The Destination of Dating
A Long and Winding Road
Dating can sometimes really… stink.
Rejection, the “talking” phase, social media, PDA, bad breakups, sexual sin, “being content in singleness,” the so-called “friend zone.” All of these things impacted my perception of dating, and I’m sure they have yours as well. When I was single, I really struggled with the constant cultural pressures surrounding dating. And if you’ve ever had the desire to date or have dated someone yourself, you know just how difficult it can be. There’s no way around it—dating can stink. We also know, however, that dating can also be such a fun time of life. Ultimately, we can have some really high highs, and some really low lows. But if we’re honest with ourselves, we know that this isn’t just a societal problem—this is a me and you problem. Many of us have contributed to the low points of how hard dating can be. So many of us have poor perceptions of what dating should look like, and in turn we’ve treated others differently than we know we should.
We’ve all contributed to this mess of a dating culture. Many of us have experienced breakups. Hard ones, too. Or, maybe the first person you started dating you’re still dating… and yet there’s no sign of engagement or marriage coming anytime soon. You’re in what I like to call “passionate purgatory.” You “love” each other (or so you think you do), and yet you’re both just fine without all the baggage of the marital commitment. You tell yourself—or even each other—that true love doesn’t need a ring to seal it (which is pretty ironic if you think about it).
Step into an analogy with me. Imagine you’re on a long drive. Let’s say you’re driving down “Relationship Road.” Let’s amp it up even—let’s say you’re in a convertible sports car. Bright red, even. Along the way, you stop and pick up someone (someone you see as attractive, obviously). You two hit it off immediately. You share memories on a cool summer day as you drive down the long and winding road. The wind is blowing through your hair, and the rev of the engine is like the spark of a newfound friendship. Sounds great, doesn’t it?
A few problems emerge, though. You don’t have a map, and you don’t know where you’re going. Not to mention, the car may look really great on the outside, but the engine is on its last leg. Along your drive, because you haven’t particularly been driving toward any destination, you unknowingly end up on the wrong side of town. Even worse, your car breaks down. Oh, and your passenger? They got annoyed with your ignorance and decided to take a hitch-hike, leaving you in the aftermath—scarred and hurt.
This is how many of us approach dating in our modern culture. Without a good destination, we’re just taking a stroll down a long and winding road inevitably leading us to our own despair. Of course, there will be those who get “lucky” and end up making it to a beach or mountain—but not unscathed. For the most part, our issue is we don’t have a destination at all.
Step back into the analogy with me. This time, let’s imagine you know where you’re going (a beautiful beach resort, for example), your car is operating in alright conditions, and you know how you’re going to get there. Let’s even say that your passenger this time is even more committed to this ride than previously, despite any issues that may pop up. This time, you end up making it to the resort. Only, you get inside to find out that it’s roach-infested, there’s an outbreak in the kitchen, and all of this has put tremendous stress on your relationship with your passenger, despite any commitment that was made. And don’t get me started on all the trouble you have waiting on you when you leave the resort to go back home.
You see where I’m going, don’t you? Everything changed for the better this time, except the destination you chose was the wrong one. It was a good one, don’t get me wrong. But when put under the stress of extenuating circumstances, it was not enough to uphold you. This is actually what happens when we make marriage the end goal of dating. This is typically where Christians operate. We know that marriage is important—it’s God-instituted after all! (Eph. 5, Gen. 1-2) Only, when we make marriage the telos (or end goal) of our dating relationships, we put too much pressure on having the “ideal,” and what we end up getting will never satisfy us.
We need a different destination.
A Different Destination
These illustrations show us the way our modern culture, both secular and sacred, approaches dating. Culture tells us we don’t need any serious goal for dating. You can date forever with no end goal of marriage in sight.
For Christians, however, marriage tends to be the destination of dating. After all, quips like “date to marry” are rightly repeated often in our Christian subculture. We often let our end goal—our telos—be marriage. We press on (Hos. 6:3) to that end. Then, and only then, we know we’ll actually be somebody.
This is where I lived most of my Christian life. I’ll be honest, growing up, I experienced rejection what felt like quite a bit. In response, my coup de grâce had become marriage. I thought that marriage would satisfy me. This, I thought, would be the end of my struggle with insecurities and rejection. If you look at the ministry of the Apostle Paul, his “if only” was to get the gospel to the ends of the earth (Acts 20:24). My “if only” had become marriage.
Although certainly grounded in a good desire, I think the problem with this view, however, is that it ends up fostering an idolatry of marriage altogether, leaving you disappointed when it doesn’t meet the expectation you have in your head. Not to mention, it puts tremendous pressure on your spouse to live up to some image you’ve built in your head. In the end, marriage cannot satisfy this desire. Anyone who’s married and who’s honest will tell you that. It cannot quench your thirst. The woman at the well thought it could. It’s why she had 5 husbands, and another one on the way (Jn. 4:13-14). But what Jesus exposes to her is that she needed a greater Well of Water than even marriage—one that she could drink from that would never make her thirsty again.
In actuality, though, I’m going to argue throughout a series of dating-themed blogs that marriage cannot be the end goal, the destination of dating. Instead, as believers in the Lord Jesus, the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ must be the destination of dating. And if that truly becomes our destination, then all other questions surrounding how to date, who to date, what dating even looks like in our modern culture — all of those become strangely dim in the light of that glory..
