anything you owe). Now take a long, hard look. Many of us, at this stage in our lives, are right-side heavy.

Here’s the question: what are you going to do about it? Think about your life in stages. One year from now, how do you want that list to look? What debts do you want to have paid off? What are you doing to make that happen? Now, five years out. Now, ten.

What about your ability to earn income? Do you have a job? If not, that doesn’t disqualify you from marriage. Neither my husband nor I had a job when we got engaged. But, we were pursuing employment and had an idea of the fields we wanted to enter.

Still in school but want to marry? Many before you have done it. What will you do to make it happen?

“If you aim at nothing,” Zig Ziglar said, “you will hit it every time.” So make a plan. Then, as you consider marriage, share your plans with each other.

Question #4: Do you have realistic expectations?

What are your expectations for your financial future? Do you count down the days until you fill your dream home with dream furniture? Can’t wait for your boat, motorcycle and sound system? I, too, fell into the temptation to live now like my parents did after decades of marriage. It helped to get perspective.

Do yourself a favor. Take the field trip recommended by Randy Alcorn, author of The Law of Rewards:

“Gather your family and go visit a junkyard or a dump. Look at all the piles of ‘treasures’ that were formerly Christmas and birthday presents. Point out things that people worked long hours to buy and paid hundreds of dollars for, that … marriages broke up over. Look at the remnants of gadgets and furnishings that now lie useless after their brief life span. Remind yourself that most of what you own will one day end up in a junkyard like this. And even if it survives on earth for a while, you won’t.
When you examine the junkyard, ask yourself this question, ‘When all that I ever owned lies abandoned, broken, useless and forgotten, what will I have done with my life that will last for eternity?”

Question #5: Have you talked?

Then there’s communication. If you’re in a relationship, have you talked? I mean really talked, about how you will use money in your lives? Kevin and I had (and have) the best financial talks when we took walks together. Something about moving in the same direction made it easier to talk about moving our financial lives in the same direction.

Need some ideas on what to talk about? Take a look at “For Richer, For Poorer,” then. I especially like the idea of printing off your credit reports and exchanging them. Not to criticize, but to open the discussion: What am I proud of? What do I feel needs fixing? Where would I like to see “our” credit report in 1, 5 or 10 years?

Financial author Mary Hunt puts it very well: “When you were single, you dealt with one set of values, beliefs, and life views: yours…. You did what you wanted, the way you wanted and when you wanted. Your money situation, whether pathetic or prosperous, was your secret. But now you’re part of a team…. Everything — the assets and liabilities, the good and the bad — it’s all “ours” now.”

Stepping toward marriage is not about obtaining a certain number or checking off some financial list. But it is about maturing. If you lack it, ask God.

All of “yours” is going to become “ours.” What kind of “yours” do you have to give?