In Romans 8, we get one of the greatest passages in Christian Scripture. As JI Packer notes, “…as the book of Romans is the high peak of the Bible, so chapter 8 is the high peak of Romans.” And it’s in that chapter that we get these words penned by the Apostle Paul:
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
Let me give you a paraphrase of what I believe Paul’s saying here:
If you’ve been saved through Christ’s death and resurrection and you’ve been given the Spirit so that you now love God, you don’t have to fear anything that comes your way. God has been working everything since before time began—even and especially your salvation—for a good purpose. And that good purpose is this: That you look and live like Jesus.
God is working everything so that we could look more like His Son, Jesus. This is the means of God’s larger purposes, that He gets what He rightly deserves—the earth filled with God-worshippers. From the very beginning, God’s goal in creation has been to fill the earth “with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea,” (Hab. 2:14).
If that’s true, if everything in your life is meant for the purpose of making you and I look more like Jesus so that God gets the glory and praise, then that “everything” includes dating. This is the purpose of dating, and it’s what theologians call a means of “sanctification.” As Paul writes elsewhere, “we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another,” (2 Cor. 3:18). Every one of us are slowly being transformed back into God’s original design, we’re being sanctified. God uses all kinds of means to accomplish this, and I believe that dating is one of them. He wants to use even dating to make us look more and more like His Son—back into that original imago dei (Image of God) that Adam had in the garden. It’s not the only way, and not everyone will experience dating as the means of sanctification (1 Cor. 7) but it’s certainly one way that God can use to make that happen in you.
You might say… “Wait, Chandler, you haven’t convinced me that marriage shouldn’t be the end goal of dating. Can’t you still be sanctified if that’s the end goal?” Well, don’t get me wrong, marriage and glorifying God often do go hand in hand. And the opposite is usually true, too. When a relationship doesn’t result in marriage, it’s often a relationship that hasn’t glorified God well. But we must acknowledge that correlation does not equal causation in this scenario. Many relationships that aren’t glorifying to God at all do still end in marriage. Statistically, most people will experience this. And it’s also statistically accurate to say those same people won’t stay married.
Moreover, it’s also possible for you to honor and glorify God in a relationship and that relationship not end in marriage. That can happen! And if I’m right that it can, then marriage cannot be our end goal of dating. Instead, glorifying God must be our end goal of dating—no matter the relational outcome. Maybe this means you’ll break up with a long-time partner so that you’ll glorify God and leave behind ongoing sin. Or, maybe it means you’ll shift what a prospective spouse looks like to you entirely. No matter the cost, the glory of God must be the end goal of our dating relationships, meaning we’ll do whatever it takes to love and honor Jesus more!
A Different Direction
Naturally, if our destination changes, then our direction and the route we take must also change. So also, as our destination changes to be the glory of God, then the way and the who we date must change. Here’s what I mean: In all honesty, dating is not a biblical reality. I hate it when people use the term “social construct,” but “dating relationships” are a relatively new reality. After all, biblical authors operated in a culture of arranged marriages. Don’t eyeroll yet… I’m not going to advocate for arranged marriages (although I’m sure some of us may request it). But I do think that because dating is unique to our modern culture, we must live in a tension between our modern context and the biblical reality.
My goal, then, is to give you a vision for how we can contextualize the gospel message in our modern culture and specifically apply it to dating relationships. Over the next several months, the blogs that I write here will be addressing these very topics, because I’m of the opinion that as our culture’s views on relationships are constantly in flux, so our dialogue about dating must be constant. I plan on addressing the following topics:
The Design for Dating (Creation)
Flat Tires and Deep Potholes (Sin)
The Engine and Fuel for Dating (The Gospel)
Before You Date, Check Your Gauges (Sanctification, Part 1)
In Dating, Get Serviced (Sanctification, Part 2)
The Right Direction (Restoration)
If you notice, these blogs will take a redemptive-arc, and the reason is because my goal is not just to get you to be a better dating partner or even spouse. My goal is to help you look more like Jesus, because that’s what we’re chasing after! Over the next few months, for any blog I write, I will come back here and link it above so you can have a table of contents for how we should pursue our dating relationships in a gospel-centered, God-glorifying way.
In One Direction
As we seek to go on this journey, let me begin with a hesitation. I hesitate to write these blogs because I do not see myself as qualified in the area of relational expertise; I am not a perfect husband to Madelyn, nor did I date perfectly. Several applications I will recommend I did not follow perfectly myself. However, I do wish that you would have been a fly on the wall for some of the conversations Madelyn and I had during the time we dated. To the best of our ability, we attempted to not let cultural norms define how we pursued Christ. I’m certain that we got it wrong, that many things we did were overly impacted by the world around us and the desire for influence and approval. But I’m also certain that if we had gotten it right—if we had kept our eyes fixed on the right destination—we would have experienced the fullness of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ while dating. And I’m confident that if you set this as your goal, you will experience that fullness as well. So, lean in. We’re going on a journey together, to pursue that destination. My prayer is that all of us—“content in your singleness,” dating, engaged, or married—would keep our eyes fixed on the end goal of the glory of God revealed in Jesus Christ.
